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Tesla Adjusts Prices and Launches New Referral Program
Last week, Elon announced that Tesla planned to adjust prices slightly on March 18 due to under-performing offline stores. However, on March 19, Tesla announced that the price increase was postponed until midnight on March 20 (US time) due to an overflow of orders that needed to be processed beforehand. The price adjustments are as follows:
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The standard version of Model S will be officially discontinued after inventory is cleared.
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The long-range version of Model S will increase by CNY 15,500, while the high-performance version will increase by CNY 4,400.
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The long-range version of Model X will increase by CNY 15,800, while the high-performance version will increase by CNY 19,700.
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The long-range rear-wheel-drive version of Model 3 will increase by CNY 5,000, while the high-performance version will increase by CNY 6,000. The price of the long-range four-wheel-drive version remains unchanged.
In addition, the day after the price adjustment, Tesla launched a new referral program, the details of which are as follows:
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Both the referrer and the referee will receive 1500 km of free supercharging.
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Every referral has a chance to win the Founder’s Series Model Y and Founder’s Series Roadster 2, both signed by Elon Musk and designer Franz.
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Owners who already have free unlimited supercharging will receive two raffle entries for each referral.
Quick Comment: With further price reductions for Tesla vehicles, attracting 55 referral users is no longer a difficult task. Although Tesla cannot afford to give away sports cars as rewards, the new referral program still provides incentives for owners to “sell Tesla cars.” With the new program, Tesla can also manage its monthly costs better by updating the rules for rewards.
NIO’s 160 kW Electric Propulsion System Begins ProductionOn March 21, the first mass-produced 160 kW EDS electric drive system rolled off the assembly line at NIO’s advanced manufacturing center in Nanjing. The permanent magnet synchronous motor has a maximum power of 160 kW, a maximum torque of 305 N·m, and an energy conversion rate of 96.7%.
Quick take: This week, NIO officially launched the 160 kW electric drive system, and the ES8 equipped with an 84-degree battery version also took a test run on the Sanya FE race track, achieving a time of 1 minute 25.7 seconds. The introduction of these two key hardware components brings ES6 closer to mass production.
Volvo aims to achieve electric vehicle profits on par with traditional fuel cars by 2025, according to Hakan Samuelsson, the CEO. He said in an event that “it’s hard to say if we’ll be at the same level of profitability as in 2015” but he expects electric vehicle profits to be equal with petrol car profits by 2025. In addition, Volvo plans to spend 5% of its annual revenue (approximately $1 billion) on research and development of electric and self-driving vehicles and plans to release five pure electric vehicles on the market in the next five years.
Quick take: In addition to the limitations of range, prices are also crucial for promoting electric vehicles. Currently, the lowest battery cost is controlled by Tesla, which is around $110 per kilowatt-hour/kWh, but this was achieved through mass production and achieving a certain scale. Therefore, whether Volvo’s electric vehicle profits can equal those of petrol cars in 2025 will depend on the production scale that suppliers can achieve in the future.
On March 23, 2019, the Formula E Sanya E-Prix ended with Jean-Eric Vergne, a driver from China’s DS TECHEETAH team winning the race.
> Quick Comment: After a two-year hiatus, FE returned to the mainland with a new branch located in Sanya. This event was lively and I will write an FE-related travelogue to share the atmosphere and the gameplay and rules of FE.
Former Mercedes Designer Joins XPeng Motors
On March 22, XPeng Motors announced that former Mercedes designer Do Young Woo has officially joined the company as the Director of Exterior Design, responsible for the future exterior design direction of XPeng’s electric vehicles.
Quick Comment: XPeng Motors has been aggressively hiring since the beginning of the year, and hopes to gather talented people to produce excellent products.
Canadian Government Introduces Subsidies for New Energy Vehicles
The Canadian federal government has recently announced that in order to encourage more people to buy zero-emission vehicles, it will provide CAD 300 million to the Canadian Transport Department in 2019 and 2020. Those who purchase purely electric vehicles with a selling price below USD 45,000 can receive a subsidy of USD 5,000 from the government. In addition, the Canadian Natural Resources Department will invest CAD 130 million in infrastructure construction, such as charging stations, over the next five years.
Quick Comment: More and more countries are promoting the development of the electric vehicle industry, which is a good thing. However, I am puzzled as to why the price limit is set at USD 45,000 or below. By the way, the standard-range version of Tesla Model 3 in Canada sells for USD 47,000, which is not eligible for government subsidies.
* Tesla reveals Model Y release date; Techrules becomes profitable | E Weekly News
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.