In the era of smart electric vehicles, what will be the outcome of Tesla’s strategy of developing blockbuster products?

You must care more about how a dish tastes rather than what shape of plate it should be served on.

At the beginning of the article, I would like to discuss a phenomenon with you.

I don’t know how many people have noticed that there is one big difference between the product portfolio strategies of BMW and Tesla:

The former represents the strategy of flooding the market with vehicles, while the latter represents the strategy of creating explosive products.

If you are the target user of the BMW 3 Series (F30), it is best not to suffer from the dilemma of choice. The reason is: in addition to the difference in power, there are too many different body styles in front of you:

Long-axle, short-axle, 3 Series Touring, 3 Series GT. If we also include the 4 Series on the same platform, we will also add the two-door coupe, four-door coupe, hardtop convertible...

If you are the target user of Tesla Model 3, there is only one body style in front of you:

There is no distinction between long axis/short axis, no distinction between Sedan/Coupe, no distinction between two-door/four-door, not to mention personalized models such as GT and station wagon. Tesla does not give you the opportunity to choose at all.

Is it because Tesla’s technology is not good enough?

No, for a car company that has been established for 16 years and has successfully mass-produced 4 models (Roadster, Model S/X/3), it should not be difficult to handle a variety of body styles. From another perspective, this is definitely easier than launching a rocket.

Did Tesla misjudge the market?

That doesn't make sense. Model 3 sold 128,000 units in the global market in the first half of this year, ranking first in single-vehicle sales among electric vehicles. Unless you are like Horton, who always holds a grudge against Sun Yang, there is no reason not to respect the first place in the competition.

What is the reason why Tesla has not expanded its product line as crazily as BMW?

Let us first put forward a point of view:

In the era of smart electric vehicles , the "explosive product strategy" has the opportunity to defeat the "sea of ​​​​cars strategy" and become the mainstream.

You can understand it as: In the long run, within a vehicle class, a single body style combined with different power solutions has the opportunity to replace the derivative vehicle model strategy of "having more children to fight more".

As to whether this view is tenable, let’s discuss it in detail below:

1. In the era of fuel vehicles, traditional car companies use the strategy of flooding the market with vehicles

If only BMW is frantically expanding its product line, that would be an exception. But the other two BBAs obviously did not let BMW be alone.

Taking the 3 Series as an example, Mercedes-Benz’s countermeasures are the C-Class long-axis/short-axis, C Coupe, and C Touring.

Audi has launched the A4, A4L, A4 Avant and A4 Allroad in the global market. Like BMW, it has added the A5 and three more body styles: four-door coupe, two-door coupe and soft-top convertible.

Regardless of sales volume, they would rather invest hundreds of millions of dollars in repetitive development costs than miss out on any market segment and fight to the end.

The advantage of doing this is: no matter what body style you like, you can buy an Audi (BMW/Mercedes-Benz) in the end, and keep the profits within his brand system.

As for the disadvantages: if the strategy of launching a large number of vehicles is not implemented well, it will eventually result in a huge waste of development resources, which is most easily reflected in sales.

The most obvious example is some domestic independent brands, which are not as wealthy as BBA, but are more fond of "playing with life and death" than BBA.

Take Changan for example: the product series of a single brand even has as many as 17 models.

With such a large product portfolio, the company is close to covering all markets below 200,000 yuan, but its sales performance is disappointing.

Data source: What’s worth buying

Analyzing the sales data in June this year, we can get the following data:

Changan sold a total of 58,330 vehicles in a single month, and the combined sales of the four models, CS75, CS55, CS35 and Eado New Energy, reached 40,557 units.

The top four models in sales accounted for 69.5% of the total sales.

Have the remaining 13 models lived up to their value at the beginning of product planning?

Are limited development resources (manpower, capital) wasted?

Are a lot of marketing and channel resources wasted in vain?

The above data can already explain many problems.

During the rapid market expansion phase, the strategy of frantically expanding product lines may not be a disaster. If you are lucky, it may even boost sales.

However, once the economic situation is bad and the market is close to saturation, failing to use the above strategies well would be a form of chronic suicide.

2. Tesla’s explosive product strategy

If the product planning strategies of some traditional car companies can be summarized as: risking life and death to survive.

Then Tesla is adhering to the family planning policy: it is better to have only one child.

Starting from the Roadster, and then to the Model S/X/3/Y, each level only has one body type of product, occupying the high-end sports car, medium and large sedan, medium and large SUV, medium sedan, and medium SUV markets respectively. (Passenger car market)

There is no BMW X5 or X6, only Model X.

There is no distinction between X3 and X4, only Model Y.

There is no strategy of flooding the market with products, only a strategy of creating explosive products.

What are the results? The most convincing evidence is sales:

Throughout 2018, Model 3 sales in the U.S. market exceeded those of the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, and Audi A4, and were even close to the combined sales of the 34C.

By the second quarter of this year, Tesla's sales in the U.S. market were very close to Audi's levels, with the two brands' quarterly sales differing by only 25 units.

Behind this, Tesla only has three models on sale: Model S/X/3. How many models does Audi have on sale in the US market? No need to check the official website, I will tell you directly: 32.

Tesla and Audi's quarterly sales are only 25 units apart

For the above sales data, you can say that the US market is not a stage for BBA to excel in, but even in their own base camp: the European market (and even the global market), Tesla's market share in the first half of this year still ranked first. (BEV pure electric + PHEV plug-in hybrid)

Tesla ranks first in the European electric vehicle market with an 18% market share

Tesla ranks first in the global electric vehicle market with a 19% market share

Although so much data cannot directly prove how successful the blockbuster strategy is, it can at least illustrate one thing: the "eugenics" approach has not hindered Tesla's rapid growth in market share.

Some people would say: This is because Tesla is a new brand and has entered a new blank market, so the strategy of creating explosive products works.

Yes, that makes sense, of course. But we have to admit that Tesla is not only a new brand, but also a smart electric car brand.

There must be deeper factors hidden behind the strategy of creating explosive products.

3. Changes in the attributes of smart electric vehicles: Which is more important, food or plates?

When you want to buy a fuel car, what product features do you care about most?

Maybe it's the space, power, control, or the appearance, interior, configuration...

And when you want to buy a smart electric car, what features do you care about?

In addition to the points on traditional fuel vehicles, two more points will definitely be added: autonomous driving service experience and in-car intelligent technology experience.

In this process, the properties of the car have changed subtly:

For smart electric vehicles, the proportion of technological features in the entire vehicle attributes will definitely increase significantly.

This trend does not need to wait until the full-scale product is available. You can find clues even in some primary forms of smart electric vehicles:

Potential users of NIO ES8 will inevitably be concerned about the one-click charging service experience.

Potential users of the Skywell ME7 will definitely not ignore the five large screens in the car.

Potential users of AIWAYS U5 will definitely understand the role of the expandable battery pack.

And when smart electric vehicles reach their complete form, when autonomous driving becomes the most important function and the utilization rate of interior space increases significantly, what significance will it have if N types of body styles are derived at the same time?