????由于中國區銷量不佳，特斯拉CEO埃隆?穆斯克已經揚言說要炒掉中國團隊的核心高管。月初，特斯拉大中華區市場總監遞交了辭呈。盡管很多媒體報道了這場管理層地震，但這些報道忽略了一個重要背景：中國的電動汽車市場正在釋放重大利好。經歷了多年的平淡增長之后，全球第二大經濟體的電動汽車銷量已經開始呈現井噴之勢——但特斯拉反而被甩在了后面。這表明，中國的電動汽車行業正在發生引人注目的變化，它很可能也是讓穆斯克如此驚慌的一個關鍵原因。

????經歷了漫長的等待，中國電動汽車行業終于開始迅速成長。早在新世紀伊始，中國就制定了一項雄偉的目標：率先成為電動汽車領域的全球領導者，從而在汽車技術方面一舉超越西方。中國政府曾宣稱，到2011年，中國的道路上將出現50萬輛電動汽車。這一幕并未出現。實際上，中國在2011年只售出了不到6000輛電動汽車。隨著美國和日本的電動汽車銷量開始井噴，中國在汽車技術領域超越美國的努力隨之宣告失敗。

????直到最近，中國相對落后的電動汽車業與汽車行業整體形成了鮮明對比。從2000-2014年，中國的汽車市場一直在以驚人的速度增長。根據國際汽車制造商組織的數據，2000年，中國生產的乘用車數量還不如西班牙，大約只有200萬輛。但據中國汽車工業協會上月發布的數據，2014年中國的汽車銷量已超過2300萬輛，一躍成為全球最大的汽車市場。據世界銀行2011年估算，中國的人均汽車保有量約為每千人69輛，而美國則為每千人800輛，所以中國仍有龐大的增長空間。

????中國汽車行業的崛起離不開外國的投資、石油和技術，另一方面，汽車也給這個國家的城市帶來了令人窒息的霧霾，迫使中國的富豪和在華外國人紛紛逃離。中國科技部長萬鋼一直想利用國內的資源取代外國能源、資本和技術。萬鋼曾是奧迪公司的一名工程師，十幾年來，他的目標一直是推動中國由內燃機引擎時代過渡到電動汽車時代，在汽車技術領域超越西方，從而為中國主宰價值2萬億美元的全球汽車市場掃平道路。同時萬鋼還認為，電動汽車是解決中國空氣污染問題的解決方案之一。

????在《大競賽：未來汽車的全球爭霸賽》一書中，我講述了這個雄心勃勃的項目就在不久前是如何遭遇一連串失敗的。直到2014年1月，中國每月只能賣出約600輛電動汽車——同一個月份，美國能賣出6000多輛。

????但就在2014年的最后4個月，中國的電動汽車銷量開始突飛猛進。單單是去年12月，乘用和商用電動汽車的銷量就達到了2.7萬輛。根據中國汽車技術研究中心和美國能源部阿貢國家實驗室的數據，中國的電動汽車銷量首次超過美國。事實上，中國2014年12月的電動汽車銷量幾乎達到2014年1月的30倍。

????許多分析師表示，2014年的最后四個月將被當作中國電動汽車市場的里程碑載入史冊。如果這種增長繼續下去，中國可能將在2015年超過美國，成為全球最大的電動汽車市場。

????同時，這種迅猛的增勢也引發了一系列問題：首先，這些銷售數據是否真實可信？中國汽車市場的統計數據經常是摻了水分的，但作為負責中國汽車方方面面事務的大型科研機構，中國汽車技術研究中心既從事碰撞試驗、又制定汽車電池標準，因此它的數據應該是準確的。有些人說他們是中國汽車數據的“黃金標準”。汽車網站EV-sales.blogspot.com基本上肯定了中國2014年的電動汽車銷量，并附上了各款車型的銷售數據作為支撐。同時該網站還指出，在中國有五家國內廠商的銷量均超過了特斯拉，他們分別是：比亞迪、康迪、奇瑞、眾泰和北汽。

????然后是第二個問題：中國電動車市場的銷量為何飆升？中國汽車技術研究中心的一位分析師認為，這主要歸功于中國取消了電動汽車購置稅（在2014年9月之前，購置稅達到了車輛購買價格的10%）。但單憑減去一筆10%的購置稅，是否就能促進銷量大幅上升？或許吧。政策引導的價格調整有時會給中國汽車市場帶來重大影響。比如2001年加入世貿組織時，中國降低了進口汽車的進口稅。同年，中國的汽車市場增長了37%，因為有些國產廠商被迫降低價格以保持競爭力。另一份針對中國汽車市場的研究顯示，天津一汽公司曾將一款車型的定價調低20%，結果銷量飆升了900%。

????從2008年2月開始，中國汽車市場也和全球其他國家一樣遇冷。為了刺激銷量并鼓勵國民購買更環保的汽車，中國政府降低了對小排量汽車的征稅。2008年3月，中央政府將小排量汽車的購置稅由10%降低至5%。同年四月，汽車銷量上升了22%，到2009年，汽車銷量同比上漲了49%。也就是那一年，中國正式成為全球最大的汽車市場。

????我們現在遠未搞清楚到底是什么因素促使中國的電動汽車銷量出現了這樣大幅度的飆升——以及為什么特斯拉被落在了后頭。有一種可能是年終的政府采購導致12月出現了不同尋常的強勢指標。另一種可能是中國對電動汽車的扶植政策終于達到了臨界點。例如在中國的很多大型城市，為了應對交通堵塞，包括北京在內的很多地方政府通過搖號限制新車上牌。然而在北京，電動汽車可以免除搖號之苦。中國政府還制定了一系列新政策，鼓勵國內廠商相互競爭——而在中國開展電動汽車項目的早些年，中國的電動汽車行業嚴重缺乏競爭壓力。國產汽車或許終于達到了一個質量閾值，開始對中國消費者產生吸引力。

????不管原因是什么，隨著中國電動汽車市場開始起飛，特斯拉開始在國內外同時面臨新的競爭挑戰。寶馬、大眾、通用等傳統廠商都在研發更快、更便宜、續航更長的電動汽車。就在2014年10月，大眾汽車集團CEO海茲曼還聲稱，大眾汽車正在為中國市場研發超過20款電動汽車。另外特斯拉還面臨著來自科技巨頭蘋果等市場新進者的壓力——蘋果近日重金挖走了特斯拉的工程師，而且據說目前正在開發自家的電動汽車。而與此同時，就在中國這個關鍵的新興市場上已經進入重要的拐點時，特斯拉還沒有充分在中國建立起它的品牌，這真是一個大問題。

????或許這就解釋了為什么穆斯克面對疲軟的中國區銷量而無法冷靜。直到最近，中國的電動汽車市場一直表現不佳，而特斯拉則是一家在電動汽車領域獲得了重大成就的公司。突然之間，這種平衡就被翻了個個兒。（財富中文網）

????本文作者Levi Tillemann是新美國基金會研究員，也是《大競賽：未來汽車的全球爭霸賽》一書的作者。這本書描述了電動汽車的興起，以及中國試圖在汽車技術領域通過跨越式超越西方的失敗努力。他曾被美國總統任命為美國能源部的國內外政策顧問，任期兩年。

????譯者：樸成奎

????審校：任文科

????Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has threatened to fire key executives from his China team after weak sales of the automaker’s luxury electric cars. And last week, the company’s chief marketing officer in China resigned. Although the media widely covered the management shakeup, the press has largely ignored the context: a massive boom in China’s market for electric cars. For after years of lackluster growth, electric vehicle sales in the world’s second largest economy are surging – and they are leaving Tesla TSLA -1.56% behind. This represents a striking change of pace for China’s electric vehicle industry, and is likely a key reason that Musk is flustered.

????Growth in China’s electric vehicle industry has been a long time coming. Starting in the early 2000s, China made a lofty goal to leapfrog the West in automotive technology by becoming a world leader in electric cars. The government declared it would have around 500,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2011. That didn’t happen. In fact, China sold fewer than 6,000 that year. Even as electric vehicle sales have swelled in America and Japan, China’s attempt to surpass the U.S. in automotive technology has sputtered.

????Until recently, China’s lagging electric vehicle industry stood in sharp contrast to its overall auto industry. From 2000 through 2014, China’s auto market expanded at an astonishing rate. In 2000, the country produced fewer passenger cars than Spain – about 2 million, according to statistics from the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers. However, China’s Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported last month that 2014 automotive sales surpassed 23 million – making China by far the largest auto market in the world. In 2011, the World Bank estimated per capita vehicle ownership in China at only 69 per thousand people, compared to about 800 per thousand people in the U.S. So China’s industry has significant room for growth.

????The rise of China’s auto industry has been fueled by foreign investment, oil and technology – and it has brought with it a suffocating smog epidemic in China’s largest cities that is driving away wealthy Chinese and foreign expats. China’s Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang has long been working on a plan to replace foreign energy, innovation and capital with domestic resources. He is a former Audi engineer and over more than a decade, his goal has been to overtake the West in automotive technology by pushing China past the era of internal combustion engines and toward electric vehicles – thus setting the stage for China to dominate the $2 trillion-plus global auto market. Wan Gang also sees electric vehicles as one partial solution to China’s sooty air.

????My book, The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future, tells how up until recently that project has been a series of ambitious failures. As late as January 2014, China was selling only about 600 electric cars per month – that same month the U.S. sold over 6,000.

????But during the last four months of 2014, China’s electric vehicle sales skyrocketed. In December alone, monthly sales of passenger and commercial electric vehicles hit 27,000. According to data from the China Automotive Technology Research Center and the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, sales of electric cars in China surpassed sales of electric cars in the U.S. for the first time. In fact, China’s electric vehicle sales in December 2014 were almost 30 times higher than January 2014 sales.

????Many analysts say that the last four months of 2014 will be remembered as the stretch when China’s electric vehicle market finally turned a corner. If this growth continues, China may surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest market for electric vehicles in 2015.

????All this raises a number of questions: First, are these sales figures reliable? Statistics on China’s automotive market are often vague and unreliable. But statistics from the China Automotive Technology Research Center – a massive technical body responsible for everything from crash testing to vehicle battery standards — tend to be good. Some would say they are the gold standard in Chinese automotive data. The website EV-sales.blogspot.com essentially confirmed the 2014 numbers – supported by sales numbers for individual models. EV-salesblogspot.com reported that Tesla was outsold by five domestic manufacturers in China: BYD, Kandi, Chery Zotye and BAIC.

????That leads to a second question: why are sales booming? An analyst from the China Automotive Technology Research Center attributed the jump to the elimination of the vehicle tax on Chinese electric vehicles (until September 2014, buyers were taxed at 10% of the purchase price). But is it really possible that lifting a 10% tax could cause such a massive surge in sales? Perhaps. Policy-led price adjustments have sometimes had spectacular results in China’s auto market. For instance, when the country joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it lowered import tariffs on foreign automobiles. That year, China’s auto market grew by 37%, as some domestic producers were forced to lower prices to remain competitive. When Chinese automaker First Automotive Works Tianjin reduced its sticker price for one model by 20%, sales shot up 900%, according to one study on the Chinese auto market.

????More recently, when China’s auto market started to slow in February 2008 – together with the rest of the world – the country sought to stimulate automotive sales and encourage its citizens to buy cleaner cars by cutting taxes on small displacement gasoline engines. In March, 2008 the central government cut taxes on these small cars to 5% from 10%. Auto sales jumped by 22% in April, and grew by 49% annually in 2009. Thatwas the year China became the largest auto market in the world.

????It’s still far from clear what factors are driving China’s recent electric vehicle boom – and why Tesla was left out. It’s possible that year-end government procurement led to unusually strong numbers in December. Another possibility is that China’s policies to promote electric vehicles have finally reached a tipping point. For instance, to deal with traffic congestion in major Chinese cities, many municipal governments – including Beijing – have limited the number of new vehicle registrations. In Beijing, electric vehicles are exempt from this quota system.The central government has also instituted a new set of policies to encourage competition among domestic manufacturers — competitive pressure that was woefully lacking during the early years of China’s electric vehicle program. Perhaps locally produced vehicles have finally reached a quality threshold that make them attractive to Chinese buyers.

????Whatever the reason, just as China’s electric vehicle market is taking off, Tesla is facing new competitive challenges at home and abroad. Traditional automakers like BMW, Volkswagen VOW3 and General Motors GM 0.16% are developing electric vehicles that are faster, cheaper, and boast better range than before. In fact, in October 2014, Volkswagen’s CEO Jochem Heizmann announced the company was developing more than 20 electric vehicles for the Chinese market. Then there is also the prospect of competition from newcomers like tech giant Apple AAPL -0.68% – which is hiring away Tesla’s engineers for princely sums and is rumored to be developing its own electric car. At the same time, Tesla is struggling to establish its brand in the world’s key emerging market at what may be a critical inflection point. That is a huge problem.

????Perhaps that explains why Musk is losing his cool over weak China sales. Up until recently, China has been an underperforming electric vehicle market, and Tesla has been an over-achieving electric vehicle company. Suddenly, that equation has flipped.

????Levi Tillemann is the Jeff and Cal Leonard Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future, which chronicles the rise of electric cars and China’s messy attempt to leapfrog the West in automotive technology. Previously, he served a two-year presidential appointment advising the U.S. Department of Energy on domestic and international policy.