Smart and Sustainable Electric Mobility
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has reopened an investigation into alleged Tesla unintended acceleration in response to a petition. The investigation covers nearly every Tesla Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y built, encompassing around 1.8 million vehicles in the U.S. It's a reversal of an earlier decision by the... 
SAIC-Volkswagen is offering discounts of up to RMB 42,000 for the ID.3, while FAW-Volkswagen's ID.6 CROZZ is priced at RMB 63,000 less than its website shows.
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Tesla's push to start handing over a portion of its battery pack production to suppliers during the Model 3's changeover window is a choice it made after remeasuring costs, according to local media.
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Prototypes of the revamped Model 3 are currently being tested on the road at Tesla's Shanghai factory over weekends, with the production line doing further refinement work, according to local media.
(Image: Screenshot from a Tesla China video.)
At Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) Shanghai plant, the Model 3's production workshop is currently under a high level of secrecy, but production line tuning is almost complete, local media Jiemian said today, citing an employee of a third-party supplier working at the plant.
Prototypes of the revamped Model 3 are currently being tested on the plant's roads over weekends, with the production line doing further refinement work, the employee said.
Tesla is planning to launch an updated Model 3 to compete more favorably with local Chinese car companies, the report said.
One of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's key trips to China previously was to visit Tesla's Shanghai factory to inspect the new Model 3, the report said.
Musk visited China in late May and toured the Tesla Shanghai factory, which is Tesla's largest factory in the world, producing the Model 3 and Model Y with a current annual capacity of more than 1 million vehicles.
On March 1, Reuters reported that Tesla was working to retool its Shanghai assembly plant for a revamped version of the Model 3, a project codenamed Highland by Tesla.
The Highland version of the Model 3 is expected to go into production in Shanghai in September, the Reuters report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.
With Highland, Tesla aims to cut production costs and boost the appeal of the electric sedan, which debuts in 2017, people involved in the project said, according to the previous Reuters report.
On May 16, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Tesla was nearing the final stages before starting trial production of its revamped Model 3 sedan in Shanghai.
The revamped Model 3 is slightly longer, sportier and has a sleeker interior design than earlier versions, those people said, according to the report.
Earlier today, Bloomberg reported that Tesla is laying off some battery production workers at its Shanghai plant, amid steep discounts on cars from all manufacturers.
Earlier this week, Tesla began notifying some employees on the battery assembly line at the first phase of its plant in Shanghai about the layoffs, the report said.
Jiemian's report today said two Tesla factory floor employees in Shanghai confirmed the information, but they were not sure of the percentage of layoffs.
Yesterday, local media outlet Shifang Zhixing reported that the layoffs on Tesla's battery assembly line in phase 1 would exceed 50 percent.
The layoffs are partly due to the US government's ban on subsidies for batteries imported from China, requiring local car companies to use US-made batteries, the report said, citing an insider.
Jiemian's report today cited a person familiar with the matter as saying that the batteries made at Tesla's Shanghai plant are for domestic models and not for North America.
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Auto industry players should not disrupt fair competition with abnormal prices and should avoid cutting prices in a reckless manner, a MIIT official said.
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Price wars are clearly not what China's main industry regulator wants to see.
An official from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said at the 2023 China Auto Forum in Shanghai on July 6 that participants in the country's auto industry should not compete with abnormal prices, according to a report on state broadcaster CCTV today.
So far this year, the Chinese auto industry has seen the largest wave of price cuts in its history, including more than 100 models from more than 30 brands, some at any cost, the report noted.
In response to the phenomenon, the MIIT source said that the development of China's auto industry has entered a new phase, with new energy vehicles (NEVs) forming a certain lead and auto companies should regulate their marketing activities, the report said.
Auto industry players should not disrupt fair competition with abnormal prices and should avoid reckless price cuts, while strengthening technological innovation and improving product quality, the MIIT official Miao Changxing was quoted as saying in the report.
Yesterday, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) and 16 major automakers jointly signed a pledge to maintain fair market order in the auto industry.
The 16 car companies include BYD, Nio, Li Auto, Xpeng, Tesla, SAIC, Geely and Great Wall Motor, who pledged to maintain a fair competition order and not to disrupt the order in the market with abnormal prices.
The initiative is just the beginning, and further restraint on bad behavior, including malicious price cuts, will depend on self-regulation and regulatory means, Fu Bingfeng, executive vice-president and secretary general of the CAAM, was quoted by CCTV in the report today.
Separately, Xu Changming, vice director of the National Information Center, said yesterday at the 2023 China Auto Forum that Tesla's average profit per vehicle is high enough that it has ammunition if it wants to fight price wars.
Tesla has previously cut its price in China by RMB 30,000 yuan ($4,140), and its average profit per vehicle is $10,426, leaving room for a 40,000 yuan price cut if the price war continues, Xu said, according to a video circulating on social media.
The calculation is based only on Tesla's 1.31 million global deliveries last year, and if it reaches its 1.8 million delivery target this year, then costs are expected to fall further, Xu noted.
Tesla's average profit per vehicle is 8.5 times that of BYD, whose figure last year was RMB 8,854 yuan per vehicle, according to Xu.
($1 = RMB 7.2401)
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