It seems Tesla is facing heavy competition this year, as Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio has taken it upon itself the challenge of beating the company at its own game.
With the recent expansion of Elon Musk's electric car company in China, Louis Hsieh, the CFO of Nio, is not backing down from the competition and has even welcomed the arrival of the western company. In an interview with CNBC, Hsieh remains confident that his electric car company is up to par with Tesla, enough to go toe to toe with Musk's company and perhaps even more.
"I think it's the right step for them, it would reduce their manufacturing and delivery cost. We think that it will be a very competitive market and they need to be here as it's the largest car market in the world. And while it is a threat to us, we think we are more than up to the challenge," claimed Hsieh.
Meanwhile, Nio apparently does not seem to be having the same production hell problems as Tesla does right now since its first batch of 10,000 electric car models have already met the quota and have been sold out ever since its debut a month ago. One advantage that Nio might have which Tesla does not is the government support from the socialist country, which has proven to be quite a merit as shown by Nio's sales figures and projection for 2018.
This does not mean that Tesla will not try to acquire the same foothold in China, as they are already seeking subsidies or tariff reliefs from the socialist country, but Hsieh predicts that they will not be granted. This is speculated to be due to the existence of Nio and China's reputation for being cold towards foreign companies.
Nio has already made a move with its ES8 model of electric cars. Since it debuted on Dec. 16, it gained much popularity for being half the price of Tesla's Model X. This has made Nio bold and even projected targeted sales of 20,000 to 30,000 units within the first nine months of 2018 in China. It remains to be seen whether Tesla can beat Nio let alone recover from its production hell.
