Tesla forced Chinese businessmen to build factories in Mexico, and Musk wants to poach them
Tesla Motors and Musk are very popular in China, and at the same time, the Chinese market also contributes a huge amount of revenue and sales to Tesla. Q1 data in 2023 shows that Tesla's total revenue is 233$2.9 billion, with a total sales volume of 42With 290,000 units, the Chinese market contributed more than 20% of the revenue of $4.9 billion and more than 30% of the sales of about 13740,000 units.
In addition, in global sales, the Shanghai Gigafactory produced 22930,000 vehicles. It can be said that without the contribution of the Chinese market and the support of Chinese partners and engineers, Tesla would not have been able to get to where it is today.
However, while enjoying the dividends of the Chinese market, Tesla recently made an incomprehensible decision: to force Chinese companies to set up factories in Mexico.
According to foreign media reports, Tesla is recently mobilizing many Chinese ** chain companies to build factories in Mexico, and a person familiar with the matter even broke the news that Tesla's pace is quite urgent, and if it does not respond in time, ** business may be worried"Lost hundreds of millions of dollars in large orders"。
What the surprise means is that if Tesla's request to Mexico is not responded, the order will be gone, and the big order will be gone. What's more, Tesla's pace (time) is very tight, and the time of each Chinese ** business is limited, forcing them to choose to go to Mexico with it in a short time.
The timing of this report also coincided with the end of Musk's return visit to China, so many netizens expressed their doubts: Could it be that Musk came all the way to China to force Chinese companies to build factories in Mexico?
In addition, this incident is also reminiscent of Apple Inc. is also moving the ** chain to India and Vietnam. Therefore, there is a suspicion that Musk and Cook not only do not understand China, but also intend to cut corners!
So, is Musk deliberately cutting corners?
Actually, things are not as simple as imagined, and it cannot be directly said that it is"Dig the foot of the wall"。Tesla's mobilization of China's first-chain enterprises to build factories in Mexico may be due to many considerations.
First of all, Mexico has advantages in terms of geographical location, labor costs, tax policies, etc.
Mexico also has a good track record in the manufacture of automobiles, mobile phones, and household appliances. Mexico is the world's seventh-largest producer of automobiles and fifth-largest producer of auto parts. In 2022, Mexican light vehicle sales reached 10860,000 units, up 7% year-on-year;The total output value of the auto parts industry was nearly 107 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of nearly 13%.
At the same time, Mexico has 1With a population of more than 300 million, it provides a guarantee for its labor force, and the labor force is relatively young and the cost is relatively low, which has certain advantages.
It is worth noting that Mexico is the big rear of the United States, and it has certain geographical and tax advantages for American businesses. In 2022, the United States introduced the Inflation Reduction Act, which stipulates that North American companies must complete the assembly, raw material procurement or processing of electric vehicles and their batteries in North America, and can receive a tax credit of $7,500.
As a result, Tesla may believe that building a factory in Mexico would better meet the needs of its global expansion strategy.
Secondly, major new energy vehicle companies have moved to Mexico, which also prompted Musk to want to do the same.
At present, 22 internationally renowned automobile manufacturers, including Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford, Audi and BMW, have operations and activities in Mexico. Mexico has attracted many well-known new energy vehicle companies, and Tesla is also in the stage of rapid expansion, in order to better meet its market demand, it is completely reasonable to deploy a production base in Mexico.
However, the most important thing in building a factory is still the ** chain, but there is no perfect ** chain in Mexico. Tesla wants to replicate the Shanghai Gigafactory in Mexico and needs the support of Chinese companies, which mobilizes the enthusiasm of Chinese companies on the chain to build factories in Mexico.
Finally, as a global company, Tesla faces various risks such as geopolitical risks, market risks, etc., so it needs to diversify risks. In order to diversify the production risk problem, perhaps Tesla chose to set up a factory in Mexico, and mobilizing Chinese first-chain enterprises to build factories in Mexico is also a consideration.
In short, Musk's mobilization of Chinese businessmen to build factories in Mexico is a complex issue with many considerations. Of course, this will also bring some opportunities to China's first-class chain enterprises, such as expanding their business to the world, improving revenue and profit margins, etc., and these first-class companies are also willing to go.
In fact, after learning that Musk had set up a factory in Mexico last year, many ** businessmen were moved. For example, DSG has established a subsidiary in Mexico through its wholly-owned subsidiary, DSGLizhong Group plans to build a new annual production capacity of 3.6 million ultra-light aluminum alloy wheels in MexicoNingbo Tuopu Group invested about 200 million US dollars to build a factory in Mexico.
It can be seen that Tesla's mobilization of Chinese businessmen to set up factories in Mexico cannot but be said to be Musk's curiosity, more like a will to fight. However, Tesla's ** business has signs of transferring production capacity, which has to be prevented.