If it took only 11 years for Tesla to reach a trillion market value, it would be better to say that Tesla’s market value myth was actually created in the last two years. After the U.S. stock market on October 25, Tesla ushered in a new historical moment: Tesla’s market value exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, becoming the sixth company to create a trillion-dollar market value in U.S. history after Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.
In fact, Tesla achieved its first annual profit since it landed on NASDAQ in 2010 last year.
In 2020, Tesla’s stock rose by 743%, becoming the world’s largest automotive company by market value.
With the performance in 2020, Elon Musk became the world’s richest man for the first time in early 2021.
All this started with Tesla’s delivery of the first car at the Shanghai Gigafactory.
Since Tesla was born and listed, Tesla has not been smooth in the capital market and even had the idea of delisting.
In 2018, Tesla launched a cherry red Tesla Roadster into space on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. This seemingly crazy move did not bring any substantive impetus to Tesla’s performance.
Currently over Australia 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/HAya3E6OEJ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2018
Because China liberalized the restrictions on the proportion of foreign shares in new energy vehicles, Tesla encountered a turnaround in building a plant in China, which is really a memorable moment for Tesla this year. In July 2018, Elon Musk went to Shanghai to sign a contract, and Tesla became the first wholly foreign-owned automobile enterprise to build a factory in China.
Before that, Tesla not only made no progress in building factories in China, but also resigned executives, laid-off employees, limited production capacity, and was affected by the Sino US trade war in the Chinese market. Due to the sharp rise in prices and large-scale cancellation due to the rise of tariffs, Tesla was treading on thin ice.
In 2018, Elon Musk once considered selling Tesla at the price of $420 per share. According to this price, Tesla’s market value at that time was only $72 billion. In the following 2019, Tesla’s market value is basically at a standstill, still at the level of $70 billion.
Moreover, Tesla has been at a loss until 2019. Although standing at the node at that time, Tesla’s market value growth rate was amazing enough, the dilemma of high market value and high loss made Tesla unable to get rid of doubt after all.
Until Tesla opened the door to the China market.
How Tesla be the world’s largest automaker?
The world largest automaker by market value
Next, Tesla ushered in the most important historic moment in June 2020. Tesla’s market value reached US $185.67 billion, surpassing Toyota in total market value and becoming the world’s highest car enterprise in market value.
This time, Tesla’s market value exceeded US $trillion, which has exceeded the sum of 11 auto companies, including GM, Ford, Toyota, Ferrari, BMW, Honda, Daimler, Hyundai, Mazda, Subaru and Volkswagen.
Tesla soared by China’s market and system dividend
Less than two years from the end of 2019, Tesla’s market value has increased by more than 14 times. From June 2020 to today, Tesla’s market value has soared by more than 5 times in less than a year and a half. Tesla is completed with the rapid take-off of the Chinese market.
Tesla has not only further established its dominant position in China’s new energy vehicle market, but also really eliminated the doubt of the mismatch between market value and profit in the global capital market, which further confirms what some media said: Tesla has enjoyed the openness and fairness of the Chinese market, and fully absorbed the policy dividend of China’s deepening and expanding opening to the outside world and the institutional dividend of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.
We don’t want to talk about whether a certain political system is superior, but the fact is that it is very difficult to achieve this goal in any country other than China.
Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai
We have to mention the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory.
In Tesla’s Q3 financial report, it was also mentioned that the Shanghai Gigafactory has surpassed Tesla’s Fremont factory in the United States, becoming the largest contributor to Tesla’s new car production in the third quarter. At the same time, Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai has also become Tesla’s main export center.
On the other hand, Tesla’s Chinese market performed strongly. In the third quarter, Tesla’s car sales in the Chinese market increased by 44% month on month. In the past September, Tesla’s sales in China also created a new historical record: more than 50000 vehicles.
Behind this is Made in China and the Chinese market, which play a key role.
In China, Tesla has obtained the lithium iron phosphate battery with lower cost and the strongest new energy vehicle supply chain system in the world, which are the supply chain advantages that Tesla is difficult to obtain when building factories at low cost in other labor-intensive countries. At the same time, the cost advantage and production efficiency brought by the Shanghai factory have accelerated China to become its largest sales market, giving full play to Tesla’s market strategy of reducing costs and selling prices.
Therefore, to a large extent, in the field of new energy vehicles, China exceeds any country in the world in terms of industrial chain and market scale. Only China can develop Tesla.
Tesla China’s localization– R&D Center and Data Center in China
Tesla Shanghai Research and Development Center and Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory Data Center are officially landed. We will let it roll recently.💪 pic.twitter.com/CpV7arsvjo
— Tesla Greater China (@teslacn) October 25, 2021
On October 25, Tesla officially released the latest news on its development in China: Tesla’s first overseas R&D center outside the United States – Shanghai R&D Innovation Center and Shanghai Gigafactory data center have been completed and will be put into use in the near future.
Tesla’s data center in China means that the data generated by its sales in the Chinese mainland market will be stored in the territory. The reason behind this is that on May 12 this year, the state Cyberspace Administration of China issued Several Provisions on Automobile Data Security Management (Draft for comments). The regulations clearly point out that personal information or important data shall be stored in China according to law. If it is really necessary to provide it abroad, it shall pass the data exit security assessment organized by the national network information department.
No matter how maverick in the technical route and marketing concept, Tesla still knows what the bottom line of development in China is.
Recently, musk talked about the Chinese market, which was the video debut of the opening ceremony of the 2021 World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen in September. He mentioned that “Tesla will continue to expand investment and R&D efforts in China. Tesla hopes to contribute to building a digitized future of shared benefits, responsibilities, and governance.”
The implementation of data storage localization and localization R&D is the practice of Musk’s above remarks. Musk also gradually understood that only by respecting China can we get rid of the possible development risks in the future.
Increasing the localization layout of R&D, as Zhu Xiaotong, President of Tesla Greater China, said, will promote the localization process of Tesla China.
Previously, Tesla’s rapid development in China was also based on the stage of insufficient competition and relatively blank market. There were few competitors and obvious first-mover advantage. Recently, multinational car companies and joint venture car companies including Daimler, Hyundai, and FAW-Volkswagen have successively arranged localized R&D in China and put important innovative R&D such as electrification, digitization, and intelligence in China. Multinational car companies have flocked to China, and the importance of China is self-evident.
So for Tesla, betting on China is the most correct choice. In the Chinese market, it needs to do more right things, including taking practical measures to reduce the doubts of some owners and the public about Tesla vehicle quality and safety, after-sales service level, and data security.
