My Age of Investment

Latest website:

After sitting in the Model S prototype car and playing with the simple and outrageous steering wheel, Toyoda was full of curiosity and emotion.

With this rough workmanship and interior, can it be sold for $60,000? Are Americans so easy to fool?

But when he thought about the $110,000 price tag of the Roadster that went on sale three years ago, he felt relieved.

As long as the story is well told, there is no need to worry about fools paying the bill.

Putting aside the interior materials and workmanship, some of the design concepts and performance of Model S still impressed him.

Xia Jingxing didn't get into the car, but stood beside the car, silently observing everything in the car.

He noticed that Akio Toyoda was constantly observing the seams of the car seats, and touching and measuring the gaps between the windows and doors with his hands, so he explained with a smile: "Interiors are not the main focus of our products. People who buy our cars don’t buy them because of the interior.”

Akio Toyoda raised his head, smiled and said: "Instill a new car aesthetic in customers? Simplicity equals technology?"

Xia Jingxing laughed loudly, "Mr. Toyota, your suggestion is very good. We will try to work in this direction in the future."

"Darren, I can see that Tesla is indeed very immature right now. You still lack a mature factory before you can become a truly mature automobile manufacturer."

Toyoda Akio walked out of the car with a smile and closed the car door with a bang. Then he leaned against the car door, crossed his arms and looked at Xia Jingxing.

Xia Jingxing smiled noncommittally and said nothing.

Akio Toyoda looked at Xia Jingxing and said slowly: "I have a suggestion that can quickly make Tesla a mature automobile manufacturer. I wonder if you are interested in hearing it."

"Okay, I'll never say no to any suggestion that will help us grow."

Akio Toyoda smiled and said: "If we sell the Fremont factory to Tesla, you won't be able to produce at full capacity for a while."

If I remember correctly, your Roadster seems to have only sold over 2,000 units.

Even if the Model S is cheaper and has more mature technology, it will take a lot of effort and time to sell 20,000 or 200,000 units.

If there are not enough orders for the factory to operate, Tesla's car manufacturing process will not mature quickly. At the same time, the factory's production resources will also be idle, which is a huge waste.

At its peak, the Fremont factory can produce 500,000 cars per year. How long will it take for Tesla to reach this sales volume? "

Seeing that Xia Jingxing didn't answer, Toyoda stopped hiding it and finally revealed his true purpose.

"How about working with us to develop a new generation of RAV4 pure electric version?"

Xia Jingxing asked calmly: "How to cooperate in development?"

"It's very simple. You provide new energy technologies, and we are responsible for providing mature automobile development platforms."

Xia Jingxing didn't answer in a hurry, his face showed contemplation.

This expression fell in Toyoda's eyes, and he continued to add a heavy weight.

“If Tesla is willing to cooperate with Toyota to develop a pure electric version of RAV4, we can make appropriate concessions on the price of your acquisition of the Fremont factory.

At the same time, Toyota can also make an equity investment in Tesla to help you complete the mass production of Model S. "

Akio Toyoda looked at Xia Jingxing with a smile. He originally came to the United States from Japan in a hurry because he wanted to turn the waste factory into treasure and steal a fortune from the new richest man in Asia.

But after getting in touch with him, he found that Xia Jingxing was not easy to fool. He could earn such a big fortune at such a young age, so how could he be mediocre?

So he quickly changed his strategy and followed Xia Jingxing to visit Tesla.

After some inspection, he made a mental evaluation and found that Tesla basically met his requirements for a partner.

First of all, the car brand is not big and famous, and it will not threaten Toyota's dominance.

Secondly, Tesla’s new energy technology is indeed outstanding, which is also where Toyota currently lacks or is insufficient.

If they can entrust Tesla to upgrade the RAV4 at a very small cost and test the market, it will undoubtedly save Toyota a lot of R\u0026D expenditures.

If the pure electric RAV4 is a big success after its launch, Toyota can do it on its own and make a big move into the pure electric field.

If you fail, you will lose a little money.

In short, in his eyes, Tesla is just a pawn of Toyota, someone who can be driven and exploited.

Finally, he also plans to invest in Tesla to increase Toyota's influence on this emerging automaker.

He heard that Mercedes-Benz has also invested in Tesla, and the U.S. Department of Energy has also provided a loan to it. It is expected to have an IPO soon. Toyota may still make a profit from this investment.

Xia Jingxing pretended to think for a while, then smiled and held out his hand, "Such a good proposal, I think we have no reason to refuse."

The corners of Akio Toyoda's mouth curled up slightly, he was still too young, and he would give it up with just a little profit.

But then again, if Toyota, the world's number one automaker, is willing to cooperate with the fledgling Tesla, it may not mean that Toyota is taking advantage of it, and the other party may also be enjoying it secretly.

The two people with different intentions shook hands with each other and felt that they had not suffered a loss in this transaction.

…………

…………

After taking care of Toyota, Aoguanhai's office went on to do some ideological work on GM.

Gu Bo

GM was very eager to sell the Fremont plant, and the deal was negotiated with little effort.

In the end, Tesla bought the soon-to-be-shuttered car manufacturing plant for $50 million.

Moreover, Tesla does not have to pay for this money itself, because Toyota agreed to invest US$50 million in Tesla at a pre-money valuation of US$1.5 billion.

Tesla acquired the Fremont factory at the cost of 3.23% of its shares without using any funds on its books.

Regarding Toyota's investment in Tesla, Xia Jingxing also communicated with Zetsche.

Zetsche did not object to this matter, but emphasized that it should not affect the technical cooperation between Tesla and Daimler.

At this point, all obstacles blocking Tesla's mass production plan have been swept away.

Immediately afterwards, Tesla held a board meeting to solicit opinions from various directors on the next major actions.

“After unremitting efforts during this period, Tesla has obtained one debt financing and two equity financings, totaling US$625 million.

After deducting the US$50 million spent to acquire the factory, there is still nearly US$600 million in funds on the account.

The money will mainly be used for the mass production of Model S, including purchasing and installing automobile production lines, recruiting production workers, supply chain management, research and development software, etc. "

As soon as Straubel finished speaking, Draper's partner Tim Draper frowned and asked: "We still need to buy production lines and recruit workers. Has the Fremont factory become an empty factory?"

Looking at the doubtful looks cast by the directors around him, Straubel nodded and said, "That's right, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to buy this factory at such a cheap price.

For example, what we are buying now is just an empty house, and we still need to do the furniture and decoration inside. "

Draper shook his head, "This news doesn't sound good. It won't affect Tesla's mass production and launch, right?"

As soon as these words came out, the other directors all looked at Straubel worriedly.

It’s not that they don’t trust Straubel, it’s that Tesla has created countless “surprises” for everyone over the years, and it would be abnormal if nothing goes wrong every time when it comes to a critical moment.

Xia Jingxing asked tentatively: "How about we, the old shareholders, raise some more money to join the investment? Tesla has more funds and can handle things more calmly."

As soon as these words came out, the scene was a little awkward because there was no one to answer the question.

Even Draper, who has always been the most supportive and optimistic about Tesla, has remained silent.

Seeing that Tesla is developing better and better, and the amount of financing is getting larger and larger, everyone is happy, but they also feel that they cannot afford to play this money-burning game.

In order to resolve the embarrassment, Xia Jingxing changed the subject and said: "I contacted the executives of Chinese Bank and they are willing to provide Tesla with a loan of no more than US$200 million."

Draper's eyes suddenly lit up, "Chinese Bank? Is it the East-West Bank that was privatized by Darren?"

“Yes, they are now adjusting their business strategy and are happy to establish a long-term cooperative relationship with Tesla.

If users purchase Tesla in the future, Chinese banks can also provide car installment loans. "

Upon hearing this, everyone still didn't understand that the Chinese Bank was opening the door to Tesla for Xia Jingxing's sake.

Chinese Bank was wholly acquired by Xia Jingxing, but Tesla was not wholly owned by Xia Jingxing alone. They had no reason to object to the fact that the major shareholders contributed and the small shareholders benefited.

Of course, Xia Jingxing also made it clear that the Chinese bank’s current “favor investment” in Tesla will be repaid by Tesla in the future using its seat as an auto finance partner.

Everyone has no opinion on this. It is a matter of mutual benefit, and Tesla benefits first.

Straubel added: “If you add in the US$200 million loan provided by Chinese Bank, Tesla will have a total of nearly US$800 million in funds on its account.

If Model S is sold within the next year, a deposit of US$200 million will be collected through pre-sale.

With US$1 billion in hand, there will no longer be any problems with mass production. We are fully confident that we will deliver the first batch of cars in the first half of next year and launch an IPO plan at the same time. "

The directors who attended the meeting all looked happy. Is the dawn finally coming?

Among them, those who have invested in Tesla for five or six years have been waiting for it for a long time. They are afraid that Tesla will fail.

Fortunately, it didn't fail, and it became more and more successful, and the listing was just around the corner.

While everyone around him was in a fit of ecstasy, Draper remained calm.

He noticed a problem and couldn't help but ask: "How much is the deposit for a car? It's impossible to charge the full deposit like before, right?"

"of course not!"

Xia Jingxing smiled and shook his head, "What do you think of twenty thousand dollars?"

Draper frowned, "Does that mean we need to pre-sell 10,000 cars? Is it possible to increase sales by four times compared to the Roadster?"

“If you don’t force yourself, you definitely won’t be able to do it, but now the listing has been put on the agenda, and I believe everyone is looking forward to this day coming as soon as possible.

I think everyone should set a small goal together and sell 10,000 units of it first! "

Draper nodded lightly, "I understand. You want to mobilize the power of the entire company to sprint together and strive to create a higher IPO pricing and market value."

"Yes, a good IPO result is a huge encouragement to shareholders, employees, partners, customers and the market.

We need to make the fire on the new energy vehicle track burn brightly. Only when it catches fire will this industry truly shine with its dazzling light. "

Latest website: