After being scolded by Li Mu, Elon Musk felt particularly depressed and wronged.
In the face of Li Mu's scolding, he said innocently, "Li Zong, regarding the alternative energy vehicle project, I actually don't think it's that noble and great. I just analyzed it from an investment point of view and felt that this project has the possibility of disrupting the traditional automobile industry. From an investment point of view, the more disruptive a project is, the higher the expected profit margin in the future …"
Li Mu was stunned for a moment, then he nodded gently.
Li Mu used to think that Elon Musk was a person with a strong sense of social responsibility, but after a series of exchanges just now, Li Mu found that there was a certain error in his perception.
In his opinion, Elon Musk was far from being as noble as he thought. He was actually a businessman, a businessman who pursued profits and fame at the same time. At the very least, at this stage, when he was not yet known by the world, he had not yet established a strong sense of social responsibility for himself.
For a moment, Li Mu even felt that Elon Musk's inner world was not much different from Hua Xia's Jobs. Both of them were adventurers and hoped to have a big gamble in life. If they won, they would rule the world. If they lost, they could just start all over again. Elon Musk won the gamble on Tesla, then he won the gamble on SpaceX.
Perhaps Elon Musk would gradually develop a stronger sense of social responsibility on the road to success, but at least for now, Li Mu did not really see it from him.
In his eyes, alternative energy vehicles were not really for environmental protection, nor was it to popularize the importance of clean energy to the world. He just happened to discover a small team called AC-Propulsion, which specialized in research and development of battery-powered vehicles. Then, with the vision of a businessman, he thought that this thing could be done from a business point of view, so he prepared to invest some money. He was completely an angel investor.
Thinking back, Elon Musk's initial investment in Tesla was only 6.2 million USD. No matter how you looked at it, this investment did not match the scale of an automobile manufacturer. Therefore, from the scale of this investment, it could be seen that Elon Musk's original intention in investing in Tesla was cautious. For Tesla, this amount of money was probably only enough to build a prototype car, then use it to tell a story and attract another round of investment.
Therefore, Elon Musk's original intention in investing in Tesla was as simple as an investment project. As for the multiple exaggerations from the media, in Li Mu's opinion, it was mostly done by Elon Musk's team.
The whole world praised Tesla for leading the development of alternative energy vehicles and leading the era of environmental protection and clean energy. However, Tesla was only a plaything for the rich and the middle class before Li Mu was reborn.
Li Mu realized that Elon Musk, as a businessman, did not do anything wrong. What was wrong was that Li Mu had too high expectations of Elon Musk's personality. The root cause was that in his previous life, the media that had been crazy about him had spared no effort to portray his perfect image to the world. He was the "Iron Man of Silicon Valley", the "Hope of Mankind", and the "Colonization of Mars". In the eyes of the media and some people, he was the best entrepreneur on Earth. Now, it seemed that these remarks were somewhat absurd to a certain extent.
Li Mu did not look down on Elon Musk because of that. He just suddenly felt that a person who was portrayed as a god was actually just a businessman through and through. It was just that the field he chose was more likely to excite ordinary people. That was all.
But at the end of the day, there was nothing wrong with it. On the contrary, it was extremely normal. However, Li Mu was somewhat disappointed because he had seen through it.
Li Mu adjusted his impression of Elon Musk and said to him very seriously, "The future Tesla, whether it is to make money or to popularize the concept of clean energy, we have to try to make our products reach more people. We have reached a consensus on this, right?"
Elon Musk nodded.
Li Mu continued, "Society is very impetuous, I admit that. Society advocates extreme products instead of popular products, I also admit that. That's why Tesla's first car to make a name for itself can be a sports car that purely focuses on performance, using this to attract the public's attention. However, after we officially enter the stage, what we really need to introduce to the world will definitely be a product matrix with a mix of high, middle, and low-end grades.
We have to let rich people drive clean energy cars, and we have to let ordinary people have the same opportunity. We have to let new energy have as many potential supporters as possible. If our market share, or the entire new energy vehicle market share, can reach 30% in the future, then we can foresee that we will achieve 30% energy saving and emission reduction for the global family car market! 30% might be equivalent to a few billion tons of greenhouse gases, this is very meaningful. "
Elon Musk understood what Li Mu meant. Li Mu felt that new energy vehicles would be an excellent investment project, but Li Mu felt that new energy vehicles would make a huge contribution to environmental protection, provided that the concept and products of new energy vehicles were popularized globally.
Then, Elon Musk immediately said, "Li Zong, I understand your request. First, we have to have the awareness of a platform, to prepare for future models and mass production. Second, we have to have the awareness of responsibility. We are not just in the car industry, we are not just doing it for money, we are doing it to let the world accept clean energy vehicles."
Li Mu nodded and said, "If it's purely for the sake of making money, I have a lot of high-quality projects on the Internet with light assets, high returns, and short cycles. There's no need to do such a laborious and unrewarding project with heavy assets. But the reason why we have to do it is to provide the world with a set of practical clean energy vehicle solutions. Perhaps because of our efforts, in the future, in a few decades, 80% of the world's household cars will be clean energy vehicles. This is our biggest goal."
Li Mu was not bragging in front of Elon Musk. Makino Technology, Taobao, and Alipay were enough to support a market value of more than a trillion USD in the future. He had already acquired the father of Android, and he would soon have the opportunity to invest in Google and Apple. If these industries were developed smoothly, he would be worth two trillion USD. In this case, he did not need Tesla to make money for him. In contrast, the clean energy revolution represented by Tesla was what Li Mu really valued.
Speaking up to here, Li Mu said in a serious tone, "Once the concept of clean energy is popularized, it will definitely set off a global environmental protection storm. I believe that in the near future, land transportation will be more and more developed towards clean energy. In addition to the electrification of railways, there will be more and more new energy vehicles, including cars, light motorcycles, and trucks. This will be a revolution in the world's energy structure and environmental protection. I hope that Tesla can lead this revolution."
"Understood!" Elon Musk had already begun to accept Li Mu's teachings. This made him feel like he was gradually shouldering more responsibilities.
Li Mu said, "We will face several big problems in promoting new energy. These problems will be the targets that Tesla will work hard to overcome. For example, the energy density of batteries, the price per unit capacity of batteries, the problem of fast charging, the problem of battery decay, and the problem of safety."
After a pause, Li Mu continued, "In the future, new energy vehicles will have a huge shortcoming in terms of endurance. No battery charging speed can match the speed of filling up the fuel tank. Therefore, we have to start thinking of ways to strengthen this shortcoming. For example, you have to find a capable team to start researching on how to fully charge electric vehicles in the shortest time. Find a set of fast charging solutions, and try to reduce its cost as much as possible. In the future, we may have to install this kind of fast charging equipment in developed countries all over the world, even in China. This way, our new energy vehicles and our users can break the limitation of the battery range."
Tesla only began to develop the Super Charging Station technology and deployment of Super Charging Stations around the world in the middle and late stages. This kind of hardware deployment was very dense, and it greatly increased Tesla's losses. However, at that time, Tesla had to do this because Tesla was just a toy of the rich. The rich didn't pay attention to the endurance of Tesla. Once they needed a long-range vehicle, they could use a fuel car as an alternative. Therefore, Tesla became their short-to-medium distance transportation tool.
However, in the middle of Tesla's development, Tesla began to reduce its target customers to the middle class. At that time, Tesla began to be considered as the first or only car by the middle class. The endurance of the Tesla was much lower than the fuel car, and it became Tesla's biggest shortcoming.
Therefore, in order to make up for this shortcoming, Tesla began to build Super Charging Stations everywhere to increase the convenience of Tesla's endurance. In the early stages of the Super Charging Station, Tesla's users could even charge it for free. These measures were to make up for the huge shortcoming of Tesla's lack of endurance.
Li Mu didn't want Tesla to continue the same pace as in his previous life. It only thought about the platform when its production capacity was insufficient, and it only started to introduce new models when its market performance was weak. It only started to build Super Charging Stations when its endurance was seriously troubled, and it only started to build its own battery production base when its battery cost couldn't be suppressed anymore. This pace greatly slowed down Tesla's progress. Therefore, it was especially important for Tesla's future development to start the preparation of supporting technologies in advance.
In Li Mu's expectation, once Tesla was launched, it had to quickly introduce different models and quickly achieve mass production. At the same time, it had to strictly control the cost. Before it was launched, it had to actively promote the concept of alternative energy vehicles and apply for subsidies from various countries' governments. The subsidies included, but were not limited to, tax reduction for alternative energy vehicles, subsidies for alternative energy vehicle consumers, subsidies and convenience for the construction of Super Charging Stations, etc.
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