If Tesla and Volvo collide, which would be more damaging?

Volvo has just given Tesla a blast. On Wednesday, the automaker announced that all ** cars launched from 2019 onwards will be pure electric or hybrid. This marks the beginning of Volvo Cars' departure from the era of pure internal combustion engines and the beginning of a transition to a future where electrification is at the heart of its development.

At the same time, Volvo will be the first luxury automaker to fully adopt electrification technology. At first glance, all this may not seem too important, after all, Volvo sold 534332 units worldwide last year. It only accounts for global sales.

But when you think about it, Volvo's plan sums up the challenges Tesla faces. Admittedly, Volvo will be less reliant on gasoline engines by announcing that "everything will be electrified". However, Volvo will continue to produce pure fuel vehicles in the models launched recently.

The difference is that over the next two years, Volvo will continue to introduce hybrid electric vehicles as well as mild hybrid electric vehicles like Toyota's Prius. Hybrid electric vehicles are being sold more than pure electric vehicles, especially in the fast-growing Chinese market. Currently, half of the world's electric and hybrid vehicles are sold in China.

And Volvo holding Geely is also active in China. Barclays Bank, one of the world's largest banks and financial institutions, notes that Tesla's sales account for only 3% of China's electric and hybrid vehicle sales. Local automakers still dominate selling cheaper cars; At the same time, companies such as Daimler and General Motors are also expanding.

This could further reduce the cost of the battery, depriving Tesla of its main advantage. The Volvo program is a symbol of Tesla's growing competition around the world. In fact, it is planned that all automakers will have their own electric and hybrid vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf and BMW's high-end i3 and i8.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Tesla is going down a dead end. But it can't help but call into question time and time again its aggressive goal of selling 500,000 cars by the end of next year – five times the number sold this year. However, all this pales in comparison to Volvo's current sales and projected sales of 1 million units in 2020.

Tesla Musk fulfilled his promise as scheduled, and the first batch of Model 3 models delivered on the 28th, the first owner was himself, and the rest of the first batch of owners were Tesla employees, and then Tesla will gradually expand production and complete the order of 500,000 units as soon as possible. Tesla Model 3 has also become the focus of attention recently, and the performance parameters are what users want to see. Tesla officially said that the Model 3 is the safest car in its class.

At the press conference, Tesla released such a paragraph**, comparing the collision results of Volvo S60 and Tesla Model 3, "Volvo is the second safest car in the world", Musk said. Tesla also posted the event on its official Twitter account, which showed crash test footage of the Model 3 and Volvo S60. The Model 3 is very similar to the S60 in terms of price point and body size, with the S60 receiving the highest safety rating of five stars in the U.S. Department of Transportation testing.

However, ** shows that the S60 did not perform as well as the Model 3 in the same crash test. When striking an obstacle at 20 mph (32 km h), the S60's cabin was significantly deformed, while the Model 3's cabin was nearly intact. The S60 is a mid-size luxury sedan launched by Volvo in 2010, and the reason why Tesla compares the S60 with its new car is that Volvo is not only well-known in the field of automotive safety, but also because the S60 has received a five-star crash test rating from the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA).

NHTSA data shows that, despite its age, the S60 is still the safest model in its class. In a recent crash test against Audi's A4 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class, the S60 still scored the best score.

Tesla admits that it has suffered a lot in the development process of the Model 3 - in order to achieve mass production as scheduled in July, Tesla, which originally "delayed is a virtue", chose to skip the trial production step of the Model 3 and directly put into mass production preparation. In fact, the Model 3 is also the first model in Tesla's history to go into mass production as scheduled without experiencing "skipping". Tesla also said that if it weren't for the lag in battery capacity, they could have sold more vehicles in the first half of 2017.

At the beginning of the release of the Model 3, doubts about Tesla's "Ponzi **" were once loud, and the doubts were especially focused on the battery. According to the current decline curve of power battery cost, some analysts said that the Tesla Model 3, which was mass-produced in 2018, could not maintain a starting price of 10,000 US dollars. In this regard, Tesla also went through a difficult period of debunking rumors, and finally relied on data to regain the public's trust.

Compared with traditional car companies, Tesla has achieved the production of pure electric vehicles on the road "in one step". However, due to this cutting-edge production strategy, Tesla has also had to "skip tickets" many times in its previous design, and has also been questioned many times because of the new technology it uses.

For Tesla, time is always of the essence; For automakers like Volvo, what they need to accomplish is a smooth transition from conventionally powered cars to electric vehicles. At the same time, Tesla's "electric vehicle dominance" status has also been severely challenged recently. With the rapid development of electric vehicles and unmanned driving, many Chinese companies are also gearing up to realize their "car-making dream".

However, Chinese companies should also think clearly about whether they should learn from the "radical" Tesla Jingyi vertical pull or the "stability" Volvo. Although the automotive industry is beautiful, if you want to succeed, the creativity and determination of "Tesla" and the large size and good reputation of "Volvo" are all indispensable qualities.

Test Volvo's new technology to make technical reserves for Volvo's new energy escort models for a large number of ordinary consumers in the future. Take a look back at Tesla, the competitor that was mentioned at the press conference. It can be said that all traditional power car manufacturers are eyeing the high-performance new energy vehicle market represented by Tesla.

China has just finalized the double credit policy, which has indeed played a positive role in promoting the transformation of new energy models by various car manufacturers. From the perspective of ordinary consumers, 2019, a year later, will be a more rational year to choose new energy models, because various car manufacturers seem to be investing in the research and development, construction and production of new energy vehicles. Most of the products will be officially unveiled in the market in 2019, when the competition among manufacturers in the new energy vehicle market will be much more fierce than now, and the fierce competition means that consumers can use better models faster.

The future is promising. At least for now, most of these new energy vehicles that have been unveiled and will be launched in the next two years are still quite good.