My Age of Investment

   Chapter 1282 Veteran Comes Out

   Time entered April, and the entire Tesla company began to run at high speed like a sophisticated machine.

  The Fremont, California factory built nearly fifty years ago has begun a large-scale upgrade.

  The original dark and closed factory environment has become brighter and more modern after adding skylights.

  The unemployed workers who were dismissed by GM and Toyota, after receiving the call, happily returned to the places where they used to work for interviews.

  The port of San Francisco, a large number of car production equipment ordered from all over the world is starting to arrive in batches, and then they will be transported to the Fremont factory to assemble Tesla's first production line.

  New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and other large cities, TeslaStores are being urgently renovated.

  The car media and Roadster owners have received an invitation letter for the car pre-sale conference, and are traveling to Silicon Valley from all over the world, not wanting to miss the shocking appearance of the Model S.

   Some tech media also noticed Tesla’s big moves and started reporting them one after another.

  Tesla looks ready to go, causing a lot of pressure to Musk.

   At Nikola’s headquarters not far from Tesla, Musk is meeting a mysterious visitor and asking him for advice.

   "Mr. Eberhard, it is rumored that the Model S will sell for $100,000, or even $80,000.

  You are the real founder of Tesla, what do you think the final price of this car will be? "

  Musk crossed Erlang's legs and looked at Eberhard condescendingly.

   He said these words to deliberately stimulate Eberhard.

   This old guy wore a pair of trousers with Daeron Xia back then, and he was not allowed to take a stake in the life or death. Now he is suffering, right? Deserved!

  Compared with before, Eberhard looked a lot more vicissitudes of life, with a beard all over his face, a little slovenly feeling, and his hair was a lot whiter.

   He shook his head at Musk, "I don't know, the Model S was in development when I left.

   I don't pay much attention to the latter thing about Tesla, because that company doesn't belong to me anymore. "

   Musk smiled, "Darren Xia is a complete villain, he is worried that you will affect his status in Tesla, so he will try his best to drive you away.

   I heard that he is attacking you for the reason of overrunning the cost of the car, which is absolutely shameless.

  How many Roadsters were sold in total, how could the cost be controlled? "

   Eberhard's face was a little unsightly. Although it had been almost two years since the incident, he still did not completely let go.

  Model S is about to go on sale, and the entire Silicon Valley, the United States and even the global auto industry are paying attention to this news.

   This was his glorious moment, but now it belongs to someone else.

  Musk watched his words, continued to apply eye drops, and said: "If there is no foundation you laid in the early stage, how could Tesla have released the second car so quickly.

  Look at us Nikola, the first car has not been delivered yet.

   Alas, one step behind, one step behind! "

   Musk's headache was not entirely fake.

   He now really feels the difficulty of building a car, which is harder than launching a rocket.

  If the rocket launch was unsuccessful, Nikolai might have gone out of business.

  Fortunately, God bless, his rocket launch was successful, and his personal business value and credit ushered in a Jedi rebound.

  Eberhard said with a smile: "Nikola did a good job, I didn't expect you to be so persevering and keep biting behind Tesla.

   When the Nikola One is delivered, the situation you will face will be much better. "

  Musk shook his head, "The price of Nikola One's target supercar is still too high, and the sales and influence will not be too great.

  If the ModelS price and market drop, sales may experience a blowout.

  10,000, 100,000, 1 million, an industry-leading electric vehicle manufacturer has just risen.

  Nikola actually adopted the same development strategy as Tesla, first delineating seed users with high prices, gaining a group of fans while practicing, and initially establishing the brand tonality.

   Then, we continue to launch mid-to-high-end, mid-range and even low-end models.

   How high a car company can stand, in the final analysis, depends on sales.

  Without sales volume, R&D and manufacturing costs cannot be diluted, and terminal prices are not competitive.

  I am now very worried that Tesla will lead us three years at a time! "

   Musk did a rough calculation himself, and he found that Nikola was in the development stage of Tesla in 2006-07, two to three years behind its rivals.

Whether    is two or three years depends on the delivery date of the first Nikola Ones and the launch of the second model.

   Alas, Musk only felt tired for a while. This feeling of only seeing the backs of others made him very uncomfortable.

  Eberhard advised: "Don't worry too much, new energy vehicles are still in a very early stage of development, the industry and market are not yet mature, and the user acceptance is not high.

   To a certain extent, Nikola and Tesla are not too far apart, and everyone is still on the same starting line. "

   Musk nodded with a smile, "So I didn't give up! At first everyone was not optimistic about me building rockets, but I conquered the sea of ​​stars.

   There is no reason why Daeron Xia can't do anything that runs on the ground now.

   He is a pseudo-tech billionaire. He didn't see much technological progress he promoted, and he patronized Wall Street to make money. "

   Eberhard laughed, "Your metaphor is very vivid, I really don't feel much geeky taste in him, but the philistine taste is quite strong.

   But then again, he's now worth $30 billion and has a lot of money in his pocket, making him a tough opponent for you. "

   Musk sneered: "What if you have money? Just throwing money is not good at technology. The most important thing is that the founder must have determination and belief.

  I see Daeron Shado bloom a little, and sooner or later it will collapse. "

   Eberhard didn't speak, he felt that the game might not collapse so easily.

  Social network, operating system, mobile phone, financial investment... How can Darren Xia not play well.

   "Oh, yes, I heard that Tesla received a $500 million loan from the Department of Energy, and Aoguanhai is such a good leader!"

   Musk sneered: "We Nikola also applied for a loan, but we haven't approved it for a long time."

   Eberhard spread his hands, "Maybe there are transactions we don't know about, who knows the real situation?"

  Musk said sullenly: "Don't think about it, there must be a deal in it, this is the good leader we selected, who specializes in helping foreigners."

   Eberhard smiled, "I heard that Ao Guanhai's younger brother is a foreign teacher in Daeron's hometown. I wonder if he has received any benefits from Daeron."

   The two teased Ao Guanhai for a while, and the atmosphere suddenly felt a lot more pleasant.

   Musk also took this opportunity to throw an olive branch, "Your non-compete agreement is about to expire, why don't you help me?

  SpaceX is finally on the right track, I'm very busy right now, you can come and replace me as Nikola CEO, and complete the revenge on Tesla at the same time.

  If there is an opportunity in the future, we can also acquire Tesla and let Darren Xia go back to China in a daze. "

   Eberhard was silent and seemed to be thinking.

   "You have sold all of your Tesla shares to Defengjie anyway, and that company is over for you.

   With me, you will be reborn, and I can grant you co-founder status and shares. "

   Musk persuaded: "The lineup of shareholders behind Nikola is no worse than Tesla.

   Behind them stood Darren Xia, Bill Gates, Bezos;

   Behind us are Larry Page, Larry Ellison.

  Nikola is not short of money, we are short of talents like you, Mr. Eberhard. "

   Eberhard's face kept changing, and he actually regretted selling all his Tesla shares.

   When he left Tesla, he sold half of his holdings and kept the other half as pension money.

   As a result, Draper was not careful and abruptly cheated his pension.

   bought the remaining nearly 6 points of equity he held at a valuation of $300 million.

   Based on Tesla’s recently reported valuation of over $1.5 billion, he lost nearly $100 million.

   This is the moral level of the three generations of venture capital families, and even the elderly are defrauded of their money.

   Therefore, he can only choose to get closer to Musk and see if he can mix some pensions with the Rocket Maniac.

   "Elon, if you don't care about the past, I'm willing to join Nikolai."

   Musk was very happy, and gave Eberhard a high five with a smile on his face, "The past has long been turned over, and we now need to join hands to deal with a common enemy."

   (end of this chapter)