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Yves here. This is a useful, wide-ranging discussion by William Lazonick of Elon Musk’s operation of Tesla and SpaceX and the control problems he faces as Tesla is likely to need to issue more shares to fund further expansion. Note that there are other means of allowing a founder or controlling group stay in charge than the one Musk did put in place, such as dual classes of stock, with the widely-circulating shares having lesser voting rights. But regardless, Musk’s steps suggest that he is planning against hedge fund demands for more buybacks or other short-term-investor-placating measures. Mind you, it’s not as if Musk is all that respectful of shareholder rights, but he does appear to recognize that even he could be brought to heel.
By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website
Almost everything Elon Musk does these days makes headlines. The battle over his 2018 stock option package not long ago is no exception: After the Delaware Court of Chancery, which has jurisdiction over Tesla, invalided his monster option package from 2018, Tesla shareholders voted to give it to him anyway.
Most of the press covered this story as another case of corporate excess and neglected the bigger story it pointed to: that America urgently needs bold leadership and a clear strategy in the electric vehicle sector. The U.S. risks falling behind if we don’t get our act together while other nations—and in particular China—race ahead. A strong, forward-thinking approach is crucial not only for maintaining U.S. leadership but also for combating climate change effectively. But corporate financialization—the obsessive focus on shareholder value and personal gains—threatens investment in the productive capabilities that enable crucial innovation. Financialization has turned many an American powerhouse into a shadow of its former self: see Intel, IBM, General Electric, and Boeing, among others.
Will Tesla be next?
While Musk seeks to stave off corporate raiders by amassing enough shares to block their advances, his own leadership remains in question. Economist William Lazonick offers insights into what’s happening at Tesla and why it matters for our future.
Lynn Parramore: Musk has been making headlines since the presidential debate, and not for good reasons. First, the tweet sexually harassing Taylor Swift, then the “joke” about the assassinations of Biden and Harris. Yet this is the same guy who has managed to run highly successful companies. What’s your view of this contradictory figure?
William Lazonick: His tweets are really a problem, but yes, he’s had tremendous success. Obviously, he has hired lots of people to do lots of things, but he’s the one who had the judgment to hire them. Tesla is impressive, and SpaceX is even more amazing. It broke barriers in terms of just cheapening the cost of making rockets. Reliable rockets, reusable rockets, and stuff like that. No doubt, Musk is kind of obsessive, but this recent stuff is very concerning, for a guy running a public company to be doing this.
LP: And this is a very critical time for Tesla. Can you say a little about the state of play with electric vehicles?
WL: It’s been clear for a long time that the Chinese were going to develop electric vehicles. Tesla certainly, through its success, has speeded that up. It was really a stroke of genius for the Chinese to allow Tesla in 2019 to be the first foreign car company without Chinese partners to come into China and start manufacturing them there because it pushed Chinese companies like BYD, NIO, Geely, and others to speed up the electric vehicle transition. Tesla revved up the market, creating much more interest in electric vehicles.
Tesla’s profitability has a lot to do with all the cars it’s selling in China. Tesla had known since 2018 – we can discuss why in a bit — that it was on the cusp of mass-producing an affordable EV, and once they got into China, that sealed the deal in terms of being a global leader.
But a company like BYD is extremely well-positioned to respond. It started out as a rechargeable battery maker for various devices and then got into cars in 2003. It manufactures its own innovative batteries, which is something that Tesla doesn’t have. It can now produce a car in China for $10,000. Tesla will never be able to do that. Those cars might sell abroad for $20,000.
BYD is capturing a huge share of the global EV market.
LP: So the competition is really out there now.
WL: Yes. Tesla’s strategy was to first produce very high-end cars to get brand name recognition and accumulate learning to set the stage for a high-end, mass-produced car, which was a Model S, which began deliveries in 2012, and then transition to the more affordable Model 3, starting in 2017.
That was Musk’s strategy from the beginning. I think Tesla sped up the electric vehicle transition by several years. Tesla also built its own supercharging network, which makes it possible for many car buyers to choose a pure EV. (Although China has a far bigger charging network than the United States).
But basically, the transition to electric vehicles is on, and it’s going to be about smaller or regular-sized cars. Right now, Tesla is the global leader. So then you have to consider, who’s making decisions for the electric vehicle transition and what does that mean for its future? What does it mean to have Elon Musk deciding Tesla’s strategy, organization, and finance going forward?
LP: Musk has been concerned about hedge fund activists moving in to take over Tesla. What’s going on?
WL: After Tesla was founded in 2003, Musk came in quickly in 2004 and put in some of the initial money to develop and manufacture the Roadster, which they started selling in limited numbers starting in 2008. Then, after rounds of venture finance, Tesla wanted to go public in order to raise more money and did its IPO in June 2010. Musk realized, however, that success might mean that hedge fund activists could come in, change the board of directors, kick him out, and grab the profits. Back in 2003, the SEC had sanctioned changes to the proxy voting system, which gave hedge fund activists more power to loot companies.
With the changes, if you were a hedge fund activist and had a few billion dollars that you could invest in a company’s stock — and it might only be 1% of the company’s outstanding shares – you could line up the votes of the institutional shareholders, with help from proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and ISS to endorse your strategy and change the board of directors. Or you could convince some of the existing board members that they should side with you, not with the CEO. Or you could just get the CEO quaking in his or her boots and get them to go along with whatever you wanted. There were cases of CEOs being forced to resign at the pinnacle of their careers.
LP: And as you’ve shown, once the hedge fund activists – the corporate raiders – get hold of a company, they often start focusing solely on extracting value for themselves by jacking up the company’s stock price through shenanigans like stock buybacks, cutting jobs, suppressing wages, and price gouging.
WL: Right. So Musk was saying, if I’m going to put all my work into building this company, I don’t want to be kicked out by corporate raiders (whom he would later call “dubious interests”) once we go public.
LP: And Musk had a clever strategy for defending himself from hedge fund activist takeovers.
WL: Yes. He amended Tesla’s certificate of incorporation to lower the threshold for blocking such activists, allowing him to be invulnerable to attack with only 33.4% of voting shares instead of the usual 50.1%. Tesla had a very simple certificate of incorporation in 2003 before Musk even arrived. In 2009, as they were preparing to do the IPO, they threw in a bylaw, right at the end, that says that any substantial change at Tesla, including board membership, would need a supermajority of 66.7%.
LP: They sort of snuck it in there.
WL. Yeah. That kind of move has upsides and downsides. If people had confidence in Musk – and at the time he seemed very on top of his game and focused – then potential investors might think it was good that that he couldn’t be kicked out as easily. But there was a downside, too, because the IPO might not go as well if investors did not have confidence in him. But in this case, it seems to have worked out for Musk.
The other thing to know is that Musk was chairman of the board at three specific times in 2009, 2012, and 2018 when the directors awarded him big stock option packages—potentially worth, respectively, 8%, 5%, and 12% of Tesla’s outstanding shares. These option plans were designed not to compensate him, but to give him more shares to increase his voting power, largely contingent on Tesla achieving its goals of producing EVs. In the end, the value of the shares that he has acquired from exercising stock options has made him among the richest people in the world.
It might seem self-serving for Musk to claim, even before Tesla’s success, that he aimed to prevent dubious activist shareholders from gaining influence. This stance also conveniently helps justify the stock option packages that, in combination with shares he purchased for $292 million, have enabled him to beneficially own 20% of Tesla’s shares outstanding if his 2018 options remain intact, and 13% if they don’t.
He deftly used what looked like compensation packages to allocate a substantial proportion of Tesla’s shares to himself.
LP: 2018 was the last time he got one of these big packages that gave him lots of shares. But he hit a legal hurdle.
WL: Right. In 2018, he got a stock option package that turned out to be possibly worth $50 billion (depending on the prevailing stock price when he would exercise the vested options) once the company was successful. At the time he was awarded the package, the grant-date value of the shares was about $2.3 billion, but what was important was not the $2.3 billion, but the fact that he stood to reap 12% of the shares outstanding if, for the shares to vest between 2018 and 2013, Tesla achieved various performance criteria, including car sales. So it wasn’t for a foregone conclusion that he was going to get the shares.
In the United States, performance criteria for the vesting of option grants are unusual. Usually, all you need to do is wait, and if the current stock price exceeds the grant-date price, you exercise your option and realize gains. But with Tesla, Musk had to meet the criteria, and it was done in 12 stages up through 2023. By 2023, almost all the requirements had been met.
The board’s justification for giving him that stock package was that he was running the company well and they wanted him to stick around.
LP: But a Delaware court actually rescinded the package. On what grounds did the court do that?
WL: A guy bought nine Tesla shares and hired a lawyer to bring a lawsuit in the Delaware court, which has legal jurisdiction over Tesla, arguing that the 2018 option package was unfair to shareholders not named Elon Musk.
The court’s decision, handed down last January, was not that the 2018 option package was something that Tesla didn’t have the right to do, but that it was kind of incestuous – the board members weren’t independent, the shareholders weren’t informed, etc. Musk was chairman of the board at the time, so he was granting the options to himself as CEO. As it turned out, in 2019, he was forced by the SEC to relinquish the chairmanship for three years after he tweeted about taking the company private. After that, he decided not to become chair again. Instead, he installed another director as chair, who now has reaped $353 million from her own stock options just by sitting on the board.
LP: Musk went back to his own board and got the package reinstated. Wouldn’t that be a violation of the court’s decision? What’s at stake for Musk now?
WL: Yes, Tesla is trying to get the Delaware court’s decision overturned. Last June, after much campaigning from Musk and his other directors, Tesla shareholders overwhelmingly voted to re-ratify the 2018 stock option package and also change the legal jurisdiction of the company to Texas. Right now, Musk’s lawyers are trying to convince the Delaware court to vacate its ruling that the 2018 option package is null and void. They are trying to convince the judge that problems of insider influence and lack of transparency in the original granting of the package in 2018 have been fixed.
Back in 2018, Tesla was confronted by hedge funds as short sellers who were trying to drive the stock price down. The company still needed to raise money on the stock market at that time to get to the last stage of mass production. Tesla has achieved that goal, and from 2021 through the first half of 2024 recorded $35.8 billion in profits. Now the hedge fund activists could be eyeing those profits, seeking to get Tesla to do stock buybacks to give manipulative boosts to its stock price.
The recent June vote on his option package may have been a signal to the hedge fund activists that Musk can mobilize the small shareholders to support him, whereas it is much easier for the activists to mobilize the institutional shareholders. It’s very hard to get the scattered votes of small shareholders, who own about 40% of the company’s shares outstanding. Tesla created a special website and a campaign to get their votes.
LP: What does all this potentially mean to the future electric vehicles, which are important for dealing with climate change?
WL: Hedge fund activists coming in could do a lot of damage – massive buybacks, big layoffs, price gouging, etc. All the stuff that falls under the umbrella of financializaton and has damaged so many other once innovative U.S. firms.
Musk is actually doing some of that with his layoffs. He’s not doing buybacks, but I could see him doing $30-$40 billion per year if Tesla should become super profitable, averaging, say, $70 billion in profits a year, as Apple had done over the past decade. For one thing, in wasting Tesla’s money to manipulate its stock price, Musk would also be increasing his proportional voting power by taking shares off the market.
Ultimately, the whole system of corporate governance in America is corrupt – not just at Tesla, but in general.
LP: Is Tesla any different from typical cases you’ve been studying?
WL: Yes and no. Companies where all the financialization is going on are companies that used to be innovators, like Apple and Microsoft. Intel gave in to financialization until recently. The asset stripping, layoffs, and other measures that come with predatory value extraction destroy their innovative capabilities.
LP: So Tesla is at a tipping point between continuing innovation and succumbing to financialization.
WL: Yes. It could go in that direction.
LP: Would it be better for Musk to stay?
WL: That’s questionable. If someone put me on the board, I would look for a guy like Pat Gelsinger, who now runs Intel. He’s trying to help the company recover from all its buybacks – $108 billion worth from 2005 through 2020 under the three previous CEOs, who were all finance guys. He’s interested in making the company productive. Tesla has some issues – the EV car market has slowed. They’ve laid off about 14% of the labor force in 2024 – it’s far from clear if that was necessary. If I were on the board, I would question doing mass layoffs on what seems to be a whim. It certainly makes no sense that Musk fired the whole supercharger group – a group responsible for a critical part of their strategy for the EV transition going forward. Getting these high-speed charging stations put in place isn’t easy. It requires intense negotiations and so on.
Then there’s Musk ruining the name of the brand, supporting a president who calls climate change a hoax. One who says we should get rid of all electric vehicles. That’s kind of “bonkers” rhetoric (to use Musk’s own term about a state of mind that might justify his removal as CEO).
From the U.S. point of view, Tesla is a company that got a lot of subsidies, and a lot of support from being in the United States. It’s another one of these critical technologies, like silicon chips, where the U.S. has been a leader, but, with an impetuous, narcissistic, and sociopathic person at the driving wheel, Tesla could quickly fall behind. In this case, there’s a danger posed by the personality of the CEO who exercises strategic control. In that way, Tesla is different from the usual case. No one would say that Tim Cook is off his rocker, although, as CEO of Apple with its $701 billion in buybacks since October 2012, he has directed the greatest looting of a corporate treasury in history.
It’s a serious problem. There aren’t any other companies in the U.S. coming up that could replace Tesla as global competitors in the EV transition. Tesla’s success led the board at General Motors, for example, to downplay the electric vehicle transition. They can see they aren’t going to dominate it, and so they’re making their money from gas guzzlers. They’re busy doing massive buybacks—as Matt Hopkins and I noted in an INET article published in December 2023.
LP: So like it or not, if we want electric vehicles, our fate, for now, is tied to Elon Musk and Tesla.
WL: Yes, as Americans, that is the case.
LP: You’ve advocated for banning stock buybacks, this innovation-killing activity. How do things stand currently in Washington?
WL: Reining in stock buybacks was certainly on Biden’s policy agenda before he became president, but I don’t know about Harris. It is not a topic in the current campaign, although many Democrats in Congress would like to get rid of buybacks. Patience may be a virtue here. Let’s first make sure that Elon Musk’s new buddy who used to occupy the White House does not get back there again.
The Chinese EV makers are about to eat Tesla alive in that market. They’re already making not just superior, but cheaper EVs. Chinese citizens are also increasingly motivated to buy China. To the extent Tesla survives, it will be because of government intervention from western governments. Which is already the story of welfare queen Elon. We will be stuck with his inferior products, as we are now stuck with his inferior version of Twitter.
They are so inferior that the Chinese and Europeans studied the Tesla battery management technology and other innovative systems before making their own EV. As for Twitter, comparatively speaking, who cares? However the version of Twitter that you apparently prefer has been exposed by Taibbi to be somewhat appalling. This whole notion that Musk must be destroyed now that he has messed with our Twitter exposes the vast triviality of the things the Dems and allies really care about. Defend the bubble at all costs.
But, as was once said about Newt Gingrich, there are Musk’s ideas and Musk’s good ideas. His top down approach to introducing EV is itself dubious but it did allow him to make his mistakes for a base of customers for whom “if you have to ask you can’t afford it.” The future of EV doubtless lie with the cheaper Chinese mass market and there the UAW may be standing in the way more than Trump.
“Tesla battery management technology”
Don’t you mean Panasonic? Tesla didn’t develop its own batteries. In fact most tech used by Tesla wasn’t created by them.
In any case, most companies now study Tesla as an example of what NOT to do.
No, car companies all develop (or hire specialized battery management firms who develop) the software that governs the rate of charging depending on temperature, state of charge and battery health, that monitors battery temperature and controls the active heating/cooling of the battery pack, and handles the recharging / discharging when the drive motors are reclaiming energy by slowing the car, or adding energy.
That really does not address or refute my point. Panasonic was much more involved in this process, as they actually developed the battery tech, than Tesla.
So to cite Tesla as a pioneer in this field is still a misleading statement.
In the Tesla early days they recognized that lithium battery overheating would be an issue and built their battery packs of hundreds of cells in a way to minimize this. Unfortunately this doesn’t help if said batteries are slammed into a highway barrier by the flaky self drive–causing them to short and explode. And the “autopilot” can surely be blamed on Musk as a marketing gimmick.
My point is that for the current admin everything is personal and political. They are even trying to interfere with Space X.
Thank you, “Teflon.” You’ve succinctly summarized in a few words what those writers should have composed.
Didn’t any of them listen to their teachers who taught them how to compose a paragraph with a main idea, supporting details and a conclusion. We wonder.
I live in the UK and I’d buy a Tesla if it didn’t take months and months to replace a simple item like a windscreen. Obviously this is a temporary problem, but still ongoing.
> LP: What does all this potentially mean to the future electric vehicles, which are important for dealing with climate change?
The current crop of electric vehicles are too heavy, complex and powerful. A nearly one thousand horsepower, five ton electric Hummer by GM is as black a vehicle as you can get. The Ford Lightning is not far behind. The guy howling his on the 401 at 150 KPH weaving in and out of traffic yesterday is anything but green, despite the nonsense GV license plate.
Then there is Tesla. All new car prices are far too high for me and Tesla is no exception, so I look at used cars only, with a limit of $5,000 all in, purchase price, taxes and getting it certified, and I drive great cars, my favorite being my gen 6 Accord with a four cylinder and five speed manual transmission. In five minutes I can put fifty five liters of gas in it and go 800 kilometers. It was amusing to see ten Teslas sitting at a charging station, presumably waiting an hour or more to ‘fill up’. That’s about half a million bucks sitting there.
Out of curiosity, I had my first look at used Teslas and the least expensive was a private seller asking $15,000 for an uncertified 2019 Model 3. The link to the add. Note that the computer had to be replaced last year, so at four years old, a big bucks repair of digital crapola. Not a confidence builder, and that’s before we get to battery replacement in another about five years at a price of $20,000 plus. So for me, on a practical level, I would need to be paid about $25,000 to take it off his hands, otherwise no deal.
High cost is no longer true of Chinese EVs, which are fully competitive with ICEs. Ditto some of the recent EVs from European/US/Korean incumbents. Most EVs currently on the market in North America and Europe were developed when battery prices were extremely high, and as you note the crop of large and luxury EVs reflects that.
Going forward, batteries are now far less expensive and more energy dense (less weight), plus new platforms with aluminum castings are lowering the weight of the chassis. My cars are all over 10 years old. With most of my and my wife’s driving local, I am looking at an inexpensive EV for daily driving, alongside a hybrid for long drives. A year ago, and I would have been shopping for very different vehicles. The market is changing very rapidly.
Never have been a fan of Elon Musk but after reading this, I would say that he is only playing with the cards that he has been dealt. And the house that deals these particular cards have one rule – investors must always win over everybody else. And as Yves points out, we have seen how this plays out with corporations like Intel, IBM, General Electric and Boeing. The investors don’t care so long as their stick increases in value and they get their dividends but if their actions destroy these corporations, then it is no skin off their nose. They just move on. So I will give kudos to Musk for being so far able to maneuver around these malignant interests that would put Tesla through a financial chop shop. But the author of this post should really go see a doctor about her TDS.
Don’t know if I’d give him too much credit. Most of his current issues are of his own doing.
At his core, Musk is a conman who loves the sound of his own voice way too much. If he was half the businessman he claims he is, he wouldn’t be so reliant, if at all, on government handouts to keep his core businesses afloat.
And what makes it all the worse is until recently the media, and much of the US public, had a huge blind spot for him and Tesla. You think Boeing is bad? Look at Tesla’s record. If any of the major US car makers had made half the mistakes and claims Musk made, they would be out of business or going to the US government to bail them out.
He is the Trump / Harris of the business world.
The biggest cons have been by the financial sector/predatory lenders on the wall of wall street – like a row of vultures
Agreed to just about everything The Rev Kev
Not sure about the overuse of TDS being a legit moniker to be tossed like a grenade depending on what side is taken. But the author jumps to politics after all and not policy that most of article goes at so yea.
Was it not Charles Krauthammer who first coined Bush Derangement Syndrome sometime in the 06 or 07 timeframe.
Came across this quote in 2017 commentary posted in the Phila Inquirer of June 12, 2017
“What distinguishes Trump Derangement Syndrome is not just the general hysteria about the subject, but additionally the inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences on the one hand and signs of psychic pathology on the other.”
Interesting and more like this. If the number one problem of American business and society is corruption then it should be topic A.
On the other hand
“Let’s first make sure that Elon Musk’s new buddy who used to occupy the White House does not get back there again.”
is shaky given the alternative is “nothing will fundamentally change” Biden/Harris. I believe Trump has said that he is for electric vehicles now that Musk is giving him money. See, that was easy and at least more transparent than Kamala and her legion of behind the scenes puppeteers.
Not a fan of Tesla or oligarchs, nothing personal. A society that allows such obscene amounts wealth/power to concentrate in the top .00001% is a sick, polarized society. It makes a mockery of any sort of democracy or meritocracy. Sadly, like medieval peasants, we are told to worship the neo-aristocracy/oligarchy and disparage our social inferiors. (while going up the ladder, kiss up, kick down) When societies become so polarized and such perverse inequality persists, the likelihood of violence increases.. Combine that with the culture of violence, and an armed, misinformed, ignorant population and we have a recipe for…
First, Bill has long been focused on the rise and impact of financialization. As someone who does not actively trade stocks, I love money that goes to dividends, I don’t benefit from the swings in stock price from buybacks. He of course focuses on the impact on management and corporate strategy from financialization, but it also affects the wealth of those Americans who are fortunate enough to have 401K and similar retirement portfolios. The interview touches on that in passing, but it is worth reiterating.
Second, the Chinese are the clear leaders in EV technology. I track monthly non-import passenger vehicle sales by model in China. (I taught a course on the Chinese economy for 3 decades, but only learned to read Chinese post-retirement, a COVID project.)
In August domestic producers offered some 88 plug-in models, 187 pure EV models, plus 13 models that offered both, so Chinese consumers had 288 total new energy vehicle (NEV) models to choose from. Some 150 models are no longer produced, or at least had zero sales, so there’s exit, not just entry. Some of these models are now on their 3rd EV platform, the chassis and other underpinnings to which the “top hat” for a specific model is added – cost improvements, and major tech improvements, often require a new platform. One firm, BYD, has over 100,000 technical staff. The sheer number of new models – this year 31 all new PHEVs and 42 all new EVs, plus additional updates of existing models – provides a vast market for introducing new technologies.
Third, the market is huge. China’s car market is far larger than that of Europe or North America, at over 22 million passenger vehicles a year, plus millions more passenger vans and commercial vehicles. In August EVs plus NEVs hit 53% of the market, with total sales over 1 million units, and 6 million in cumulative sales through August 2024. That provides leading makers economies of scale, helped by having the world’s two leading battery firms, CATL and BYD, who also enjoy economies of scale, the wherewithal to finance large R&D operations, and a constant stream of new models that are test beds for new generations of batteries.
In this market Tesla has fallen behind, with BYD selling 5 times as many NEVs, and Geely’s NEVs (with brands such as Volvo and Zeekr) now outselling Tesla in China. (For pure EVs, BYD outsold Tesla by 2 to 1.) BYD has launched 5 new models this year, Tesla’s newest is the Model Y, which launched in 2021. (The CyberTruck is not sold in China or Europe, as it is too large to be road legal.) At least in public strategy announcements, Musk is pivoting to robotaxis, rather than expanding their model lineup.
Tesla still has tremendous brand value, ranking 3rd in the Chinese market with old models. But without new models, brand value can only support sales so long – Tesla sales are down 16% YTD in Europe, and 26% for the Model Y, the only model produced at Tesla’s Berlin “Gigafactory”. Tesla continues to innovate, replacing steel structures with large aluminum castings so that the old Model Y body and interior are effectively riding on a new platform. They desperately need a new mainstream SUV, but the cost of Musk’s focus on the quirky CyberTruck is that all we will see in the next 2 years is a refreshed Model Y.
“First, Bill Lazonick has long been focused on the rise and impact…
“Chinese are the clear leaders in EV technology. I track monthly non-import passenger vehicle sales by model in China…”
Important and fine comment.
I agree. Very informative.
https://english.news.cn/20240909/9d2df1b8378143b582f408d966046bbf/c.html
September 9, 2024
China’s thriving EV industry takes green innovation global
* Noting that the NEV industry is at a pivotal stage of development, Lu Fang, CEO of Chinese NEV brand Voyah, said that the key transformation underway is “the shift from standard NEVs to intelligent, connected ones.”
* In 2023, China exported 4.91 million vehicles, marking a year-on-year growth of 57.9 percent. Among these, 1.203 million were NEVs, representing a 77.6 percent increase.
* Only by collaboratively advancing the construction of a global green production and supply chain can people achieve an optimal global capacity structure and enhance the overall impact of global green development.
CHENGDU, China — Gliding effortlessly through 1.6-meter deep water, an electric vehicle (EV) navigating the pool amazed onlookers with its impressive capabilities. Nearby, a flying car resembling a large drone hovered overhead, mesmerizing the crowd below.
These cutting-edge vehicles and technologies were showcased here at the 10-day Chengdu Motor Show 2024 in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, drawing car enthusiasts from around the globe to experience the latest innovations.
“The development potential of China’s EV market is unlimited,” Mark Rainford, founder of the YouTube channel Inside China Auto, told Xinhua at the motor show. “There’s no market anywhere in the world for EVs like China right now, and as those cars make their way to every corner of the world, they’ll drive innovation there too by default.” …
https://english.news.cn/20240707/455befe7990843e590eb22d0be3e99d6/c.html
July 7, 2024
Tesla emerges as new participant in Chinese government procurement
SHANGHAI — Several state-owned enterprises in the Shanghai pilot free trade zone have recently procured a batch of Tesla Model Y vehicles for corporate use, marking Tesla’s entry into China’s government procurement arena, local authorities said.
According to the administration of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone Lingang New Area, the move has demonstrated Lingang’s commitment to treating domestic and foreign enterprises equally in government procurement activities.
It also highlights Lingang’s ongoing efforts to enhance the business environment and expand openness, said an official with the administration.
Last month, announcements on the government procurement website of the neighboring Jiangsu Province, a major economic powerhouse, confirmed Tesla’s entry into the province’s new energy vehicle procurement catalog.
According to an official report in April on automotive data security compliance, Tesla was the sole foreign automaker among six companies that had met the specified criteria.
“Tesla’s inclusion in multiple government procurement catalogs shows China’s equal treatment of domestic and foreign enterprises. An open Chinese market will create more opportunities for international businesses,” said Sun Yuanxin, an expert with the Collaborative Innovation Center of China Pilot Free Trade Zone at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
In May, Vice Commerce Minister Ling Ji emphasized China’s openness to foreign-invested companies participating in government procurement during a roundtable discussion.
The Chinese government is committed to promoting high-standard opening up, expanding institutional opening up and practicing the principle of fair competition, Ling said.
Also in May, Tesla broke ground on a mega factory in Shanghai to manufacture its energy-storage batteries..
With the lengths of refuel with electric vehicles, I would expect swapped battery pack as a part pf range extension. That is complexes bit I foresee no possible method of re fulling electric vehicles because battery replacement opens up a nightmare of issues, based on battery age.
Having owned 2 electric vehicles, I am not impressed with recharge times and battery longevity.
If we really care for our planet we bees many more bicycles, or massive amounts of on site living r or massive numbers of work at home. Or all of these.
One can not ride a bike long distance on a daily basis, but one can use electric vehicles that have no batteries, like trains. The collective lobotomy of the USA population in regards of trains is fascinating. It was never about “big oil” but about “big car”. Good public transportation makes people not want to buy a car, or at least not use it all the time. Musk has recently “invented” tunnels, but he does not want to upgrade his “invention” to proper subway, because that would be bad for the sales of his cars.