留學生dissertation：特斯拉在中國市場營銷案例研究
Executive Summary
Facing more and more severe energy shortage and economic pressure, governments and automobile enterprises all over the world generally realize that the replacement of traditional automobiles by new energy vehicles has become a general trend. In order to create a good environment for new energy vehicles, the Chinese government also encourages the development of new energy vehicles through various economic incentives. In this context, the Chinese market has attracted many enterprises to invest and carry out business. Tesla Company cited in this paper is a good example.
As a well-known brand of electric vehicles, Tesla is still in the stage of exploration and development in the Chinese market. Therefore, this report will take Tesla as the case study object, take the literature as the main information source, analyze the problems that Tesla encountered in implementing its business strategy in the Chinese market, and discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by the company, in order to provide reference suggestions for Tesla.
作為電動汽車的知名品牌，特斯拉在中國市場仍處于探索和發展階段。因此，本報告將以特斯拉為案例研究對象，以文獻資料為主要信息來源，分析特斯拉在中國市場實施經營戰略所遇到的問題，探討特斯拉面臨的機遇和挑戰，為特斯拉提供參考建議。
Introduction
2003年，一群希望證明電動汽車比電動汽車更好、更快、更有趣的工程師創造了特斯拉，一家生產和銷售電動汽車、太陽能電池板和儲能設備的美國電動汽車和能源公司。自特斯拉于2014年正式宣布進入中國以來，它一直很難占據領先的市場地位，利潤一直在下降。根據特斯拉2018年年度報告中公布的數據，中國2018年的地區收入為17.57億美元，較上年同期下降了15.4%。本文旨在分析特斯拉在中國市場開發中存在的困難。本文首先介紹了特斯拉在中國的業務，然后詳細討論了特斯拉在中國市場的業務障礙。此外，本文還分析了特斯拉面臨的機遇和挑戰，并提出了相應的建議，以期為特斯拉提供參考價值。#p#分頁標題#e#
Tesla's business analysis in China
Tesla places great importance on the Chinese market. It is related to Tesla's own development strategy and the special strategic position of the Chinese auto market. The company believes that China's huge consumer groups will be drawn by the differences and scarcity of products. There are two main types of Tesla's business services in China: automobile sales related business and after-sales service.特斯拉非常重視中國市場。這關系到特斯拉自身的發展戰略和中國汽車市場的特殊戰略地位。該公司認為，中國龐大的消費群體將被產品的差異性和稀缺性所吸引。特斯拉在中國的業務服務主要有兩種：汽車銷售相關業務和售后服務。
Firstly, sales of complete vehicles and the sale of related parts are the main business of Tesla. Unlike traditional vehicle sales channels, Tesla has no dealers (Engle 2018). Online contact with consumers in the form of an experience store. Interested consumers can go to the experience store to experience Tesla car products, then make an appointment for a test drive and online ordering.
一是整車銷售及相關零部件銷售是特斯拉的主營業務。與傳統的汽車銷售渠道不同，特斯拉沒有經銷商，以體驗店的形式與消費者進行在線聯系。感興趣的消費者可以到體驗店體驗特斯拉汽車產品，然后預約試駕和在線訂購。
Also, there are three principal forms of after-sales service launched by Tesla: maintenance services, battery related services and used car value-added services (Tesla 2019). The first is maintenance services. There are for two ways: First, cloud services, consumers can self-diagnose and troubleshoot glitch through the service content stored in advance. The second is the service center, where customers can make repairs by making an appointment to the service center. Tesla has established fixed and mobile service centers in large and medium cities. The second is battery-related services. After the car was sold, Tesla installed a charging device for the customer to build a super solar charging station to charge the customer for free. Finally, the second-hand car value-added service. Since April 2013, Tesla has pledged to repurchase customers' used cars within 36-39 months of the delivery of Model S.
此外，特斯拉還推出了三種主要的售后服務形式：維護服務、電池相關服務和二手車增值服務。一是維修服務。有兩種方法：一是云服務，消費者可以通過預先存儲的服務內容進行自我診斷和故障排除。第二個是服務中心，客戶可以預約到服務中心進行維修。特斯拉在大中型城市建立了固定和移動服務中心。第二個是與電池相關的服務。汽車售出后，特斯拉為客戶安裝了充電裝置，為客戶建造了一個超級太陽能充電站，為客戶免費充電。最后，二手車增值服務。自2013年4月起，特斯拉承諾在S型車交付后36-39個月內購回客戶的二手車。#p#分頁標題#e#
Tesla's issue in China market
Promotion strategy ineffectively
Tesla adopted the word-of-mouth promotion strategy in the promotion of electric vehicles. In other words, Tesla abandoned the traditional advertising, relying mainly on social media, blog forums, word of mouth and other means to promote its products. For example, Google President Larry Page and Hollywood famous star Schwarzenegger are Tesla users (Alghalith 2018). They have a lot of fans, which is equivalent to a free promotion for Tesla. And Tesla updates every step of the company's progress every month on the blog. However, in the Chinese market, the way Chinese consumers receive foreign information is limited (Alghalith 2018). Therefore, the promotion of social media through foreign media has little impact on Chinese potential consumers. On the other hand, China's old high-end cars are heavily advertised in China, allowing more people to understand their brands, accumulate market resources and develop potential customers through advertising (Alghalith 2018). Therefore, Tesla's strategy of relying on user word-of-mouth promotion without any paid advertising will make Tesla difficult to be known by more consumers in China.
特斯拉在電動汽車推廣中采用了口碑推廣策略。換句話說，特斯拉放棄了傳統的廣告方式，主要依靠社交媒體、博客論壇、口碑等手段來推廣其產品。例如，谷歌總裁拉里·佩奇和好萊塢著名明星施瓦辛格是特斯拉用戶。他們有很多粉絲，這相當于特斯拉的免費促銷活動。特斯拉每月都會在博客上更新公司發展的每一步。然而，在中國市場，中國消費者接收外國信息的方式是有限的=。因此，通過外國媒體推廣社會媒體對中國潛在消費者的影響很小。另一方面，中國的老款高端車在中國大量投放廣告，讓更多的人了解自己的品牌，積累市場資源，并通過廣告開發潛在客戶。因此，特斯拉依靠用戶口碑推廣而不做任何付費廣告的策略，將使特斯拉在中國的消費者難以知曉。
Threats
As one of the largest foreign-funded automobile enterprises in China, Tesla has faced many serious challenges. One noticeable challenge is the fierce competition from local firms in the market. From the perspective of the current market structure, huge numbers of local automobile enterprises in China are responsible for the production and sales of new energy vehicles. That is, local automobile firms domain a strong position in Chinese market. The main reason is the subsidy policy from Chinese government. Dixon (2018) reported that Chinese government has promote subsidies for new energy vehicles from 2016 to 2020. The new energy vehicles which meet the rules can receive subsidies. Actually, most Chinese local electronic vehicles are benefit from this policy. Unlike the local vehicle firms such as BYD, Tesla has no new energy vehicles in the list of subsidies. As a result, customers prefer to purchase new energy vehicles from the local enterprise instead of Tesla because of their lower prices. There is no doubt that the sales volume of the local vehicle firms sharply rises. Demandt (2018) points out that sales of Chinese local vehicle enterprise rose by 5.2% in 2017, but sales of foreign-funded companies were only up 0.8%. Obviously, Tesla has suffered attack because of fierce competition in the market and the price disadvantage. It is reported that BYD which has become the largest seller of electric vehicles in the world sold over 96,000 new energy vehicles in 2016. On the contrary, Tesla only sold 83,922 vehicles (China Hand 2017). This data implies that Tesla has met challenges from competitors.#p#分頁標題#e#作為中國最大的外資汽車企業之一，特斯拉面臨著許多嚴峻的挑戰。一個明顯的挑戰是來自當地企業的激烈競爭。從目前的市場結構來看，中國有大量的本土汽車企業負責新能源汽車的生產和銷售。也就是說，中國本土汽車公司在中國市場占有很強的地位。主要原因是中國政府的補貼政策。Dixon（2018）報告稱，中國政府已從2016年到2020年推動新能源汽車補貼。符合規定的新能源汽車可以獲得補貼。實際上，大多數中國本土的電子汽車都受益于這一政策。與比亞迪等當地汽車公司不同，特斯拉在補貼清單中沒有新能源汽車。因此，由于價格較低，客戶更愿意從當地企業而不是特斯拉購買新能源汽車。毫無疑問，當地汽車公司的銷售量急劇上升。德曼特（2018）指出，2017年中國本土汽車企業的銷售額增長了5.2%，而外資企業的銷售額僅增長了0.8%。顯然，由于市場競爭激烈和價格劣勢，特斯拉受到了攻擊。據報道，比亞迪已成為全球最大的電動汽車銷售商，2016年銷售了96000多輛新能源汽車。相反，特斯拉僅售出83922輛汽車。這一數據意味著特斯拉已經迎接了競爭對手的挑戰。
What’s more it is not the only issues Tesla is facing. Another challenge is the technological problem that the whole industry has been faced with. As a kind of new energy, electronic vehicles did not have a long history. As a result, the technology of electronic vehicles has not been improved. Toma (2017) reported that the electronic vehicle companies have faced huge challenges from the technology of these cars. Battery life is still short and features and functionality of battery in electronic cars have not been improved since 2006, which means that the life of electronic cars is shorter than the one of traditional cars. Additionally, the shortage of Lithium also brings enterprise technological challenges. Enterprise used to apply hybrids in the new energy cars, while later they use Lithium to replace hybrids. However, Lithium is a limited resource, which means that companies may meet problem from the shortage of battery in the new energy cars.
而且，這并不是特斯拉面臨的唯一問題。另一個挑戰是整個行業所面臨的技術問題。電子汽車作為一種新能源，歷史不長。因此，電子汽車的技術沒有得到改善。TOMA（2017）報告稱，電子汽車公司面臨著這些汽車技術的巨大挑戰。電池壽命仍然較短，自2006年以來，電子汽車電池的特性和功能沒有得到改善，這意味著電子汽車的壽命比傳統汽車短。此外，鋰的短缺也給企業帶來了技術挑戰。企業過去在新能源汽車中使用混合動力，而后來他們使用鋰來取代混合動力。然而，鋰是一種有限的資源，這意味著公司可能會遇到新能源汽車電池短缺的問題。
Opportunities
Although Tesla has faced various challenges in its business operation, it is still provided with opportunities. Firstly, Chinese people begin to put more emphasis on the environment protection. In recent years, PM2.5 was proved to be a serious factor of diseases. Additionally, as many factories exhaust gas illegally and many mobile vehicles did not reach the exhaust pollution, this situation became more serious. It is reported that China has become the largest gas emission country in the world, overtaking the United States (The Guardian 2015). In order to protect the environment and dispel people’s concerns about air pollution, Chinese government has promote policy to restrict the emission of gas. The implement of this policy had a huge influence on automobile enterprises. As the emission standards have been raised, the traditional automobile manufacturers will be affected. However, new energy automobile market will benefit from it, which means that Tesla gain huge opportunity from this policy. Today, huge numbers of young people have become main consumers to purchase vehicles. Different from elder people, they tend to have a new energy car because of their environmental protection concept. As a result, electronic vehicle has been popular in the Chinese market. Unlike the depression of sales volume in China in recent years, McCarthy (2018) pointed out that ‘electric car sales are surging In China’ and nearly 579 thousand electronic cars are purchased by Chinese customers in 2017.#p#分頁標題#e#
盡管特斯拉在其業務運營中面臨各種挑戰，但仍有機會。首先，中國人開始更加重視環境保護。近年來，PM2.5被證明是一種嚴重的疾病因素。此外，由于許多工廠非法排放廢氣，許多機動車輛沒有達到廢氣污染的程度，這種情況變得更加嚴重。據報道，中國已成為世界上最大的天然氣排放國，超過美國。為了保護環境，消除人們對空氣污染的擔憂，中國政府出臺了限制天然氣排放的政策。這一政策的實施對汽車企業產生了巨大的影響。隨著排放標準的提高，傳統的汽車制造商也將受到影響。然而，新能源汽車市場將從中受益，這意味著特斯拉從這一政策中獲得了巨大的機遇。今天，大量的年輕人已經成為購買汽車的主要消費者。與老年人不同的是，由于他們的環保理念，他們傾向于擁有一輛新能源汽車。因此，電子汽車在中國市場上得到了廣泛的應用。與近年來中國銷量低迷不同，麥卡錫（2018）指出，“中國電動汽車銷量激增”，2017年中國消費者購買了近57.9萬輛電動汽車。
Besides that, Tesla may also gain opportunity because of the popularization of charging positions. In the previous time, the number of charging positions cannot meet the demands of new energy vehicles. It is a big problem for Chinese drivers who have electronic cars to charge for them. However, this problem may be improved in the future. Liu (2018) stated that Chinese governments has made effort to increase charging stations recently. Having heard some recent news from a nationwide charging network, Chinese government decides to increase 12,000 charging stations in order to allow nearly five million electronic cars to be charged by 2020. Additionally, China will also establish 4.8 million power stations and 500,000 will be open to the public. This may be the good news for Tesla. Thanks to the policy of popularization of charging stations in China, electronic vehicles may not only be charged at home, but also be charged outside at any time. Those who used to worry about charging problem may be satisfied with the policy and their degree of worry may be decreased. Under the help of charging positions, the gap between electronic cars and gasoline vehicles may be narrowed. As a result, it may be possible for an increasing number of drives to purchase new energy vehicles.
除此之外，特斯拉還可能因為充電位置的普及而獲得機會。以前，充電位置的數量不能滿足新能源汽車的需求。對于擁有電子汽車的中國司機來說，這是一個大問題。然而，這個問題將來可能會得到改善。劉（2018）表示，中國政府最近已努力增加充電站。在聽到全國性充電網絡的一些最新消息后，中國政府決定增加1.2萬個充電站，以便在2020年前為近500萬輛電子汽車充電。此外，中國還將建立480萬個發電站，50萬個向公眾開放。這可能是特斯拉的好消息。由于我國充電站的普及政策，電子車輛不僅可以在國內充電，而且可以隨時在國外充電。過去擔心收費問題的人可能會對政策感到滿意，他們的擔心程度可能會降低。在充電位置的幫助下，電子汽車和汽油汽車之間的差距可能會縮小。因此，可能會有越來越多的驅動器購買新能源汽車。#p#分頁標題#e#
Conclusion
Through the above case studies, we can sum up the main problems faced by Tesla. Tesla's profit is declining and competitors are seizing the market. This does not mean that Tesla's products have problems. The reason is the problem of marketing strategy. Emphasizing customer value and implementing value-oriented strategy is the way Tesla should take. At the same time, Tesla's lack of accurate brand positioning and marketing mix strategy, the drastic price reduction measures contradict Tesla's strategy of positioning high-end market. In addition, the decline in sales also shows that the promotion is not enough, it is very important to expand sales channels and increase the intensity of promotion.
通過以上案例研究，可以總結出特斯拉面臨的主要問題。特斯拉的利潤在下降，競爭對手正在搶占市場。這并不意味著特斯拉的產品存在問題。原因是營銷策略的問題。強調客戶價值和實施價值導向戰略是特斯拉應該采取的方式。同時，特斯拉缺乏準確的品牌定位和營銷組合策略，大幅降價措施與特斯拉定位高端市場的策略相矛盾。此外，銷售量的下降也表明促銷力度不夠，擴大銷售渠道，加大促銷力度是非常重要的。
Recommendations
Price strategy
As China's auto market becomes more mature, consumers are getting more and more rational in choosing, combined with the convenience of information exchange, the price of luxury cars is becoming increasingly transparent. It is no longer appropriate for automobile manufacturers to earn the trust price difference of loyal customers by setting exorbitant prices, then offering substantial discounts to attract potential customers. Automobile consumption has changed from luxury consumption to finished product quality consumption. Honest and reasonable price is the performance of respecting the market rules of consumers. Therefore, Tesla needs to return to the original pricing strategy, that is, the US market price plus freight and various taxes and fees.隨著中國汽車市場的日趨成熟，消費者的選擇越來越理性，再加上信息交流的便利性，豪華車的價格也越來越透明。汽車生產企業再也不適合通過設定過高的價格來賺取忠誠客戶的信任差價，然后提供大量的折扣來吸引潛在客戶。汽車消費從奢侈品消費向成品質量消費轉變。誠實合理的價格是尊重消費者市場規則的表現。因此，特斯拉需要回到原來的定價策略，即美國市場價格加上運費和各種稅費。
Place strategy
Tesla's marketing channel is experiential store sales model, but the effect of this model in China is not good. Therefore, Tesla still needs to take the following measures to improve.
特斯拉的營銷渠道是體驗式商店銷售模式，但在中國這種模式的效果并不好。因此，特斯拉仍需采取以下措施加以改進。#p#分頁標題#e#
Firstly, Tesla can cooperate with local e-commerce platforms in China to expand sales channels. Despite Tesla's online sales function on China's official website, it is necessary to build additional sales windows for online sales platforms with huge user groups such as Tianmao and Jingdong, considering the consumption habits of Chinese consumers and the convenience of payment. People who search for Tesla cars or similar products on the e-commerce platform tend to have a clear purchasing purpose, and their willingness to consume is stronger than those who browse on the general search engine, so Tesla can more easily target customers.
首先，特斯拉可以與中國本土的電子商務平臺合作，拓展銷售渠道。盡管特斯拉在中國官方網站上擁有在線銷售功能，但考慮到中國消費者的消費習慣和支付的便利性，有必要為天貓、京東等擁有龐大用戶群的在線銷售平臺建立額外的銷售窗口。在電子商務平臺上搜索特斯拉汽車或類似產品的人往往有明確的購買目的，他們的消費意愿比瀏覽一般搜索引擎的人更強，因此特斯拉可以更容易地瞄準客戶。
In addition, consumers often want to have a more comprehensive understanding of Tesla's actual use experience, including not only driving control but also routine maintenance and charging. So Tesla can try to offer a paid short-term lease to potential customers, giving them ample time to understand the superior experience of Tesla cars, dispel their doubts and anxiety about new energy vehicles in all aspects, and at the same time, it can play a very good role in promoting and displaying their family and colleagues when these target customers drive home or work.
此外，消費者通常希望對特斯拉的實際使用經驗有更全面的了解，包括駕駛控制，以及日常維護和充電。因此，特斯拉可以嘗試向潛在客戶提供短期有償租賃，讓他們有足夠的時間了解特斯拉汽車的優越體驗，消除他們對新能源汽車的各個方面的疑慮和焦慮，同時，在這些目標實現時，它可以在促進和展示他們的家人和同事方面發揮非常好的作用。客戶開車回家或上班。
Promotion strategy
Armstrong et al. (2015) indicated that satisfying consumer psychology is the key to successful marketing strategies. Tesla can encourage consumers to buy Tesla's products by incorporating the discount of used cars into the sales promotion strategy of new vehicles. If the replaced old car is also Tesla product, it can be renovated by the government and provide warranty and then sold at a more preferential price for the second time to achieve another level of preferential promotion. Meanwhile, Tesla can use reality shows and other forms to prove that Tesla can achieve long-distance travel, which can increase attention, and also can dispel potential customers’ concerns about the endurance of new energy vehicles. Additionally, the company could consider setting up some environmental protection funds in the name of Tesla to study the technology of air pollution control. It could also organize some public welfare activities with environmental protection as the theme and sponsor some documentaries with environmental protection as the title, so that Tesla's brand can be equated with green environmental protection and establish a brand image that actively participates in environmental protection in the market.#p#分頁標題#e#
Armstrong等人（2015）表明，滿足消費者心理是成功營銷策略的關鍵。特斯拉可以鼓勵消費者購買特斯拉的產品，將舊車折扣納入新車促銷策略。如果更換的舊車也是特斯拉產品，政府可以對其進行翻新并提供保修，然后再以更優惠的價格再次銷售，以達到另一個級別的優惠促銷。同時，特斯拉還可以通過實況轉播等形式證明特斯拉能夠實現長途旅行，提高關注度，也可以消除潛在客戶對新能源汽車耐久性的擔憂。此外，公司可以考慮以特斯拉的名義設立一些環境保護基金，研究空氣污染控制技術。還可以組織一些以環保為主題的公益活動，贊助一些以環保為標題的紀錄片，使特斯拉的品牌等同于綠色環保，樹立積極參與市場環保的品牌形象。
References
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