Not only the high cobalt price, Tesla's history of trouble, whose tomorrow?

Even today for Tesla's negative reports, for China's car companies, whether product launch or news reports, always have intention to not intentional of Tesla as the benchmark measure of their products, like, Tesla has a "value" as the market, become a "world currency" in the field of automobile.

On May 10, according to the national enterprise credit information publicity system, Tesla invested in Shanghai to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary -- Tesla (Shanghai) co., LTD., with a registered capital of 100 million yuan, and the shareholder is TESLAMOTORSHKLIMITED (Tesla motors Hong Kong co., LTD.). The idea of Tesla building a factory in China has a long history.

Data shows that China has become an important market for Tesla. The company's sales revenue in China reached $1 billion in 2016, but grew to $2 billion in 2017, second only to the U.S. market in terms of revenue volume. On May 2, Tesla reported first-quarter earnings, during which the company reported revenue of 34 percent. $100 million, up from $2.7 billion a year earlier and up more than 26 percent from a year earlier. For Tesla, which has been around for a while and is rumored to be closing, the Chinese market seems to be its only lifeline.

As the Iphone of the automobile industry, Tesla has written its unique history of innovation in various aspects, subverting people's understanding of cars. From Roadster to ModelS, the generation of automobile giants has been singing all the way, but why has it been in trouble in recent years?

April is iron man musk's nightmare month, and in just two weeks,

- the NTSB began investigating the fatal crash of a mountain view highway ModelX.

-Model3 was slow to climb the productive hell.

- moody's downgraded Tesla's credit rating.

- a fund manager shouts that Tesla is going bankrupt.

- voluntary recall 12. ModelS.

- a cliff-edge plunge in stock prices.

A flurry of negative headlines has fueled rumors that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy, with even Tesla founder musk tweeting on April fool's day that the company is "completely, completely bankrupt."

Sufficient cash flow is a strong guarantee for the development of enterprises

At the time, Tesla's cash flow was so shaky that some industry analysts estimated it could not last more than a few months. Tesla, which has many "iron man" fans and investors, is not as financially optimistic as the market expected.

Although Tesla's loss is the norm, continuous loss leads to frequent cash flow exhaustion of the company. According to the financial report released by Tesla, Tesla has a net loss of 22 percent in the entire 2017 fiscal year. $400 million, of which $19 is attributable to shareholders. 6.1 billion dollars. Tesla shares briefly fell below $250 in early April and last closed at $304. $7. For Tesla, which invests in research and development regardless of cost, it is undoubtedly a disaster that it does not have enough cash flow to keep the product cycle of the enterprise smooth, coupled with the increase of equipment investment caused by the increase of Model3 capacity.

Tesla reported a net cash flow outflow of 9 percent from its Q4 investment activities in 2017. 6.1 billion dollars. For the year as a whole, the figure was 44. At $200 million, net outflows were more than $3 billion higher than in 2016. Some financial analysts in the industry believe that Tesla will have to refinance or increase its debt this year if it continues to carry out business activities at the same investment volume as in previous years. $4 billion in external financing saved Tesla in 2017, but will "iron man" still be favored by "god" in 2018 when electric cars are surging?

Product production capacity is insufficient, sales funds flow is difficult

If the lack of cash flow is only a financial problem, then Tesla's lack of capacity has become the crisis point of the whole company.

Production of the Model3 has been slow to take off because of musk's obsession with automation. According to relevant data shows, on April 10, an analyst at Goldman sachs issued a negative about Tesla research report, the report showed that Tesla Model3 released horizontal may not able to achieve its target capacity, he points out: "Model3 cars in the second quarter of this year's continuous production is highly likely to be lower than 2000 cars, although the company in the first quarter of this year at the end of this within a week to achieve the goal of Model3 production more than 2000 vehicles. "" we think Tesla will probably keep the Model3 production at around 1,400 vehicles per week.

The 1,400 weekly production estimate is a bit far from Tesla's commitment in its earnings report to increase Model3 production to about 5,000 a week in about two months.

The insufficient production capacity of the main product directly leads to the blocked collection of sales funds. In fact, in a sense, the shortage of Tesla cash flow caused by the insufficient production capacity is interactive. With Tesla consuming an average of $6,500 per minute, according to bloomberg calculations, Tesla's money could run out by the end of 2018. Tesla will run out of money by the end of the year unless there is a significant increase in vehicle production or a significant new infusion of capital.

As for the sales volume, Tesla never worries about it. According to relevant data, the number of orders for Model3 has exceeded 450,000. But there is a big question mark over whether existing capacity will be able to keep up with booming orders.

China's last straw?

On May 10, Tesla (Shanghai) co., ltd. was officially granted a business license. As the world's largest automobile consumer, China market accounts for 20% of Tesla's global sales.

According to the official website of the national enterprise credit information publicity system, the construction of the tesla plant does not involve the development, manufacturing and sales of cars, but only involves research and experimental development. Back in February last year, media reported that Tesla would build a production base with an annual output of 500,000 vehicles in lingang, Shanghai in a joint venture with the Chinese side. However, both Tesla and lingang later issued announcements to clarify this rumor is not true.

While musk has frequently expressed his desire to set up a superfactory in China, little concrete progress has been made. However, there are various speculations about the follow-up development of Tesla in the market.

Li yanwei, a member of the expert committee of the China association of automobile dealers, said the super engineering idea revealed by Tesla should have some connection with the plant. "Most of the electric car parts companies are concentrated in the Yangtze river delta region," he said. Apart from Shanghai, which is around nanjing, of course Shanghai is the most likely.

An auto analyst of a securities firm in Shanghai also said, "the tesla established in Shanghai is not a production company in terms of registered nature, but I think future production in China is still very attractive for Tesla, which can drive the increase of sales volume and the decrease of cost."

The future of high-cobalt conversion to new technologies remains uncertain

May 7 (bloomberg) -- elon musk said Thursday that Tesla cars will become less reliant on cobalt during a revenue discussion with analysts, according to an article in the SMM's "" high cobalt prices precipitate a wave of market pessimism and panic." " The company has cut the share of cobalt, a very expensive metal, in its batteries. "We think it's still very difficult to get cobalt," Mr Musk said.

The explosive growth of cobalt prices, which have nearly tripled in two years, is not good news for the automotive industry, the downstream user of cobalt. Although Tesla has been using batteries with fewer cobalt versions, it still consumes about 4 parts per car. 5kg of cobalt. Other industries are also moving towards batteries that use less cobalt. Not only that, but the company predicts that within the next decade there is little chance that cobalt-containing batteries will be completely replaced by other technologies.

It is reported that Tesla recently released the strategy of "nickel for cobalt reduction", and at the same time, it has invested heavily in the development and use of high nickel ternary. Panasonic of Japan provides Tesla with lithium ion battery, which is one of several companies in the world that have mastered the production technology of high nickel ternary. It adopts lithium nickel aluminate (NCA), with a ratio of 8:1. 5-0. 5. But the market still has reservations about an alternative to cobalt-containing battery technology, which could be a headache for iron man in the face of high material costs and technological changes that won't happen overnight.

Tesla's history is a mirror image of the former "" cars" "of Chinese auto companies

Since new energy vehicles subsidies TuiPo, seems to be for the domestic car companies, not just as simple discover who's been swimming naked, after the ebb tide, many car companies directly run aground on the beach, seems to have no chance to even continue to swim, there are many car companies successfully entering the huge blowout market in the sea, and there was no escape hidden reefs in the sea.

Today's new energy automobile market, is already showing a "warring states" era, the traditional car companies or merged with new energy automobile manufacturer, or do their transformation of electric field, are attracted to big market at the same time, a lot of new electric manufacturers also emergence, what is more, foreign forces of building cars, especially in headlines Tesla.

The news that Tesla set up a factory in Shanghai, for the domestic auto companies, seems not as happy as consumers come, is "catfish" -- to stimulate domestic auto competition, to the future of domestic auto manufacturers to cultivate electric car talent of the new era; Or is it "invasive biology" - the complete destruction of a struggling domestic manufacturer's way of building cars? Only time will tell.

While foreign auto companies continue to infiltrate the domestic market, domestic auto companies are also in the process of reshuffle and acquisition, and even some enterprises outside the auto industry have also piled into the wind mouth.

On May 15, 2018, changyuan group disclosed the "indicative announcement on receiving the summary of gree group's offer and purchase report". According to the announcement, gree group intends to acquire 20% of its shares through partial offer at an offer price of 19. 8 yuan/share, compared with changyuan group before the suspension price premium of 14. At 06%, the total amount of capital required for the acquisition is about 52. 5% at the offer price. 4.6 billion yuan.

This is another charge in the field of new energy vehicles launched by gree more than a year ago after its acquisition of zhuhai yinlong was blocked. According to the data, changyuan group, which is to be acquired by gree group, was established by the Chinese academy of sciences in 1986. Since changyuan group's main business includes materials related to electric vehicles and other functional materials, this acquisition once again aroused the speculation of "gree makes cars" in the industry.

For dong mingzhu's new energy car layout, there are a variety of suspicions in the market, especially combined with gree electric appliances suddenly do not share out bonus, or market people think that the two may have a certain link.

Compared with "miss dong" in the layout of the road to build a car, recently, the jingwei share acquisition of Jiangsu kawei proposal is not so good luck, it is reported that the reason for the failure of the acquisition is "in the performance commitment, after repeated communication and consultation, the two sides did not reach an agreement".

In recent years, the ambition of jingwei shares for crossover vehicle manufacturing is very obvious. According to China automotive news, in 2017, jingwei shares first planned to invest more than 8 billion yuan to build a new energy automobile plant in Germany. Later, it planned to invest 5. 400 million yuan, set up a joint venture with other companies "ningbo jingwei power battery co., LTD." to produce lithium titanate battery, and then announced that it will cooperate with other companies to invest in the construction of a clean energy vehicle production base with an annual output of 300,000 vehicles in fenghua district of ningbo city, with a total investment of about 17 billion yuan. In the absence of great progress in the projects in Germany and ningbo, jingwei stock announced in March this year that it planned to invest in the construction of a production base with an annual output of 300,000 high-end new energy vehicles in qinhuangdao, with a total planned investment of about 16 billion yuan. However, the investment in the field of new energy vehicles has not paid off, and eventually shareholders have diverge on the strategy of their new energy vehicles.

According to relevant data, it is learned that jingwei stock began to issue bonds in 2015, and the amount of new loans in 2017 alone was 11. 8.7 billion yuan, including 500 million yuan in corporate bonds and 300 million yuan in bank loans. 3.7 billion yuan, other borrowings 3. 500 million yuan. In January 2018, jingwei shares will publicly issue no more than 2 billion yuan of corporate bonds, which will be used to invest in the new energy automobile industry, replenish working capital, repay bank loans and repay corporate bonds. The company's asset-liability ratio has increased from 7. 7 percent, up from 52 percent in 2017. 16%.

If profitability is a guide to success, the company has so far failed to expand into new energy vehicles.

Nowadays, the new energy automobile market is like a city under siege. The enterprises outside the city are trying to enter the market, and only they know the situation of the enterprises inside the city. Perhaps, the so-called "tuyere" can not only blow up all the goods ahead, but also accompany the existence of "wave tip". Who will be the next Tesla?

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.