Author | Chai Xuchen Editor | Zhou Zhiyu Faced with the trend of new energy electrification and the loss of market share under price wars, joint venture car companies have been "Renovating" their famous cars in an attempt to mount a strong counterattack. On May 30, SAIC Volkswagen's Touareg L Pro was launched. The car, which is said to be "the smartest gasoline car", had been preheated for nearly two months prior to its launch. The launch invited representatives from DJI Car and Tencent Travel, as well as the person in charge of iFLYTEK, all of whom attended in person to demonstrate the strength of its smart driving and smart cabin. As a "meritorious model" of SAIC Volkswagen, Touareg has been synonymous with Volkswagen SUVs for the past 15 years and was once the best-selling joint venture SUV. With a monthly sales volume of nearly 20,000 units for a long time, it occupies a 20% share of SAIC Volkswagen. SAIC Volkswagen hopes that the new Touareg will become a disruptor in the current market, from gasoline car intelligence to a stable price system with value-added buyback policy. In the view of Yu Jingmin, Vice President of Sales and Marketing of SAIC Volkswagen, new energy vehicles still have range anxiety and gasoline cars have an advantage that needs no explanation, but the biggest difference between them and electric vehicles lies mainly in their appearance and intelligence. After fulfilling the core needs of contemporary consumers, this once "famous car" seems to be reborn. Thus, from DJI's advanced intelligent driving solution to iFLYTEK's smart cabin voice assistant, this 200,000 yuan-level SUV brings together the strengths of various parties, aiming to break through the industry's perception that gasoline cars are less intelligent than electric vehicles. The launch of the new Touareg marks the beginning of SAIC Volkswagen's counterattack. In a post-event interview, Yu Jingmin mentioned several times that due to external cooperation and the accumulation of joint venture partners, SAIC Volkswagen's technology center is actually ahead of many independent brands, but unfortunately the rhythm is too slow. The company will now accelerate its efforts to catch up and even surpass in electric, hybrid or gasoline cars. Yu Jingmin revealed to Wall Street News that the new Touareg is the first gasoline car product in the Pro series, which is focused on intelligence, and that the Passat and Touareg Pro versions will also be introduced within the year. While polishing its technology, it is also preparing for the intelligence of its A-class cars. A counteroffensive war ignited by a gasoline fueled chariot seems to be brewing rapidly. But to be fair, SAIC Volkswagen's intelligence still lags far behind new forces such as Huawei, Xiaopeng, and Ideal. At the same time, in the current context where BBA is crazy about price cuts and the BMW electric car at over 180,000 yuan is setting a new industry low price, the 236,800 yuan Touareg L Pro seems somewhat out of step and the counterattack is difficult to achieve. In response to the challenge, SAIC Volkswagen has given a three-year 20% discount buyback plan. Users no longer need to worry about the fluctuation of vehicle purchase costs and second-hand car prices. SAIC Volkswagen locks in the difference between the purchase and final selling prices of users' vehicles, in a move to crack the price war. This also buys precious time for SAIC Volkswagen to speed up product and intelligence catch-up. This is the backdrop of the efforts to win back the former "king" of the Chinese car market.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

Since the launch of Model3, tesla has not had such a high-profile press conference in a long time.

On the morning of October 11th, after keeping the outside world waiting for two full months, the Tesla event named 'We, Robot' finally took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles. Tesla CEO Musk said that this would be a 'historic' event.

With no PowerPoint presentations and no expected transitional models, Musk brought actual vehicles directly - the self-driving Cybercab, the self-driving minibus Robovan, and the mass-produced humanoid robot TeslaBot. He aims to show the market firsthand that Tesla is still at the forefront of AI, on par with Google and Microsoft, and can find practical, monetizable applications earlier than them.

Despite the cheers at the event, Musk's surprises were limited. Not only did he not provide technical details about the Cybercab, but large-scale production is still two to three years away, and specific commercial scale in the future was not mentioned. In contrast, neighboring Google's Waymo has already crossed the milestone of a hundred thousand miles per week.

Investors quickly voted, tesla's stock price rose more than 5% before the market opened, and then fell 8.9% at the opening. Because the Robotaxi, which Musk had high hopes for, is the key to tesla's sprint scale and also the new cornerstone supporting the high valuation.

Next, whether this heavyweight model, which bears the responsibility of "changing the fate" for tesla, can avoid the difficulties faced by "Cybertruck", and whether it can soar in stock price as Musk claimed, remains to be seen.

Perhaps Musk himself is temporarily unable to answer.

Market meltdown

Under the gaze of over two million online viewers, Musk was taken away by a Cybercab, driving through the filming locations of "Harry Potter" and "Batman". This unmanned taxi avoided various obstacles and bicycle groups, on the way to the stage, winning cheers.

In line with expectations from the outside world, the Cybercab is a two-seater, gull-wing door sedan, with a streamlined silver body that closely resembles a "sedan version of Cybertruck". This ultra-modern electric car has no steering wheel or pedals, even wireless charging for replenishment, and a selling price of less than 0.03 million dollars (approximately 0.2 million yuan).

In Musk's view, the Cybercab is very charming, and he first told the audience an intriguing story.

Musk stated that tesla's FSD will soon evolve into unsupervised fully autonomous driving, allowing you to take a nap in the car and reach your destination directly. Moreover, the self-driving system can also go out for rides, deliver food for you to "earn while lying down", and even the interior cleaning can be done by supporting robots, truly achieving full unmanned operation.

His ambition is to completely disrupt the current travel market.

Elon Musk said that a ride-hailing driver can manage dozens of Cybercabs at the same time, 'operating these fleets like a shepherd.' Looking back, the series of operating costs such as buying cars, insurance, parking fees, etc., will be compressed by 5 times, equivalent to a drop from 4.4 RMB/km to 0.9 RMB/km.

Previously, Musk promised that owners could earn $0.03 million annually with Robotaxi. The implicit message is that Cybercab could break even in the fastest year, which has greatly boosted the incentive for self-use or 'wholesale' of Cybercabs, revealing the strategic tactic of pushing for momentum.

However, Cybercab only has two seats, making it difficult to cover high-density areas. Musk ingeniously created a 'driverless minibus' Cybervan that can carry 20 people. This multifunctional vehicle, resembling a rocket, can accommodate 20 passengers for both transportation and cargo purposes. His goal is to reduce transportation costs to 5-10 cents per mile (approximately 0.2-0.4 RMB per kilometer).

After the appearance of driverless taxis and minibuses, Musk's 'grand plan' has taken shape in this preliminary second chapter.

Musk mentioned that in the future, whether it is Cybercab, Cybervan, or the current S3XY series on the road, they can all join the shared fleet. Similar to the integrated structures of Airbnb and Uber, a huge operating network will be established together.

According to the plan, by next year, Model 3 and Model Y will be upgraded to fully autonomous driving FSD, expanding in Texas and California on a large scale. However, the large-scale production and launch of Cybercab is expected to wait until 2026-2027.

Beyond driverless cars, the collective appearance of Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus (TeslaBot), became the major highlight of this presentation. These humanoid AI robots originating from Tesla vehicles were arranged to serve as lively DJs and bar attendants interacting with the audience at the event.

Elon Musk stated that TeslaBot can serve as a teacher, take care of children, walk dogs, mow lawns, go shopping, and will be priced at around 0.02-0.03 million dollars, possibly cheaper than a car. At the Tesla shareholder meeting two months ago, Musk boasted that humanoid robots will become the main force in the industry, with a potential quantity surpassing humanity by reaching 10 billion-20 billion units. The future of science fiction seems to be turning into reality, appearing to be just around the corner.

From Cybercab, Cybervan to TeslaBot, Musk showcased a vision for the world 20 years from now in a press conference, also marking the beginning of Tesla's new chapter as an AI company.

Reshaping

However, shortly after the press conference ended, investors quickly changed their tune. Tesla's after-hours stock price plummeted, while Cybercab, aiming to disrupt competitors Uber and Lyft, soared by 6% and 4.6%, respectively.

Clearly, Musk failed to satisfy the market's appetite.

The less than half-hour 'AI show' carries significant importance for Tesla's comeback amidst the turbulent market conditions. This bout is crucial for its survival.

As a beacon of industry innovation, Tesla has rewritten the script of the century-old automotive industry and has attracted favor from investors. However, it now appears somewhat lost, being pushed out of the list of 'Big Seven' market cap giants in the U.S. this year.

Currently, Tesla's car sales still account for 82% of its total revenue, fundamentally remaining an automobile company. Even worse is the besiegement from domestic emerging forces, causing its imagination to shrink further. Not only is its market share in China gradually shrinking, but also under continuous rounds of price wars, its gross margin keeps decreasing.

Against this background, Musk begins to tell investors a new story about AI, trying to make them believe that Tesla is still an AI company on par with giants like Google and Microsoft, rather than just an ordinary car company.

However, in recent years, the rollout pace of Tesla's Robotaxi has repeatedly been delayed, coupled with aggressive competition, threatening Tesla's position as the leader in smart driving, and the halo of the "technology master" is gradually dimming.

Recently, Waymo announced the expansion of its operations in the USA, providing paid ride services exceeding one hundred thousand times per week. With the support of Google, Waymo's performance is rapidly gaining momentum; at the same time in the domestic market, Baidu's Apollo has completed nearly 900,000 orders in the second quarter, moving towards the goal of regional revenue balance.

The sudden attacks from peers have made the high valuation and halo over Tesla become the Sword of Damocles that could fall at any time.

Since officially announcing the release of Robotaxi on April 5th, Tesla's stock price has soared by 45%. During this time, Musk set a goal, stating "Robotaxi and robot business can make Tesla a $30 trillion market cap company". Equivalent to 10 times the market cap of Apple, even higher than the USA's GDP last year.

The market clearly has high expectations for this. Currently, Tesla's pe ratio is still as high as 67 times, exceeding seven US tech giants. As a comparison, the PE ratio of Chinese and American auto manufacturers is only at single-digit levels.

The extremely high valuation is because investors believe Tesla has more advantages. However, Musk must also show real capabilities to prove continuous innovation and profitability. Otherwise, the unsupported high valuation is just like a house of cards, inevitable to fall.

The bet on AI and smart driving will be the key battle for Musk to "reshape" Tesla. Industry insiders say this might be his last chance to make investors believe that Tesla still has innovation and disruptive power.

It can be said that this 'Robotaxi Day' is not only a technical competition, but also an important declaration of tesla's market positioning, innovation capabilities, and future development strategy, as well as a challenge to its market identity.

Although there are die-hard fans believing in a bullish market, claiming that tesla will grow into a $28.1 trillion self-driving service provider, the market sentiment indicates otherwise.

CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson expressed disappointment in the lack of clarity in tesla's recent product roadmap; analysts from jefferies financial also pointed out that Musk did not provide 'verifiable evidence' of tesla's progress in autonomous driving technology.

As the off-exchange long and short battle begins, there is also frequent internal upheaval. On the eve of this 'historic' event, tesla's Chief Information Officer Nagesh Saldi announced his departure, and several senior executives including the Vice President and Government Affairs Director have also resigned one after another, adding considerable uncertainty to tesla.

However, at this moment, the 'iron man' who has experienced ups and downs is determined, risking it all to make tesla a world-changing company. As long as he can successfully implement these robot 'visions,' Musk still has a chance to work miracles again.