Invite Lidar Leaders To Build Factories in Mexico, Tesla May Not Build Cars But Build Robots

Tesla, which plans to build a factory in Mexico, is preparing to invite two Chinese suppliers to build factories abroad, one of which is lidar supplier Hesai Technology. With a focus on turning to a "pure vision" solution, why would Tesla invite lidar suppliers to build factories at sea?

Tesla invites supply chain to sea

Recently, there were media reports that Samuel Garcia, governor of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, said during a visit to Shanghai that two Chinese suppliers of Tesla will invest nearly $1 billion in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, and Tesla itself is planning to build a factory in the state. Media reports say the two Chinese suppliers are Ningbo Topu Group, which plans to invest $700 million, and Hexai Technology, which plans to invest $260 million.

One of the interesting is that Hesai Technology, as a lidar supplier, follows Tesla to build a factory, which seems a little illogical. After all, Tesla has shifted to a "full vision mode" in its intelligent driving program. As a result, many people have speculated that He Sai may become Tesla's humanoid robot supplier.

In response to the above claims, Hexai Technology said that the rumor was not released by Hexai, and the company has "not yet made a final decision" to build a new factory in North America. As for whether the company's lidar supplies Tesla cars or humanoid robots, the other party said it did not know.

In fact, since this year, Tesla has been inviting Chinese suppliers to the sea. In June this year, domestic media reported that Tesla is mobilizing many Chinese supply chain companies to build factories in Mexico to support its gigafactory in Mexico. In August, Tesla began construction of the Gigafactory 6 in Mexico. According to related reports, seven Chinese listed companies have announced their plans to expand in Mexico to provide supporting services. In addition, dozens of Chinese auto supply chain companies will also localize production in Mexico.

Copy the Shanghai model to save costs

Thanks to the integrity and cost performance of China's new energy vehicle industry chain, Tesla has embarked on the fast track of "exploding orders". Of course, Tesla knows the advantages of Chinese suppliers, and if it wants to get a greater breakthrough in overseas markets, Tesla urgently needs to build factories in other low-cost markets, such as covering North America with Mexican factories.

For Tesla, Mexico has cheaper production costs, and the company hopes to replicate the high productivity of its gigafactory in Shanghai, China, at a lower cost. Copying the industrial chain of the Shanghai Tesla factory has become the most convenient way.

As the initiator of the "price war" in the new energy vehicle market this year, Tesla's "secret weapon" is the high profit margin brought by cost control. But constantly control costs, naturally difficult to ensure profit margins.

In the third quarter of this year, Tesla's total revenue was $23.35 billion, below analysts' expectations ($24.1 billion), up 9% year over year, the slowest growth rate in more than three years; Operating profit fell 52 percent from a year earlier to $1.764 billion.

On a GAAP basis, net income attributable to common shareholders was $1.853 billion, down 44% from a year earlier; Earnings per share attributable to common shareholders were $0.53, down 44% from a year earlier.

Last quarter's earnings and sales missed expectations, and Tesla's shares fell 9.3% on the day. To this end, Tesla CEO Musk stressed in the third quarter earnings conference that next year, "reducing costs" will be the most important task for Tesla, whether from engineering or factory operations.

With the important task of "reducing costs", it seems unreasonable to carry lidar. At present, a major obstacle to the large-scale loading of liDAR vehicles is that the price is too high. Musk also said at Tesla's third quarter meeting that the Chinese model does not include radar.

In fact, Tesla is not the only one to reduce the use of radar, and there are many smart car brands in the current market that have adopted the same strategy, such as the upcoming polar car, which also uses the full vision solution. According to industry veterans, the main reason for reducing lidar is to reduce costs, and relying on visual perception is necessarily the most economical solution.

Or maybe it's for the robots

Tesla's Gigafactory in Mexico, in addition to producing Tesla cars, may also be used as a production factory for Tesla humanoid robots.

It can be seen from the two companies that were "invited" to build a factory in Mexico, one is Hexai Technology, which is famous for "Lidar", and the other is Topu Group, an auto parts supplier located in Ningbo. Topu is known to the outside world as its auto supplier, including the "special chain" products such as its production of integrated die-cast rear cabin. In fact, Topu Group is also expanding the humanoid robot supply chain products.

Since Topu Group entered the Tesla industry chain, it has been a stable supply of electric vehicles. As can be seen from Topu's semi-annual report this year, Topu also said that the robot linear actuator and rotary actuator developed by the company has sent samples to customers for many times and won customer recognition and praise, and the outside world believes that its actuator products may be applied to Tesla humanoid robot Optimus.

As a global Lidar R & D and manufacturing enterprise, Hesai Technology's products are not only applied to intelligent vehicles. Lidar is also an important part of the robot.

It can also be seen from the content of the board secretary of several other Chinese supply chain companies with the same layout in Mexico to reply to investors.

In June, Jiangsu Leili responded to investor news: The company has a large order volume in the application fields of home appliances, medical treatment and industrial control in the North American market, and is expected to have a higher growth rate in the future. In order to ensure the stability of the supply chain, the company set up a factory in Mexico to meet the demand of the North American market. For the specific capacity scale and construction plan, please pay attention to the company's subsequent announcement.

At the same time, Wolong Electric Drive responded to investor news: the company has a large factory in Monterrey, Mexico, which is the main factory of General Electric Industrial Motors, which was acquired in 2018, and has inherited years of mature local operation experience from General Electric. Based on this factory, the company has expanded from industrial applications to daily product lines, and intends to expand new businesses, including electric vehicle drive motors and robots, to provide regional support for various customers.

Finally, whether Tesla will use Tesla's sixth Gigafactory as a production base for "humanoid robots", we may wish to wait for its follow-up information to be disclosed.