
“China's Tesla” NIO slashes thousands of jobs as losses mount - partingshots
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/China-s-Tesla-NIO-slashes-thousands-of-jobs-as-losses-mount
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sremani
China has around 25 electric car manufacturers not too unlike Detroit in its
hay-day in 1920s. Sooner or later many will crash and burn and some merge to
become bigger players. Long story short, industries with heavy CapEx sooner or
later end up being handful of players.

BYD buses and ABQ rapid transit saga is an interesting one. Most of the
Chinese electrics are not up to the snuff and so Albuquerque decided not to
order any new buses and send back the ones delivered.

~~~
sangnoir
Are you including Geely in your list of manufacturers? Geely owns Volvo, and
I'm eagerly looking forward to the (electric) 2020 Polestar 2 going on
sale[1].

The tech will likely percolate downwards to Geely's non-flagship cars over the
next few years.

1\. [https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/volvo-spinoff-
polestar-...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/volvo-spinoff-polestar-
reveals-its-battery-ev-the-polestar-2/)

~~~
generatorguy
So far no Volvo’s built in China have left China, the Volvo’s driven in the
rest of the world are built outside of China. Will be interesting to see how
Chinese vehicle production for international market works out.

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gibolt
It seems to me like China wants the electric car manufacturing revolution to
mainly be under their control/borders. My guess is that the reason they
allowed Tesla so willingly is that Nio and other local companies had already
started crashing hard and BYD with their tiny battery packs were unlikely to
drive sufficient adoption, especially for export. The only way to grab the
market was to lure in the best and drive more internal competition.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _The only way to grab the market was to lure in the best and drive more
> internal competition_

Post-Xi China isn't really about internal competition. More likely they're
hoping to replicate Tesla's IP. (Tesla, in turn, bets it can gain more from
selling in China than the IP it will lose in domestically-fabricated
components.)

~~~
scumbert
Thanks for being a realist. All the significant "competitors" domestically are
arms of the Chinese state. Tesla's calculations have to be aware of that.

~~~
narrator
Elon has said that the key Tesla technology is the factories. The battery
factory and the car factory that they are constantly evolving. That's much
harder to replicate in China, mainly because those companies can operate very
inefficiently thanks to State sponsorship.

[https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/30/automating-
intelligentl...](https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/30/automating-
intelligently-is-teslas-manufacturing-advantage/)

~~~
Faark
Tesla doesn't seem to keep engineering of new factory processes out of china
[0]. The batteries for GF3 seem to be bought from LG Chem [1]. So yeah, I
don't see Tesla being that worried about their IP or something like that.

[0]
[https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/d8un7f/tesla_i...](https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/d8un7f/tesla_is_building_a_major_engineering_team_in/)
[1]
[https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/d7i0vk/lg_chem...](https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/d7i0vk/lg_chem_has_begun_to_mass_produce_batteries_for/)

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xvector
I am convinced that everyone prefixing headlines with "China's Tesla" is
trying to short Tesla.

~~~
navigatesol
Yes, everyone criticizing the company is a short seller making up lies to earn
a few bucks. The lawsuits, fraudulent buyouts, sketchy accounting, executive
overturn, ridiculous promises, lousy financials...

It's all made up. A giant conspiracy of short sellers.

~~~
xvector
You deliberately misinterpreted me. Criticizing Tesla or NIO is fine. Using
headlines like this is intentionally misleading, carefully crafted to get ROI
when the news hits the public (and when it hits the bots).

Tesla stock is down almost 8% today. Wonder why?

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yalogin
Well the problem with cars is they cost a lot to make and the leeway for do
overs is very less. China can co-opt IP but getting things right is very
different with cars compared to consumer electronics, where they can iterate
and improve.

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ivankolev
Somewhat tangential, I just visited a Polestar 2 booth set-up downtown
Toronto, it's designed by Volvo but will be manufactured in China, it is
really impressive vehicle, both looks and specs.

~~~
cpursley
While I agree the Polestars are neat from a performance perspective, Volvos
are some of the most unreliable vehicles that you can buy. But Luxury &&
Performance != Quality.

~~~
skyyler
Is this an opinion or is your position supported by evidence?

The only thing I think of when I hear "Volvo" is safety. Not luxury, not
performance, not quality, not reliability, not anything but safety.

I would be very surprised if they were less reliable than most sports cars.

~~~
ptaipale
I wonder why the American listings put Volvo at bottom (as there is no
comprehensive annual inspection like the MOT or TÜV checks in Europe). In
Europe, the bottom quality tends to be American and some French and Italian
cars.

A fairly detailed statistics is from TÜV annual inspection reports, found
here: [http://www.anusedcar.com/](http://www.anusedcar.com/)

There, Volvo is rather average. Where I live (Finland), Volvos tend to get a
bit more kilometers than most other brands, so being not at the bottom of
listing means they're doing reasonable quality.

~~~
cpursley
Volvo is down there with American brands in the American reports...

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baybal2
I once wrote about them here. I questioned their rationale of trying to "beat"
Tesla when Tesla itself was deep in red.

Were they took the enormous amount amount of money they got from investors,
and put it into making electric Suzuki Alto lookalikes, they would've been
bathing in cash now.

But no, those guys not only did not recognise Tesla's failure, but they
doubled down on it, and ran a car company as if it was some Internet dotcom.

~~~
nickik
Tesla has not failed and is clearly not a failure.

~~~
rainyMammoth
Let's wait a couple more quarters before being able to say it is clearly not a
failure. The only reason they are still alive is the hype around Elon Musk.

~~~
dmode
I have been waiting for Tesla’s failure for 10 years. Tesla naysayers have
been asking us to wait for couple of quarters for a decade now

~~~
viklove
Yeah I guess no one expected investors (and government subsidies) would keep
pumping money into a sinking ship, yet here we are.

~~~
rconti
So they're all dumber than the naysayers, or.... ?

~~~
viklove
Well, yes.

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dayaz36
"China's Tesla" IS Tesla

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Leary
It took Tesla 16 years to become profitable, does Nio have enough cash to last
another 12?

~~~
blang
Is it profitable?

~~~
jurmous
Not yet.. [https://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/1e70a30c-20a7-48b3-a1f6-69...](https://ir.tesla.com/static-
files/1e70a30c-20a7-48b3-a1f6-696a7c517959)

~~~
chollida1
> yes [https://ir.tesla.com/static-
> files/1e70a30c-20a7-48b3-a1f6-69...](https://ir.tesla.com/static-
> files/1e70a30c-20a7-48b3-a1f6-69..).

from your link

> GAAP operating loss of $167M, GAAP net loss of $408M, including $117M of
> restructuring and other charges

So, no they aren't profitable

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akhilcacharya
Has an "X" Killer company or product ever actually Killed X?

~~~
rnhmjoj
Mozilla comes to mind.

~~~
Miraste
What has Mozilla ever killed? If you're about to say Internet Explorer--Google
did that.

