BYD and Tesla: vertical integration of AB

Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1777

A car has more than 30,000 parts, and no car company since the days of Henry Ford has chosen to make most of them itself. Auto suppliers serve more companies, have larger production scales and lower costs, and most auto companies choose to outsource more manufacturing. Ten years ago, giants such as GM and Ford only mastered the R&D of engines and transmissions and vehicle assembly. They became “car design and assembly companies.”

And when the wave of electrification and intelligence comes, the two leading car companies-Tesla and BYD, both overturned the decades-old law of stable operation of the auto industry. Many things, embarked on the road of “vertical integration”.

The direct purpose of the vertical integration of BYD and Tesla is to lower costs, so as to sell more cars at a more competitive price. But the focus of the two is different.

Tesla self-develops self-driving algorithms, chips, batteries, motors, bodywork and electrical and electronic architecture. Musk described Tesla as a company that combines hardware and software capabilities. Tesla is not only a car company, but also an artificial intelligence company.

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BYD makes a large number of components with a high cost ratio. Some media once described it like this: “BYD + Fuyao (glass) + Zhongce (rubber tires) + Baosteel (steel) = complete automobile industry chain”. BYD still controls the manufacturing of some of the most costly parts of an electric car, including batteries, electric motors, automotive electronics, molds, power semiconductors and interior and exterior trim.

In 2020, BYD will package these businesses independently into Fudi companies: Fudi Power (motor, hybrid system), Fudi Battery, Fudi Vision (car lights, etc.), Fudi Technology (automotive electronic accessories, chassis) and Fuddy dies. Wang Chuanfu hopes that Fodi companies can supply external products. BYD not only wants to become a world-class automaker, but also wants to become a “Bosch” in the field of new energy.

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More car companies are considering increasing the proportion of vertical integration and rethinking the division of labor in the era of smart electric vehicles. The question that an investor in the field of new energy has recently pondered is: Is it possible that only vertically integrated companies can succeed?

This article will dismantle the similarities and differences between BYD and Tesla’s vertical integration roads from the perspectives of formation process, thinking methods, effectiveness and risks.

BYD and Tesla provide two samples of vertical integration: choose what to do, what not to do, what to manufacture yourself, and what to buy from suppliers, reflecting the respective histories, choices, and different environments of the two companies , and the similar ambitions of the two founders.

Pioneers of new tracks VS new players in old industries

Before meeting at the top and competing head-on, BYD and Tesla entered the auto industry at very different starting points and processes.

Tesla, which was established in 2003 and started to manufacture cars, was founded with the goal of making pure electric cars, and almost opened up the smart electric car market by itself.

Both Musk and Wang Chuanfu saw the trend of car electrification at a similar point in time, but Musk saw intelligence earlier, especially autonomous driving. Tesla began developing self-driving technology in 2012.

Whether it is electrification or intelligence, as an industry pioneer, Tesla’s core task is to prove “feasibility”. In this process, it has to design, develop, and even manufacture some key components by itself, because there are not so many places where the fuel vehicle supply system can help Tesla, and it often cannot buy usable and good enough components from the market. parts or equipment.

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Tesla is the first company to make cars with cylindrical ternary lithium batteries. In 2008, Tesla used more than 7,000 laptop batteries to assemble the Roadster battery pack. The energy density and battery life of the mainstream car battery solutions at that time could not meet Tesla’s requirements.

When developing autonomous driving technology, Tesla initially purchased Mobileye chips, but Mobileye’s product form with integrated software and hardware and little modification authority limited Tesla’s space for software development and optimization on the chip. In 2016, Tesla began to form a team to develop self-driving chips, and launched the FSD chip three years later.

Efforts to demonstrate feasibility also occur outside the realm of technology and engineering. After the Model S was released in 2012, Tesla began to build its own charging network. At that time, there were no suppliers in the United States that met Tesla’s charging rate requirements.

Tesla’s vertical integration, starting from proving “feasibility”, continues to this day. The logic behind it is to continue to pursue new technologies or process improvements, and only with improvements can we be competitive. “Musk believes that after mastering key technologies, he can do better, faster, and cheaper.” A former Tesla executive said in an interview with the media in 2019.

BYD, which also started building cars in 2003, did not directly make electric cars, but first made fuel cars, becoming a new player in an old industry.

Founded in 1995, BYD started in the mobile phone lithium battery business. Around 2003, Wang Chuanfu said at an entrepreneur forum: “In two years, the battery business will hit the ceiling.” BYD needs to enter a new industry with a larger space, and Wang Chuanfu also hopes that this industry will be related to lithium batteries.

New energy vehicles just meet the requirements: it has a huge market scale, and it can use BYD’s technology accumulation for mobile phone batteries. At that time, Qinchuan Automobile was being sold, which would come with a car production qualification. BYD believed that this was an excellent opportunity to enter the auto industry.

After spending 270 million yuan to acquire Qinchuan Automobile, considering that the electric vehicle market and industrial chain are not yet mature, BYD did not directly bet on electric vehicles like Tesla, but made fuel vehicles first. Wang Chuanfu believes that making electric vehicles will not bring any profit to BYD within 5 years.

This means that BYD has entered a market with relatively stable products, technologies, supply chains and competitive landscape. If it follows the old car-making method: purchase a large number of suppliers from suppliers, and only do a small number of core components and final assembly by itself, it will not be able to obtain the biggest competitive advantage-price.

As a novice in the industry, BYD has a small procurement scale, has no bargaining power over upstream suppliers, and cannot win suppliers’ priority capacity support. At that time, the key components of fuel vehicles were almost monopolized by Bosch, Continental and other overseas large Tier 1 (first-tier automotive suppliers), and the advantages of technology and scale made these companies offer high prices. When BYD initially consulted with Bosch to purchase the brake system, the other party quoted 2,000 yuan/set. The F3, the first fuel vehicle launched by BYD later, was priced at less than 80,000 yuan.

The method Wang Chuanfu thought of was to manufacture parts by himself, so as not to let suppliers make the difference.

This starting point determines that BYD’s core consideration when choosing a “vertical integration” object is “cost”: priority is given to the high cost of the vehicle, and BYD can do its own direction to greatly reduce costs.

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One of the typical representatives is the automobile mold, which is a standard “mold” required for each assembly line when producing automobiles, and specifies the specifications of the body and auto parts. At that time, most car companies customized molds from suppliers, and Wang Chuanfu saw a breakthrough here.

In July 2003, at the same time as the purchase of Qinchuan Automobile, BYD also acquired an automobile mold factory in Beijing and began to develop and produce automobile molds by itself. At that time, BYD only needed 80 million yuan to build a set of molds, while competitors spent more than 200 million yuan.

This replicates BYD’s successful path in the mobile phone battery industry – transforming the manufacturing process of battery production from “few people + more automated equipment” to a process that can be completed by “more people + customized equipment”, and developing a large number of self-developed customized equipment, To reduce production line expenses and product costs. Moreover, the production of automobile molds itself is a link that requires a lot of labor and is less dependent on automation.

“In the field of batteries, BYD defeated Sony and Sanyo with only a 30% cost advantage, and the automobile (mold) has a 400% cost advantage. There is no reason why we cannot defeat foreign companies.” Wang Chuanfu said in an interview with the media at the time.

In addition to moulds, BYD also designs and manufactures parts such as automotive electronics, injection molding interior parts, lights and paints. By 2010, BYD had more than 100 component factories. Except for glass, tires, etc., BYD manufactures almost all car components by itself.

By making more parts itself, BYD has launched products that are extremely price-competitive. In 2006, BYD’s first fuel car F3, which was similar in appearance and performance to Toyota Corolla, was launched, and the price of 73,800 yuan was only half of that of Corolla.

This is a commercially successful product. Half a year after its launch, the monthly sales of F3 exceeded 30,000 units, setting a monthly sales record for a single model of its own brand at that time, bringing revenue of 1.65 billion yuan to BYD.

Hao Yazhou, the former executive editor-in-chief of “China Europe Business Review” and a management consultant, commented: There is no essential difference between the vertical integration of BYD and Tesla. As long as it can improve competitiveness and reduce costs, you can do it yourself: “If you want to talk about the difference , Tesla does things that only it can do, and there are a lot of engineering and technological innovations that are difficult for outsiders to intervene.”

He gave an example: There is a company in China that makes integrated die-casting equipment for Tesla, but this equipment cannot be directly supplied to other car companies because the die-casting materials used by Tesla are used in rockets. Can’t get past it either.”

BYD’s vertical integration focuses on cost leadership, making full use of the advantages of relatively low labor costs, transforming the production process with more people and cheaper equipment, and making parts with high cost ratios by itself, reducing the payment to suppliers The “spread”. The main goal of Tesla’s vertical integration is also to reduce costs, but Musk’s software engineering background, the rich computer talents in Silicon Valley and the high labor costs in the United States make it necessary to make major improvements to achieve the corresponding cost reduction and efficiency goals .

In the automotive semiconductor business that both BYD and Tesla are investing in, BYD established a semiconductor business in October 2004, self-developed and manufactured power semiconductors, and adopted relatively mature technologies. Power semiconductors account for nearly 50% of the cost of electric drive systems . When Tesla was making power semiconductors, it took the lead in developing the silicon carbide route, which drove this trend, and the specific chip design and manufacturing were completed by STMicroelectronics; An autonomous driving chip FSD that can bring a more differentiated experience.

Pragmatism vs First Principles

What to do and not to do is a comprehensive judgment based on the accumulation of the target market, the company and the team, and the environmental advantages that can be used; the two companies also have their own characteristics in terms of the methods and ideas of completing “vertical integration”.

BYD is more pragmatic, based on a variety of proven technologies, plus some new technologies, to achieve “integrated innovation” of “1+1 > 2”. Wang Chuanfu has a concept: 60% of the development of a product comes from public documents, 30% comes from ready-made samples, and the real innovation may only be 5%. BYD will use non-patented technology for combined innovation.

Tesla is more daring to bet on new directions with great uncertainty, which stems from Musk’s “first principle”. If things are established in principle, they can be done.

The similarities and differences between the two vertical integration ideas and methods are evident in the power battery. The similarity is that they are one of the few auto companies that have their own research and development and manufacturing capabilities for power batteries, and they all rely on their own research and development, rather than acquisitions or external investment to build battery core technologies and solutions.

The difference is that BYD is doing incremental innovation on the route of lithium iron phosphate. The performance of lithium iron phosphate batteries is currently close to the theoretical limit of chemical materials, and its main optimization space lies in the battery structure.

BYD will launch the blade battery in 2020, making the original rectangular battery cell into a blade shape with a width of only 2-3 cm but a length of 90-100 cm, which reduces the volume of battery structural parts in the battery pack, allowing BYD to use the same More batteries are stuffed into the space to achieve a battery life of more than 500 kilometers. Under the same battery life, it is about 15% cheaper than ternary lithium batteries, and the chemical characteristics of lithium iron phosphate itself are more stable and safer than ternary lithium batteries.

Tesla proposed a more leaping plan: 4680 large cylindrical batteries. It adopts extremely difficult production processes such as full tabs and dry electrodes, which can greatly increase the charging speed and reduce production costs, but mass production is difficult.

A person who supplies battery production equipment to Tesla told “LatePost” that equipment manufacturers have suggested that Tesla switch to a simpler wet electrode process, but Tesla believes that if the wet method is used, the manufacturing cost of 4680 batteries will be lower. And the performance advantage will shrink, and it will lose its meaning.

At the same time as BYD released the blade battery, Ningde era also released a similar structural improvement, that is, CTP battery (Cell to Pack, no module technology). In the entire power battery industry, no company has achieved mass production of 4680 batteries so far.

Whether it is pragmatism or first principles, the two companies have implemented it to the extreme and transformed it into product and commercial competitiveness.

The DM (Double Models, dual-mode) hybrid technology that has become BYD’s core competitiveness is a successful result of pragmatic integrated innovation. Of the 1.83 million vehicles sold by BYD last year, 946,000 were DM hybrid vehicles, accounting for 50.6% of total sales.

Wang Chuanfu once said: “BYD DM’s single technology is not leading, but we have solved a lot of running-in problems between cars and batteries, such as low temperature, fast charging, electric steering, etc.”

Launched in 2008, the F3DM equipped with DM is the world’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid vehicle, and it is also BYD’s first model to enter the new energy vehicle market.

All previous hybrid models used gasoline-electric hybrid systems. The cost of using a plug-in hybrid vehicle is lower. The fuel consumption per 100 kilometers of the Qin Plus DMi currently on sale is 3.8 liters, and the fuel consumption per 100 kilometers of Toyota Ralink and Corolla exceeds 4 liters. This proves that integrated innovation will also contribute new solutions to the industry, lead new trends, and bring differentiated competitiveness of products.

DM is an integrated innovation in terms of technical realization, but in terms of strategic decision-making, it reflects Wang Chuanfu’s forward-looking judgment:

  • One is the early start time. BYD started developing the DM system as early as 2005, when the new energy market was still in its infancy.
  • The second is that BYD dared to find another way to find a new technology combination. Geely, another Chinese car company that started developing a hybrid system at the same time, initially followed Toyota and Honda’s gasoline-electric hybrid route, but encountered a patent blockade, and the research and development progress was slow.
  • The third is to see the right direction and stick to it for a long time. In the first 6 years after the DM model was launched in 2008, the annual sales volume has not exceeded 10,000. The DM sales will really explode until 2021. In more than ten years, BYD has iterated the DM technology to the fourth version.

The limitation of pragmatism is that in most cases, it can bring about the optimization of a certain link and process, but it is difficult to make substantial improvements, or even overthrow the old process, resulting in leapfrog efficiency improvements and cost reductions.

This is Tesla’s path: the important reason for its vertical integration is that it has changed the way cars are manufactured and sold to a greater extent, thus breaking the original cost structure. Tesla needs to do more on its own to match the new process.

Its main technical and process improvements include:

  • Redesign the electronic and electrical architecture to make the car better with fewer components.
  • When designing Model 3 in 2015, Tesla reduced more than 80 ECUs (electronic control units, used to control lights, air conditioners, etc.) of past cars, and 6 kilometers of wiring harnesses connecting ECUs to more than 20 and 1.5 kilometers. The number of vehicle parts has been reduced from more than 30,000 in the past to 10,000.
  • Break the dealer model, sell cars directly to consumers, and reduce sales costs.
  • When the Model S was delivered in 2012, Tesla began to build its own sales network, which is also part of the vertical integration. In the past few decades, the mainstream sales model of cars has been that car companies sell to dealers, and dealers sell to consumers.
  • The integrated die-casting, CTC chassis, and Unboxed production line solutions have been released one after another, greatly reducing the assembly process and space.
  • – The one-piece die-casting technology implemented on Model Y in 2020 allows the rear underbody to be formed at one time, whereas in the past 70 parts had to be welded. Tesla himself conceived the concept of integrated die-casting, participated in the design of die-casting equipment, and mastered the die-casting materials by himself.
  • – Self-developed and self-produced CTC chassis will be launched in 2022, reducing more than 300 parts on the chassis and battery pack.
  • – The unboxed production line plan released in March this year divides a car into six modules, turning the first half of the entire serial car assembly into 6 lines in parallel. Under the same production capacity, the factory area can be reduced by more than 40%. This means less factory land costs. Tesla therefore ordered a 9,000-ton die-casting machine from LK Group, which was jointly developed by the two.

Overall Cost Leadership, Ready Capacity VS Differentiation Strategy

Different starting points and different methods of vertical integration, after several years of development, have achieved the same goal, enabling Tesla and BYD to gain similar advantages in today’s fierce competition in the electric vehicle market: cheaper prices, higher profits and more room for price cuts.

Since 2022, BYD and Tesla’s vehicle gross profit has remained at around 20%. It is higher than new forces such as Weilai and Xiaopeng, and it is also higher than some major car company sub-brands that have actively entered the electric vehicle market in recent years.

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Taking the Han DMi, which will be delivered in 2021, as an example, the cost of the entire power system is around 10,000 yuan. At that time, the hybrid cost of Geely, Toyota and other car companies exceeded 20,000 yuan. This is related to BYD’s own motors, which can be faster and more overall optimized. When designing the Han DMi, BYD replaced the water-cooled motor with an oil-cooled motor, which improved the efficiency of the motor and reduced the number of wires needed for the motor. In terms of vehicle cost, the fuel consumption of the DM system itself is relatively low. The fuel consumption per 100 kilometers of the Han DMi is 3.8 liters, and the fuel consumption per 100 kilometers of the B-class sedan Honda Accord Hybrid in the same price range of 200,000 yuan is 4.2 liters per 100 kilometers.

Since the financial data is not disclosed separately, there is no exact figure for how much “middleman price difference” BYD has saved by manufacturing its own batteries. LG New Energy, whose installed capacity last year was equivalent to BYD Fudi’s battery, can be used as a reference. The latter’s net profit last year was 4.3 billion yuan. BYD is equivalent to putting this part of the profit in its own body, which can adjust the gross profit more flexibly and give competitive vehicle pricing. For example, when BYD released the Qin Champion Edition in April this year, it lowered the starting price to less than 100,000 yuan (99,800 yuan), which exceeded market expectations; when it was first launched in 2013, the starting price of the Qin series was 190,000 yuan.

Tesla, on the other hand, has adjusted prices several times in the past three years with its higher gross profit. Its logic is to maintain a higher gross profit to continue investing in research and development, while managing inventory and balancing gross profit and sales.

In addition to the common advantages of price and gross profit, the different vertical integration logic and methods of the two companies also bring some different results.

BYD itself masters the characteristics of a large number of parts and components manufacturing, which will be amplified by the environment after 2020, bringing an additional advantage: the production capacity prepared on the eve of the outbreak.

The penetration rate of China’s electric vehicle market is growing rapidly, and the superimposed epidemic disrupts the global supply chain, making BYD one of the few “prepared in advance” companies in the market in 2020-2021. At that time, most car companies were plagued by a shortage of parts. A single interior panel or a body stabilization chip could shut down a car factory with an annual output value of billions of yuan.

However, BYD can produce its own main components such as batteries, power semiconductors, lights, and interior parts. From 2020 to 2022, BYD’s annual output will increase from 420,000 vehicles to 1.87 million vehicles, of which the output growth rates in 2021 and 2022 are respectively 73% and 156%. Its market share in China has also risen from 20.4% in 2020 to 41% in the first half of this year.

Tesla’s obvious advantage beyond price lies in the differentiated experience brought about by vertical integration, especially its intelligent experience of integrating software capabilities. This is an area that many car companies are following, but has not yet caught up. Tesla can provide products that “no one else has”.

Tesla has developed a new business model based on this-selling autopilot software to make money. In the fourth quarter of last year alone, Tesla’s FSD system earned $300 million in revenue.

The marginal cost of software is lower, and the scale effect is more obvious than traditional cars that only sell hardware. Software also has a “network effect”, which forms a flywheel of “more people using software → more data → faster iterations → better experience → more people buying software”.

Excellent software capabilities have also helped Tesla in the supply chain shortages of the past few years. During the period of car chip shortage, most car company purchasers are buying chips at dozens of times the price, while Tesla engineers are rewriting the chip software and replacing the original chips with non-car-grade chips. Tesla wrote in its second quarter 2021 financial report that in order to combat chip shortages, Tesla engineers redesigned and developed 19 ECUs.

The weight of BYD VS the risk of Tesla

So far, vertically integrated BYD and Tesla have deviated from the previous “shelf-based car manufacturing” method of the auto industry, mainly bringing competitive advantages, but both approaches also have hidden risks and room for optimization.

The main risk of BYD’s vertical integration model is heavy. BYD manufactures a large number of components itself, which requires it to maintain huge capital expenditures and build a large number of factories and production lines.

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A large number of self-made parts is essentially a kind of leverage. When the sales of cars are good, you can earn money for all the parts.

The advantages brought by BYD’s vertical integration are highly related to the growth of BYD’s car sales. At present, its market share in China’s new energy vehicle market exceeds 40%, and most people in the industry believe that this is the apex. The growth rate of the entire new energy vehicle market will stabilize after the rapid outbreak. Some rivals who were stunned in the past few years have also adjusted their pace and accelerated to catch up. This will affect BYD’s future growth rate.

Weight also brings management difficulties and the possibility of inefficiency.

BYD’s auto parts business lacks market mechanism constraints, and quality and corruption problems have occurred. It was reported that a few years ago, “in order to seek internal quality clearance, the (BYD) parts factory director would often invite colleagues from the quality department and engineering institute to participate in various dinners, KTV, etc. in the name of team building.”

Fudi Battery will compete with CATL, and BYD Semiconductor will compete with Infineon and other companies. How to ensure that the performance, quality and production efficiency of self-produced components are better in the long run, or are equivalent to suppliers?

The single production line of Fudi’s power battery factory in Changsha now produces 13,000-14,000 batteries per day, while the single production line of CATL can produce 30,000 batteries per day.

According to a Fudi battery person, there is a saying in Fudi battery: “Fudi battery is composed of first-class purchased parts, second-rate engineers and third-rate self-developed parts.” Dismantling, adjustment issues, and more time spent solving when equipment fails.

BYD is aware of these problems. From 2010 to 2017, when BYD’s annual sales volume was between 400,000 and 500,000 vehicles for a long time, it had abolished vertically integrated businesses such as car paint, interior decoration, and seats three times. Wang Chuanfu believed that these internal suppliers were too inefficient.

Since 2020, BYD has begun to pursue Fodi companies to supply other car companies to the outside world. Wang Chuanfu hopes to allow parts subsidiaries to participate in market competition, and even independently finance and go public.

But at present, BYD’s external supply has not made much progress. The best performer is BYD Semiconductor, with an external supply ratio of over 40%. Although Fudi Battery has customers from car companies such as Tesla and Toyota, the external supply ratio only accounts for about 10% of Fudi’s total sales; Fudi Vision, Die and other subsidiaries have few external customers.

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BYD also adjusted the quality and technology review mechanism for internal suppliers in 2021. A BYD engineer said that BYD Auto will now independently determine the quality requirements and acceptance criteria for Fudi’s batteries: “The internal purchase process is as strict as the external purchase.”

The risks faced by Tesla, which is more willing to challenge difficult technologies, are the excessive R&D investment of the leader and the uncertainty of not being able to realize the technical assumptions.

When the Model 3 was delivered in 2017, Tesla originally wanted to build a highly automated assembly line to improve production efficiency. However, Tesla overestimated the capabilities of the machine, and automated equipment was still unable to handle assembly work such as grasping wires and installing parts. Tesla fell into a production hell and was close to bankruptcy. In the fourth quarter of 2017, Tesla produced only 2,425 Model 3s.

Cybertruck, which Musk has high hopes for, has been delayed by 4 years due to the slow progress in mass production of multiple technologies such as the 4680 battery. It is Tesla’s longest model from release to mass production.

In the four years since Cybertruck was delayed, Tesla had only four models on sale, and its sales growth will slow down from 2022. During this period, suppliers with strong technical strength have also iterated their own products. For example, the overall energy density of the Kirin battery delivered by CATL this year is 13% higher than that of the 4680 battery, and the heat dissipation effect is better.

Relying more on self-developed technological improvements to pursue leadership, Tesla’s early ups and downs, narrow escapes, and now there are still periodic product and technology “window periods.”

Tesla’s approach is to share the risk of technological breakthroughs with its suppliers. When promoting 4680 mass production, Tesla opened up battery technology standards to suppliers, allowing suppliers such as Panasonic, LG New Energy and Ningde Times to work together. Tesla plans to increase its battery self-supply ratio to 30% by 2025, leaving most of the shares to suppliers.

Tesla is also promoting its research and development results to other car companies to become an industry standard. In June of this year, GM, Ford and Mercedes-Benz signed contracts with Tesla to adopt the same charging standard as Tesla in North America and access their charging network. Musk also revealed at the second quarter financial report of this year that Tesla is discussing with another car company to authorize FSD autopilot technology.

More car companies other than BYD and Tesla are thinking about what they can learn from the vertical integration model of the two leaders. Ideal thinking is a sample that balances limited resources, greater efficiency, and competitive performance.

A person in the auto industry concluded that when considering whether to do something by himself, Li Xiang firstly checks whether he can improve the experience, and secondly checks whether the cost can be lower than that of a third party: “The answer to any of the two questions is yes. , he will do it himself.” Li Xiang once told “LatePost” that ideally he would not touch the battery, because the more versatile the battery, the higher the efficiency and the lower the cost. This is exactly what both Tesla and BYD are doing themselves.

BYD and Tesla do have some parts that ordinary car companies cannot imitate, because they are not pure car companies. This stems from the fact that both Wang Chuanfu and Musk have great ambitions for new energy.

Tesla has released the Master Plan 3 times. It is not about the car itself, but about energy. Musk said that the only measure of Tesla’s success is how much Tesla has accelerated the process of human transition to new energy.

BYD has practiced a similar energy layout earlier. It set foot in the field of photovoltaics and energy storage in 2009, earlier than Tesla, which started solar energy in 2015. The solar energy and energy storage business itself can also form synergy with the future electric vehicle energy supplement network.

These are two entrepreneurs with big ambitions. Their ambitions are not only in how much money they make and how big the business is, but also in promoting changes in the world according to their own ideas. When the goal is big enough, do more things by yourself, not only out of efficiency considerations, but also driven by will. They chose vertical integration, which consumes more resources and is more difficult, which is what those who started earlier had to invest.

The source of the picture: “LatePost” drawing

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