Musk's Thirty-six Hours in Germany

Editor? /? windsor

Design? /? Zhao Haoran

Source? /? American consumer news and business channel, by Sam? Shede

In the first week of September, Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Elon? Musk) spent in a busy visit. 1-In March, Musk paid a three-day visit to Germany. During these three days, he visited Curevac, a pharmaceutical company, non-stop, then moved to Berlin, met politicians in the capital, and inspected Tesla's new Gigabit factory in the suburbs of Berlin. Finally, with Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diss (Herbert? Diess) meet.

Meet diss

On the evening of September 3, when Musk was about to return to the United States, he arrived at the last stop of his trip to Germany, which was also the most eye-catching trip of his visit to Germany, and met with one of his biggest competitors, CEO Diss of Audi AG.

According to informed sources, after leaving Berlin, Musk flew to Brunswick Airport in Germany, which is located near the headquarters of Volkswagen Wolfsburg.

The meeting lasted about two hours, and Musk tested Volkswagen's brand-new ID.3 electric car. At the same time, the ID.4 electric SUV that Volkswagen will launch at the end of the year, Musk also took a sneak peek.

A spokesperson for the Volkswagen Group confirmed the news that Diss met with Musk, but declined to comment on the details. A Tesla spokesman could not be reached for comment.

For competitor Tesla, Diss has never been stingy with his praise, often praising Tesla and Musk for their contributions to electric vehicles, and even publicly predicting that Tesla may become the most valuable company in the world in the near future.

Having a good opponent can also make you better.

"elon musk made many impossible things possible. He successfully proved that electric cars can be profitable. It is also one of the few automakers who are expected to survive the epidemic crisis without quarterly losses. " Edith said on LinkedIn in July.

In the absence of an alliance between the two companies, it is unprecedented for the CEO of one company to let the CEO of another company watch a new car that has not yet appeared.

On September 4th, Diss wrote on LinkedIn that the German factory planned by Tesla will bring "leading the trend of future automotive technology" to the country. The factory will be Tesla's first car factory in Europe, which can produce up to 500,000 cars a year.

Diss has repeatedly praised Musk's achievements in past public and internal activities. He said: "Tesla will stimulate competition in Germany and greatly accelerate the transformation of our existing industries."

Bernd, chairman of the Volkswagen Trade Union? Osterloh) said in an interview that Volkswagen has the ability to surpass Tesla in the number of electric vehicle manufacturing and software development.

"We hope to achieve the same capacity target as Tesla in 2023, or even earlier." Ostro said, "Volkswagen's modular electric drive matrix platform brings a' huge' advantage because it can make any car of any brand."

"The advantage of Tesla is that they have installed their own software on the vehicle and started collecting data," he said. "Once our system is running, we will have more data soon."

ID.3 and ID.4 are the first two electric vehicles based on Volkswagen MEB modular platform. ID.3 is scheduled to be delivered in September, but it is not planned to be listed in the United States. ID.4 will be put into production this autumn, listed in the United States before the end of the year, and officially unveiled on September 23.

At the same time, Volkswagen recently said that its main competition target of ID.4 will not be for Tesla models? Y, but against Toyota RAV4 and Honda Cr-v.

Volkswagen ID.4 may be introduced in the form of rear wheel drive, equipped with permanent magnet motor. The second motor on the front axle may be added as an option to realize all-wheel drive. Volkswagen said that the rated cruising range of ID.4 reached 365,438+00 miles (498 kilometers) in the European WLTP test cycle and about 240 miles (386 kilometers) in the EPA test cycle.

The first ID.4 model to land in the US market will come from Volkswagen's factory in Zwickau, Germany. With the expansion of the Chattanoou processing plant in Tennessee, the localized production in North America will begin in 2022.

Now, are you curious about Musk's opinion on ID.3?

Promote the development of German energy market.

On September 2, Musk went to a manor in Berlin, and soon after, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also came here. It is still uncertain whether the two have met. What is certain is that Musk was arranged to meet with the German Minister of Economy and Science here.

Tesla recently obtained permission to trade electricity throughout western Europe. The company is also conducting customer research in Germany to understand that they may use Tesla power in cars. This means that Tesla will open up a new front in the European electric vehicle hegemony battle.

Consultants and energy industry executives said that these measures may lay the foundation for the company to compete with mature public utilities in Germany, Europe's largest power market and automobile center.

According to people familiar with the matter, Musk and Minister of Economy Peter Altmeier? Altmaier) met in Berlin for an hour on September 2. "The main topic is Tesla's investment in Germany worth billions of euros."

Tesla plans to build Gigafactory in the suburbs of Berlin, which is its first factory and design center in Europe and is expected to produce Tesla Model? y .

With local competitors Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz preparing to launch competing models, the establishment of the new factory has given the American electric vehicle manufacturer a coveted "Made in Germany" label.

The German government promised to provide more assistance to Tesla's new factory this week, and told Musk that it would try its best to meet all the needs of the new factory in Berlin.

Located in Gruenheide, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Berlin, this German factory can employ about 654.38+200,000 employees and produce 500,000 cars a year. It is planned to be put into production in the summer of 2026, 5438+0.

Although the full text of the conversation has not been made public, Altmeier told Musk: "We are very proud of your car factory in Brandenburg."

Tesla announced the latest gigabit factory plan 1 1 in June 2065438+09, which is currently under construction. This is the company's first factory in Europe and its fourth factory in the world.

The first Gigabit factory is located in Nevada, USA, and the other two are located in Buffalo, new york and Shanghai, China. The fifth cyber truck? Gigafactory is planned to be established in Texas.

During his stay in Berlin, Musk and Brandenburg Prime Minister Dietmar Vaike (Dietmar? Woidke) met. "It was a very pleasant and focused conversation," Vajk said in a statement. "elon musk knows all the details of the new factory."

In February this year, environmentalists in Brandenburg raised objections to Tesla's plan to cut down trees to clean up the land for the new factory, which led to the stagnation of the construction process of the factory. However, Tesla still got permission from the local government to clear 9 1 hectare of forest land.

Berlin factory "there is a hole in the sky"

Musk said on September 3 that Tesla will use its factory in Brandenburg, Germany, to demonstrate the thorough reform of its automobile manufacturing methods and the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries and batteries.

"This will be the first time to transform the core structural design of the vehicle. This is quite a big thing. Whether it is manufacturing, engineering or design. " Musk said.

Musk said that Tesla hopes to help accelerate the transition to sustainable energy, not just making cars. "The three elements of sustainable energy needs in the future are sustainable energy power generation, energy storage and sustainable transportation, and electric vehicles."

Musk's remarks were made after Tesla obtained a power trading license in Western Europe. Musk said that he was satisfied with the progress of the factory and praised the availability of local engineering talents, saying that Tesla needed a lot of recruitment.

"Frankly speaking, it will be better than that factory in America."

In addition to planning to set up the world's most advanced car painting workshop in Brandenburg factory, Tesla also hopes to set up a color laboratory in Germany.

Visit CureVac company

1 September, Musk visited CureVac Company to evaluate the cooperation progress between the company and Tesla. The goal of this cooperative project is to manufacture RNA printers to help produce the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by CureVac.

According to informed sources, Musk praised German vaccine developer CureVac as one of the most innovative companies in the world to Minister of Economy Altmeier.

"The two agreed that CureVac is studying a new vaccine method and cooperating with Tesla, which is considered to be one of the most innovative companies in the world." The person familiar with the matter said.

Take CureVac? 50% of investors want (dietmar? Hopp) said on September 3 that Musk's praise for the biotechnology company does not represent any acquisition intention, and all speculation about the acquisition is "pure fantasy". A CureVac spokesperson said that the acquisition of CureVac shares was not a topic discussed by Musk when he visited the company's headquarters in Tubingen.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.