即將在群狼環伺的電動汽車市場成為競爭對手的特斯拉和戴森，都將在亞洲破土動工，事實就是如此。上個月，在上海郊區一個泥濘的河邊場地上，工人、記者和政府官員冒雨見證了特斯拉首個海外工廠的破土動工。與此同時，戴森正于新加坡熱帶地區的一個未知地點修建工廠，用于生產這家英國真空吸塵器制造商的首批電動汽車。

乍一看，戴森的首個電動汽車生產廠選址可謂是十分奇怪。新加坡是全球汽車持有成本最高的國家之一，而且該國政府負責發放車輛牌照的陸路交通管理局打算實現其汽車保有量的零增長。此外，當戴森的電動汽車完成生產，進入新加坡市場時，它們得不到該國本土市場的強有力支撐。

而且新加坡的勞動力成本比中國這類鄰近國家更高。新加坡人力部的數據顯示，2017年電子設備組裝工人的平均月薪為2090新加坡元（約合1548美元）。中國人社部的數據顯示，從事同樣的工作，中國勞工的平均月薪為5645元（約合840美元）。

對于特斯拉來說，廉價的勞動力只不過是在中國建廠諸多明顯的優勢之一，而中國也是全球最大的電動汽車市場。特斯拉當前所有的車型都產自于美國，因此車輛在出口至中國時需要繳納高額的關稅。在貿易戰于去年夏天開始之前，中國的汽車進口稅為25%。考慮到運輸成本，特斯拉估計，車輛進口成本要高出本地產車輛60%。

貝恩咨詢公司上海辦事處的一位合伙人雷·曾說：“我們都知道，特斯拉過去兩年中在利潤和現金流方面遇到了一些問題，而且美國市場的增速也在放緩。在全球市場擴張十分重要，而且中國也是主要的參與者。特斯拉不得不尋找一個比進口更加劃算的業務模式。”

特斯拉在最近的業績報告中不僅提到了上海大型工廠的建造，同時還指出：“如果要具備向該地區客戶提供真正平價Model 3的能力，本土制造是不可或缺的一環。”但這家高科技制造商直到去年才開始關注在中國生產汽車這一選項。

中國政府1994年便提出要求，外國汽車制造商如要在中國生產汽車，則必須與中國本土企業設立合資企業。這意味著外國公司必須與本土競爭對手分享技術。直到去年，中國政府才表示將在2022年，或者甚至在此之前，在電動汽車制造領域取消這一長達數十年的禁令。特斯拉將成為第一家在中國本土成立獨資企業的外國汽車公司。

中國官方并沒有表示特斯拉是否會因在上海開設其50億美元的巨型工廠而獲得補貼或稅收優惠政策，但中國對特斯拉的到來表示了歡迎。在上海特斯拉的巨型工廠破土動工的第二天，特斯拉的首席執行官埃隆·馬斯克與中國總理李克強進行了會面。當馬斯克說他熱愛中國時，李克強總理為這位激進的企業家亮了令人垂涎的綠燈：“我們希望你們能夠站穩腳跟，并拓展市場。”李克強對馬斯克說道。

有力的舉措

借助上海工廠，特斯拉將有更大的機會來接觸中國龐大的汽車生態系統。當前，松下是特斯拉的獨家電池供應商，而特斯拉用其生產的電池來制造電池組。電池是電動汽車最昂貴的組件之一，而且特斯拉的首席執行官埃隆·馬斯克曾經表示，特斯拉正謀求為其新上海工廠尋找一家新的電池供應商。

今年1月，路透社報道稱，特斯拉已經與天津力神電池簽署了初步協議，后者是一家生產鋰電池的國營企業，其生產廠離特斯拉新上海工廠約有1小時的車程。特斯拉否認簽署過任何協議，但表示收到過報價。

貝恩咨詢公司新加坡辦事處的戴爾·哈德卡瑟認為戴森將依靠其自身的電池組來實現自身與市場對手的差異化。大多數像特斯拉這樣的電動汽車制造商使用鋰電池，也就是將固態鋰電極浸泡在電解質溶液中。哈德卡瑟認為戴森會傾向于選擇“固態”電池。

哈德卡瑟表示：“電動汽車的成本大部分仍集中在電池組。當然，特斯拉也意識到，自己在今后很長一段時間內可以通過改善鋰電池來降低成本，但戴森認為利用固態鋰電池可更快地完成這一轉變。”

固態電池使用金屬或玻璃這樣的固態導體取代傳統液態電解液。從理論上來說，相較于鋰電池標準，固態電池可以儲存更多能量，充電速度更快，而且更耐用。此外，固態電池更加安全，因為固態導體不會像電解液那樣升溫，但找到一種可用于這種電池的固態材料并不是件容易事。

戴森已承諾向其電動汽車項目投資25億英鎊（約合32.2億美元），其中10億英鎊將僅用于開發電池組。2015年，戴森以9000萬美元的價格（約合5800萬英鎊）購買了基于密歇根州的固態電池開發商Sakti3，而就在收購發生7個月之前，戴森曾向公司提供了1500萬美元的初步投資。然而，2017年4月，戴森放棄了它從Sakti3購買的專利，然后于去年9月注銷了在該公司4900萬英鎊的投資，引發了業界有關戴森將放棄其固態電池項目的猜測。

然而，在注銷這筆投資一個月前，戴森為一項技術申請了專利。按照申請材料的說法，這項技術“提供了一種簡單、快速和低成本的固態電池制造方式。”在去年的采訪中，戴森稱其公司正在開發兩種固態電池，其中一種可能將用于其真空吸塵器，另一種則用于新車。《財富》雜志曾問及其電動汽車是否會使用固態電池，但并未收到公司的回應。

戴森稱，公司每年生產的電池已經達到了1億塊。但哈德卡瑟稱，公司對于這些電池的生產地“守口如瓶”。戴森此前表示，其電動汽車的生產地將與其電池生產地保持一致，這也就意味著公司的電池產自于新加坡。

重大優惠

多年來，戴森一直在鞏固其新加坡業務。公司在新加坡聘請了1100多名員工，包括首席執行官吉姆·羅萬。公司于2017年在新加坡科技園開設了一家新研究中心，并在上月將其總部搬到了新加坡。戴森真空吸塵器所使用的電機自從2013年以來便一直由新加坡生產，該公司的另一家生產廠位于菲律賓，其主要的制造設施位于馬來西亞。這個知名的英國品牌自2003年以來就把生產業務放到了英國之外的地區。

新加坡國立大學MBA項目學術主任尼丁·盤加卡稱，新加坡十分希望將自身打造為高端制造商，而戴森的汽車工廠與這個計劃可謂是一拍即合。因此盤加卡猜測，為了將戴森吸引至自家地盤，新加坡祭出了稅收減免大旗，也有可能給出了地價折扣。

盤加卡表示：“我認為給戴森提供優惠政策是一項非常明智的選擇。稅收僅僅是新公司能夠給政府帶來的其中一項福利，同時新的工作機會以及其他多個層面的效應也是十分重要。此外，如果戴森不來新加坡，那么新加坡什么都得不到。”

當地政府此前曾經使用稅收減免來吸引投資，而且此類做法在全球都很普遍，例如亞馬遜第二總部回歸紐約所引發的競標大戰（在該交易破滅之前），還有去年威斯康辛州為了吸引臺灣制造商富士康所推出的30億美元補貼計劃。

戴森并沒有說公司是否因在新加坡設廠收到了任何財務方面的優惠政策。新加坡政府官員也拒絕對此置評。在隨后向《財富》雜志發表的評論中，新加坡經濟發展署董事總經理助理基倫·庫瑪詳細介紹了新加坡各項頗具新引力的特征，但并沒有提及稅收。

庫瑪說：“在過去10年中，新加坡制造業一直在穩步地轉型，從而讓該行業的競爭優勢轉變為勞動力的深度技能，先進科技的使用，例如機器人和自動化，以及強大的本土和區域供應商生態系統。”

戴森的首席執行官吉姆·羅萬也說過類似的話，他將新加坡接觸“廣泛供應鏈”的機會及其“高素質的勞動力”作為戴森選擇新加坡而不是中國或英國建設其汽車廠的原因，但公司也曾考慮過這兩個國家。

但新加坡并沒有任何出眾的汽車工業，因此戴森將不得不進口組件，并設立全新的汽車供應鏈。這在短時間內，也就是戴森預計其第一輛電動車面世的2020年之前，將是一個巨大的成本和挑戰。然而，在中國設廠將獲得更多接觸汽車供應鏈的機會，但羅萬強調，新加坡“接觸諸多市場的機會”是公司選擇這個被半包圍的彈丸之地的第三個原因。

新加坡已經與美國和中國簽訂了長期的自由貿易協議。去年10月，新加坡與歐盟簽署了一項協議，后者將逐漸取消對進口汽車的關稅。如果以新加坡為支點，戴森將有更多的機會來接觸世界最大的電動汽車市場，同時又不會受累于難以預料的中美關系和脫歐危機。

讓自身遠離中國還可以幫助戴森保證其貿易機密不會受累于中國聲名狼藉的知識產權保護執法不嚴。詹姆斯·戴森去年在給雇員的一封信中寫道：“汽車行業新技術的競爭十分激烈，我們必須盡全力保證公司的汽車技術不會遭到泄露。”

戴森創始人預計，到2011年，其公司三分之一的成本將用于研發。他說，公司“并不是低端制造商。”例如：公司價值400美元的電吹風。但只有在戴森的產品無法被他人模仿時，較高的研發成本才算是物有所值。

到目前為止，公司對于其新電動汽車的大部分細節依然守口如瓶，但還是泄露了一些信息。戴森自己稱，那種將污泥刮的到處都是的傳統雨刷將被戴森干手機所采用的Airblade技術取代。公司的自動真空吸塵器所使用的360度攝像頭也會出現在汽車上。與此同時，特斯拉需要保密的技術要少一些，而在中國設廠的舉措將幫助其處于行業發展的領先地位。

哈德卡瑟表示：“這兩家正在開拓市場的公司正處于不同的發展階段。特斯拉的目的是降低其現有產品的價格，而戴森則正嘗試在市場上推出全新的產品。”戴森能否在規避“新手”風險的同時重振新加坡汽車制造業，讓我們拭目以待。然而，如果戴森成功了，那么它將成為特斯拉最意想不到的競爭對手。（財富中文網）

Tesla and Dyson, two soon-to-be-competitors in the crowded electric vehicle market, are breaking ground in Asia—literally. In a muddy riverside field on the outskirts of Shanghai workers, journalists, and government officials turned out in the rain last month to witness the ground breaking of Tesla’s first overseas factory. Meanwhile at an undisclosed location in Singapore’s tropical climes, Dyson is building a factory that will produce the British vacuum maker’s first-ever electric vehicle (EV).

At a glance, Dyson’s choice of location for its debut EV plant is strange. Singapore is one of the most expensive places to own a car and the government’s Land Transport Authority, which issues permits for car ownership, is targeting 0% growth in car ownership levels. There won’t be a strong local market for Dyson’s electric vehicles (EVs) as they roll off the production line and into the city-state.

Labor costs are higher in Singapore than in neighboring countries, such as China, too. According to data from Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower, the average monthly wage for an assembler of electronic equipment was S$2,090 ($1,548) in 2017. Meanwhile in China, the Ministry of Labor reports the average monthly salary for the same job was Rmb5,645 ($840).

For Tesla, cheaper labor is just one of the more obvious upsides to manufacturing in China, the world’s largest market for EVs. Tesla currently produces all of its cars in the U.S., which leaves the vehicles subject to a hefty levy when imported to China. Before the trade war began last summer, the tariff rate on auto imports was 25%. Factoring in the cost of shipping, Tesla estimated it was operating at a 60% cost disadvantage to locally produced cars.

“We all know Tesla has been having some sort of trouble for the last two years in terms of profits and cash flow, and the U.S. market for growth has slowed down,” says Ray Tsang, a partner in the Shanghai offices of Bain & Company consultants. “Expanding into the global market is important and China is a major player. Tesla had to find a business model that was better than just importing.”

In the company’s latest earnings reports Tesla noted, while referring to the construction of its Gigafactory site in Shanghai, that “local manufacturing is an essential component of our ability to provide to customers in the region a truly affordable version of Model 3.” But manufacturing in China wasn’t appealing for the high-tech automaker until last year.

Since 1994, Beijing has required foreign auto manufacturers to form joint ventures with local firms in order to produce vehicles in China. This meant foreign firms had to share technology with local rivals. Only last year Beijing announced it would scrap the decades-old restrictions by 2022 or even sooner for EV manufacturers. Tesla will be the first foreign car company to open a wholly-owned factory on Chinese soil.

There’s no official word on whether Tesla received subsidies or tax incentives to open its $5 billion Gigafactory in Shanghai, but China is making the company feel welcome. The day after breaking ground at the Gigafactory’s site in Shanghai, Tesla CEO Elon Musk met China Premier Li Keqiang. When Musk said he loved China, Li offered the radical entrepreneur a coveted Chinese green card. “We hope you can get a firm foothold and expand the market,” Li told Musk.

Power move

With its Shanghai plant, Tesla will have greater access to China’s rich automotive ecosystem, allowing the car company to diversify its suppliers. Currently, Panasonic is Tesla’s sole supplier of battery cells, which the auto company uses to build battery packs. The battery is one of the most expensive components of an EV, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said his company is investigating alternative suppliers for its new Shanghai factory.

In January, Reuters reported Tesla had signed a preliminary agreement with Tianjin Lishen Battery, a state-owned firm that produces lithium-ion batteries in a factory roughly an hour’s drive from Tesla’s new Shanghai location. Tesla denied it had signed any agreements, but said it had received quotes.

Dale Hardcastle, a partner in Bain & Company’s Singapore office, thinks Dyson will rely on its own battery pack to differentiate itself from the rest of the market. Most EV manufacturers, like Tesla, use lithium-ion batteries, where solid lithium electrodes are immersed in an electrolyte solution. Hardcastle suspects Dyson will opt for a “solid-state” battery instead.

“The majority of the cost in EVS is still the integrated battery pack,” Hardcastle says. “Tesla of course sees there’s a way to bring down the cost by improving lithium-ion batteries in the long run, but Dyson thinks there’s potential to make the shift much faster with solid-state cells.”

A solid-state battery replaces the liquid electrolyte of a conventional battery with a solid conductor, such as metal or glass. Theoretically a solid-state battery could store more energy, charge faster, and last longer than the lithium-ion standard. It is also safer, because the solid conductor doesn’t heat up like an electrolyte. But finding a solid-state material fit for purpose isn’t easy.

Dyson has pledged ￡2.5 billion ($3.22 billion) to its EV project, of which ￡1 billion is dedicated solely to developing the battery pack. In 2015, Dyson bought Michigan-based solid-state battery developer Sakti3 for $90 million (￡58 million), after making an initial $15 million investment in the company seven months earlier. But, in April 2017, Dyson dumped the patents it had acquired from Sakti3 and then wrote off ￡49 million of its investment in the company last September, prompting speculation the company was abandoning its solid-state scheme.

However, a month before writing off its investment, Dyson filed a patent of its own for a technology that, according to the filing, “provides a simple, fast and low-cost way of producing a solid-state cell.” In an interview last year, Dyson claimed his company has two solid-state batteries in development—potentially one for use in its vacuums and one for its new car. The company didn’t respond to Fortune’s request for comment on whether its EV would use a solid-state battery.

Dyson claims it already produces 100 million battery cells annually but, according to Hardcastle, the company is “quite secretive” about where those batteries are manufactured. Dyson previously said its EV would be manufactured wherever its battery is made, which suggests the company’s batteries are made in Singapore.

The big break

Dyson has been consolidating its business around Singapore for years. The company employs over 1,100 staff in the city, including CEO Jim Rowan. The firm opened a new research center in Singapore’s Science Park in 2017 and moved its HQ to the city last month. The electric motors that power Dyson’s vacuum cleaners have been manufactured in Singapore since 2013 and the company has another production site in the Philippines and its primary manufacturing center in Malaysia. The iconic British brand hasn’t manufactured within the U.K. since 2003

According to Nitin Pangakar, the academic director of the National University of Singapore’s MBA program, Singapore is keen to build its image as a high-end manufacturer and Dyson’s car plant fits well with that plan—so well, Pangakar suspects Singapore enticed Dyson to the city by offering tax breaks and, maybe, a cheap deal on land.

“I think incentivizing Dyson would be very enlightened,’ Pangakar says. “Taxes are just one way a government can benefit from welcoming a new company, while job creation and other multiplier effects are very important too. Plus, if Dyson doesn’t come here then Singapore gets nothing anyway.”

The local government has used tax breaks to entice investment before and doing so is a common practice worldwide—consider the bidding war Amazon sparked for the location of its HQ2 in New York (before that deal soured) or the $3 billion subsidy scheme Wisconsin laid out to attract Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn last year.

Dyson hasn’t said whether it received any financial incentives to open its factory in Singapore. Singaporean officials have declined to comment too. In remarks emailed to Fortune, Assistant Managing Director at the Singapore Economic Development Board, Kiren Kumar, detailed Singapore’s various attractive qualities, but didn’t mention taxes.

“Over the past decade, Singapore’s manufacturing sector has been steadily transformed into one that competes based on the deep skills of our workforce, the use of advanced technologies such as robotics and automation, and a strong ecosystem of suppliers locally and in the region,” Kumar said.

Dyson CEO Jim Rowan has adopted a similar line, touting Singapore’s access to an “extensive supply chain” and its “highly skilled workforce” as reasons why Dyson chose the city as the site for its auto plant, rather than China or the U.K., which were also under consideration.

But Singapore lacks any significant automotive industry. Dyson will need to import components and establish a brand-new auto supply chain, which will be a significant cost in the short term and a challenge to achieve by 2020, when Dyson expects to produce its first vehicle. A factory in China would have greater access to automotive supply chains, but Rowan highlighted Singapore’s “access to markets” as the third reason why the tiny semi-enclave was selected.

Singapore has longstanding free trade agreements with the U.S. and China and, last October, Singapore signed one with the E.U. that will gradually eliminate tariffs on auto imports. From Singapore, Dyson will have greater access to the world’s largest EV markets while keeping safe from unpredictable Sino-U.S. relations and the perils of Brexit.

Putting distance between itself and China could help Dyson safeguard its trade secrets against China’s notoriously lax enforcement of intellectual property rights too. In a letter to employees last year, James Dyson wrote, “Competition for new technology in the automotive industry is fierce and we must do everything we can to keep the specifics of our vehicle confidential.”

The Dyson founder estimated in 2011 that one third of his company’s costs go into research and development. He said, the company “can’t be the low-end producer.” Case in point: the company’s $400 hair dryer. But the high R&D cost can only be justified if it yields Dyson a product no one else can produce.

So far, the company has kept most of the details regarding its new EV secret but some elements have leaked. Dyson himself suggested that traditional windscreen wipers, which “brush the muck back and forth,” could be replaced by Dyson Airblade technology – the kind that powers its hand dryers. The 360-degree camera from the company’s autonomous vacuum cleaner could find a home in the car too. Tesla, meanwhile, has fewer secrets to keep and establishing a presence in China could help it stay abreast of developments in the industry.

“The two companies are coming at the market from different stages of development,” says Hardcastle. “Tesla is looking to make what it already has cheaper, while Dyson is trying to introduce something completely new.” Whether Dyson can mitigate the risks of trying something new while simultaneously reviving Singapore’s auto manufacturing industry remains to be seen. But, if Dyson succeeds, Tesla could find itself challenged by its unlikeliest rival yet.