SWNOVELXO Chapter 582: Enviable Faith Power
"Let's start the action."
After finishing the call with Hu Weiwei, there are just eight minutes and thirty seconds left until the announcement at ten o'clock.
If they hadn't prepared in advance, the time might be tight, but they've been preparing for a month.
At Lu Liang's command, Sun Yutao acts as the hub, allocating tasks to each group, and nearly a hundred traders in the trading room start operating swiftly like precision gears.
"Increase the bet, add another million shares."
One share of Tesla is 1122 US dollars, originally 500,000 shares as a short-selling chip equal 5.61 billion dollars.
The initial plan was for Lu Liang to play only these chips tonight, constituting one-twelfth of the total held chips.
But now the plan changes unexpectedly, the news Hu Weiwei brings is hugely negative for Tesla.
Keep in mind that last month Mao Dou 3's sales were only 12,900 units, whereas Tianxu locked 30,000 orders in just six hours.
The current new energy vehicle market is indeed not large, the price point of 300,000 for pure electric cars is almost solely Tesla's Mao Dou 3.
Though BMW and Mercedes responded to the national call to launch electric models, their combined sales don't even reach a fraction of Mao 3's.
This market is dominated by Mao 3 alone, and Tianxu's aggressive entry will undoubtedly impact next month's sales of Mao 3.
Considering this, Lu Liang decided to increase the original one-twelfth short position to one-fourth.
Meanwhile, upon knowing Lu Liang is taking action, Hu Weiwei is extremely cautious, handling even the Photoshop herself.
After all, she is a veteran auto journalist with ten years in the industry, simply editing a photo is well within her grasp.
At ten o'clock sharp, Tianxing Automobile announced the good news on various platforms.
As of ten o'clock in the evening, after 330 minutes, the locked order volume is 30,852 units, with a small font marking that previously 25,240 units had been agreed to cancel.
If they hadn't agreed to cancel, the locked order volume would be 56,092 units now.
Once the news was released, Tianxing Investment, Lu Liang, Little Wang, Sun Yuchen, Li Bing, Li Xianglei, Daqiangzi successively forwarded the message to congratulate.
"Old Zeng from Ningde, BYD Wang, even Old Jia from LeEco?"
"Liangzi's network is so strong? Including the Little Superman from Hong Kong and Macau, and the Casino King's daughter."
"Although there haven't been any private equity news online for a long time, you can't ignore its existence."
"Wow, previously 25,000 were canceled, now there are over 30,000 locked orders."
"Where is the rich brother who showed off in the screenshots before? Why is he silent now? Can't afford 6,000 dollars?"
"Here it comes, isn't it just 6,000? Look at the time in the upper-left corner of the screenshot, just placed an order."
"Just passed by as the 28,502nd order, by the way, why only show delivery after 12 weeks, no exact time?"
Netizens fiercely discussed the locked order volume and delivery date, inevitably shifting the focus to Lu Liang.
"Mr. Lu's phone is temporarily unreachable, what should we do now?" Hu Weiwei frowned, suddenly feeling uneasy.
Originally, they planned to delay for two days and discuss after Lu Liang's return how to solve the production capacity issue.
Now, with netizens discussing locked order volumes and specific delivery dates, they must step forward to respond.
Tianxing Automobile, just born, seems strong, but brand strength is very fragile and needs careful nurturing.
Wang Xiaofeng pondered for a moment: "Mr. Hu, you continue to contact Mr. Lu, I'll go issue a statement first."
He promptly stood up to respond, recording a short video under the title of General Manager of Tianxing Automobile.
"Hello everyone, I am Wang Xiaofeng, the General Manager of Tianxing Automobile. Thanks for your enthusiastic support, and on behalf of Tianxing Automobile, I express my sincere gratitude to you."
"Due to Tianxu just being put into production, we underestimated everyone's enthusiasm, the initial monthly capacity is guaranteed to be above 5,000."
"But next month, we will strive to reach a production capacity exceeding 10,000, and by the third month, reaching a capacity of 13,000."
"Orders placed after the 26,000th will temporarily show delivery after 12 weeks, but we'll strive to increase production capacity promptly, aiming for you to receive the desired car sooner."
Lu Liang spent 22 billion US dollars to buy ten production lines, presently only three are put into production for coupes.
Four are planned for SUV production in the second half of the year, and the remaining three are to address the current situation.
Now that Lu Liang's phone isn't reachable, Wang Xiaofei can only act first and report later, taking one line from the backup to convert into a coupe production line.
By doing so, three months later, their peak capacity will increase by 33% on the basis of 13,000, reaching 17,000.
As soon as the video was released, netizens instantly rejoiced.
Having just ordered Tianxu, they don't expect to receive the car soon, and their mood is still very good.
"Liangzi, spent over 200 billion for this to build a trillion new energy industrial zone, is this all the capacity?"
"Surely, it's not just this, but companies must weigh gain and loss, capacity can be insufficient, but cannot be excessive."
"Ultimately, it's Liangzi's misjudgment, or perhaps your enthusiasm made him misjudge."
"Think about it, single-model monthly sales at 5,000, in the current new energy industry, besides Tesla and BYD, and those selling old people's toys like Wuling, who else has achieved that? And in the 300,000 range, only Tesla."
"Li Xiang last month also just sold 4,800 units, so really can't blame Liangzi for underestimating the market, he actually overestimated."
"So you're blaming me?"
"Blaming me?"
While netizens were teasing online, Tesla's stock price on the other side of the ocean suddenly plummeted.
Just moments ago, when Tianxing Automobile announced the milestone of locking in thirty thousand orders, a large number of shares flooded the market.
Unlike Big A, US stocks can be traded even in single shares. Especially for high-value stocks like Tesla, each share is worth over a thousand US dollars.
Without any sudden incidents, transaction details are usually small trades of a few shares or a dozen shares.
But just now, over a hundred thousand shares appeared, and the 1100 US dollar price point was as fragile as papier-mâché, easily breached.
Since Lu Liang announced a reduction last month, Tesla's market value has once again fallen below 200 billion US dollars.
The right side transaction details flashed rapidly, with sell orders outweighing buy orders, making the stock price drop like a plunge ride.
1080 US dollars...1050 US dollars...
1020 US dollars...
In the blink of an eye, the stock price dropped to 1010 US dollars, narrowly stopping the decline, and slightly rebounded to hover around 1030 US dollars.
Yesterday's closing price for Tesla was 1125.25 US dollars, today the decline is -8.23%, with the current price at 1032.4 US dollars.
"Mr. Lu, there's significant support funds at the 1010 US dollar price point."
Sun Yutao's words reached Lu Liang's ears, every time there's a breakdown, they're leading the charge.
Out of 1.5 million shares, two-thirds have been taken down because breaking the 1020 US dollar point consumed 250,000 shares.
Sun Yutao noted that at the 1010 US dollar price point, there's at least 420 million US dollars in funds supporting it.
This fund can only absorb 430,000 of their shares, but he's not sure if the bulls have more in reserve.
Therefore, the temporary halt in selling also makes market investors feel like they've hit bottom, causing them to start buying, leading to a rebound in the stock price.
"Seems like we'll just have to stop here for now."
Lu Liang pondered for a moment and made a decision.
Stop selling, reserve 500,000 shares to maintain subsequent trends, and strike at anyone who dares to emerge.
He plans to crush Tesla's bubble, with today's loss of 200 billion, next month could see it drop to 180 billion, or even 150 billion.
Step by step eroding Tesla's financial attributes until these attributes no longer bring any brand value to Tesla.
In Lu Liang's view, Tesla's market value at 75 billion US dollars is about right, equivalent to two BYDs; anything more is just premium.
If the brand premium ceases to exist, then Tesla is just a leading electric car company, rather than a tech cult like Apple.
"Who else can contain it?"
Lu Liang took out his phone from his pocket, last year's tenth-anniversary model, Apple X, which for the first time removed the screen button.
He swiped the screen, walked out of the trading room, and turned off airplane mode while waiting for feedback and messages.
Apple phones are indeed good, but not invincible; some hype is clearly overdone.
But this is the influence of the tech cult; as long as there's a new product, without looking at parameters, people buy blindly.
"Enviable."
Lu Liang sighed lightly; he resents Apple's cult-like power, but also envies it.
He believes not just in his country but globally, any company making products must envy it.
If they don't, they're surely lying, like people resenting privilege but really resenting their lack of it.
Seconds later, Lu Liang received missed call notifications from Hu Weiwei, along with several overseas calls.
He called back Hu Weiwei first, learned about the online public opinion earlier, and smiled saying: "Mr. Wang, this was handled beautifully."
"First change one line, increase to four lines, then observe the situation."
"We can't avoid being labeled as playing monkey tricks."
Lu Liang sighed; he could completely convert the three reserved lines all into production lines for coupes.
In doing so, in three months' time, full-scale production could reach a monthly capacity of over 26,000 units.
But if in three months, the monthly sales don't reach 26,000, it would result in excess capacity.
Moreover, their monthly sales figures would look quite unattractive.
A healthy monthly sales chart should be like a constant upwards trend, with slight monthly increases and progress, not up and down repeatedly.
The first month at 5,000 units, the second month at 10,000, the third month at 26,000, but if the fourth month drops to 20,000.
Even if overall sales are great, from the data curve perspective, they're on a downward slope.
Investors' expectations are also raised infinitely because of the third month's 26,000 sales.