特斯拉在中国起飞

如果你第一次乘坐特斯拉汽车，会发现车主总会忍不住炫耀爱车。这次在中国北京，春光明媚的一天，我坐上朱小姐的特斯拉就发现了这点。

“屏幕特别大，是吧？”她边说边在中控台上选歌，特斯拉的中控台比普通车上的大一倍，长得很像iPad。她手指轻盈划动，直到车里响起阿黛尔的《送上我的爱》。随后Model X鸥翼车门轻声关上，车外景色透过全玻璃车顶一览无遗。朱小姐供职于一家国际大型营销机构，之前她开的是宝马X5，由于中国路况混乱，偏爱SUV带来的安全感，所以买了特斯拉。朱小姐是中国首批Model X车主，特斯拉还没算出来价格时，她就交了预付款定金。

“现在把头向后贴在靠枕上，”她向我建议。

两车道的马路上拥堵异常，路也不平整，突然出现一段平路，朱小姐迅速加速。我们疾驰超过一辆黑色的小现代车，快到旁边那辆好像停着没动一样。有一瞬间，车主和乘客同时感觉一股眩晕。红灯了，朱小姐踩了脚刹车，轻声笑着换了另外一首阿黛尔的歌。

When you climb into a Tesla (tsla, +1.94%) as a first-time passenger, drivers turn giddy at the chance for show-and-tell—especially in China, where Vanessa Zhu is playing host on this sunny spring day in Beijing.

“It’s huge, isn’t it?” she says, pressing the double-size, iPad-like control screen in the center console until the stereo blasts Adele’s “Send My Love.” Then comes the ceremonial closing of the gull-wing doors on Zhu’s Model X. We peer through an expansive glass roof. Zhu, the assistant to the chairman of a major marketing agency, likes SUVs for their safety on China’s chaotic roads—she upgraded from a BMW X5. One of the first Model X owners in China, Zhu paid a deposit before Tesla had even calculated how much a deposit should be.

“Now put your head back against the seat,” she advises.

The two-lane road we’re on is missing traffic lines, not to mention levelness, but as a section clears ahead, Vanessa floors it. We whir past a small black Hyundai so fast that the car seems to turn stationary. For a second, driver and passenger feel the same head rush. Then Vanessa slams on the brakes to respect a stop sign, chuckles, and changes Adele songs.

如今，在中国大都市里看到特斯拉呼啸而过很正常，就跟在硅谷看到特斯拉差不多。

据研究公司JL Warren Capital 统计，2016年特斯拉在中国的销量为前一年的三倍，达到10400辆。当年全球销量80000辆，中国占13%。今年3月特斯拉宣布去年在中国销售收入达11亿美元，特斯拉也首次跻身《财富》500强榜单，2016年其全球总收入略超70亿美元。而且特斯拉在中国的业绩还在增长：从2017年前三个月进口数量来看，今年销量翻倍易如反掌。中国各大主要城市里，富有的司机们纷纷涌入特斯拉的展厅，预交1200美元订购Model 3的买家人数仅次于美国客户。

The sight of Teslas whizzing down roads in China’s biggest cities is becoming as common as—well, the sight of Teslas whizzing down roads in Silicon Valley.

In 2016, Tesla tripled its sales in China over the previous year’s, to 10,400 vehicles, according to research firm JL Warren Capital, or about 13% of the nearly 80,000 cars it delivered worldwide. The company reported in March that it earned $1.1 billion in revenue in China last year—a boost that helped Tesla join the ranks of the Fortune 500 for the first time, with just over $7 billion in revenue worldwide. And Tesla’s China news has only gotten better since then: Its imports in the first three months of 2017 have put it on pace to easily double sales this year. Wealthy drivers are crowding showrooms in China’s major cities, and Chinese buyers have put down $1,200 to preorder the company’s Model 3 sedan in numbers second only to those in the U.S.

从亮眼的销售业绩来看，特斯拉已经在全世界最大的汽车市场站稳脚跟，而且出乎绝大部分人意料。就在去年夏天，人们还普遍认为特斯拉在中国做不好。特斯拉已经连续第三年销售疲软。只有很少客户了解特斯拉，却不懂怎么充电。交钱预定了却总是交货延迟，售后服务也不完备。此外，特斯拉也不像其他外国车企一样在中国成立合资公司。香港独立咨询公司Dunne Automotive负责人迈克尔·邓恩去年9月曾写过一篇专栏，预计埃隆·马斯克打入中国市场估计会在征服火星之后。

如今再谈去年的专栏，邓恩只会不好意思地笑笑，其他看空者也都是一头雾水。特斯拉为何能在中国市场突围，其实没有清晰的解释。看起来特斯拉在热爱SUV的中国推出了一款奢华SUV——Model X，销量就开始大涨。其他原因还包括特斯拉建起了密集的充电站；中国买家受够了经销商盘剥，而特斯拉采用直销模式；此外特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克在科技圈是著名大佬。

特斯拉的技术恰好跟政府的工作重心吻合。联合创始人马丁·艾伯哈德表示特斯拉已开始应对气候变化。而气候变化在中国如今是头等大事，中国是全世界最大的温室气体排放国，正大力推广电动车发展：去年，中国电动车和混合动力车销量超过50%，达到50.7万辆，是美国同期销量三倍还多。

The sales rush is the clearest sign yet that Tesla has turned a corner in the world’s largest auto market. And it has caught almost everyone by surprise. As recently as last summer, the narrative had been that Tesla just didn’t get China. The automaker was on track for its third consecutive year of weak sales. The few consumers who knew about Teslas didn’t know how to recharge one; those who preordered had faced delivery delays and iffy service. What’s more, Tesla lacked the joint-venture partners that helped other foreign carmakers break into China’s market. Michael Dunne, who runs independent advisory Dunne Automotive in Hong Kong, wrote a column in September predicting Elon Musk would reach Mars before cracking China.

Today, Dunne is cheerfully sheepish about that column, and other naysayers are equally befuddled. There’s no single explanation for Tesla’s breakthrough. Sales got a lift from the introduction of the Model X, a luxury SUV for an SUV-mad country. The company also benefited from a critical mass of charging stations; from its direct-sales model, in a country where buyers feel fleeced by dealerships; and from CEO Elon Musk’s celebrity among the technorati.

But chummy government relations also matter in a country where the state exerts enormous economic control, and Tesla’s technology just happens to align perfectly with government priorities. Cofounder Martin Eberhard has said Tesla was started to fight climate change. Nowhere is the climate fight more important than in China, the world’s largest spewer of greenhouse gases, which is in the midst of an unprecedented promotion of electric cars: Last year, sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in China rose 50% to 507,000, more than three times the U.S. figure.

中国政府预计到2025年每年电动车销量可达700万辆。大力推动电动车行业不仅有助于环保，还可以促进中国车企挤进全球顶尖制造商行列。在电动车领域，中国车企不用受限于福特或梅赛德斯-奔驰的标准，可以迅速造出整车来。“在中国电动车领域，每两年就会出现一套新技术模式，”中国汽车工业协会一位高层党内官员董扬表示，该组织主要代表汽车行业。

不过，目前几乎所有中国国产电动车都是低成本产品，相对来说性能较差，没有奢华内饰，也没有特斯拉车主热爱的闪电加速快感。中国政府官员将特斯拉当成中国品牌的标杆，一直为国产企业加油鼓劲。还有不少中国企业和城市热切希望能跟特斯拉合作成立合资公司，据《财富》杂志了解，马斯克表示2018年底之前可能会在中国生产车辆。

如果真能成立合资公司，特斯拉在中国的发展会更顺利，因为目前从加州直接进口实在太贵。加上关税和其他税之后，特斯拉轿车和SUV在中国售价比美国贵50%。在中国Model S价格是10.5万美元起，Model X售价13万美元起。所以虽然特斯拉能在美国极力吸引中产阶级买家（今年秋天将推出的Model 3起家约为3.5万美元），但在中国吸引的买家多是类似朱小姐的买家，他们较富有，将特斯拉当成奢侈品或是iPhone之类酷炫新科技产品。2016年特斯拉销售主要区域是北京、上海和深圳，都是资本最集中有钱人扎堆的大都市。

The government estimates that as many as 7 million electric cars could be sold in China annually by 2025. It sees them as a way not only to clear smoggy skies, but to hack into the top rankings of the global auto industry. In electric, Chinese companies don’t have to match the quality of a Ford or Mercedes-Benz; they think they can quickly build a whole new car. “For electric vehicles in China, we have a new technology model every two years,” says Dong Yang, a high-ranking Communist Party official at the China Association of Automotive Manufacturers, the auto lobby.

Still, virtually all Chinese electric cars are low-cost, relatively low-performance ones, without the luxury trimmings and lightning-fast acceleration that Tesla owners fetishize. Government officials consider Tesla a role model for these Chinese brands, and they’ve cheered the company from the sidelines. Today, a handful of Chinese companies and cities are feverishly courting Tesla for a joint venture, Fortune has learned, and Musk has said his company could begin building cars in China before the end of 2018.

A joint venture could turn Tesla’s China growth stratospheric, because its current model of importing cars from California is costly. Chinese tariffs and taxes boost the price of Tesla’s sedans and SUVs in the country by 50% compared with the U.S.; the Model S sedan starts at the equivalent of $105,000, and the Model X at $130,000. So even as Tesla woos middle-class buyers in the U.S. (the Model 3, due to arrive this fall, will start at about $35,000) buyers in China have mostly resembled Vanessa Zhu: wealthy drivers who view Teslas as luxury vehicles, or at least as the coolest new piece of tech since the iPhone. Most of Tesla’s 2016 sales were concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, China’s centers of capital and affluence.

即便特斯拉不会成为大众品牌，其在中国的销量也很快就能达到每年10万辆，中国这个14亿人口的大国对特斯拉跟对可口可乐的影响差不多。“预计特斯拉可以挤占很多奥迪和梅赛德斯-奔驰的销量，这两款现在都满大街，”邓恩表示。

对于一家还在努力从过去错误中纠正的公司来说，这样的成绩已经相当不错。

特斯拉从2013年8月开始接受中国客户预定。当时连每辆车价格多少都不确定，交货时间长达8个月。但市场普遍预期很高。一方面马斯克名声很响，另一方面都在传特斯拉的加速感觉堪比法拉利，再有人们对新科技也十分好奇，当年年底预定数为5000辆。

闹得是沸沸扬扬，销量和售后服务却没那么美。当时负责特斯拉中国业务的是郑顺景，原先负责豪车宾利的中国业务。据科技网站PingWest报道，郑顺景希望大规模拓展特斯拉的业务，包括客服中心、公共关系，以及充电网络。但总部让他先建起销售团队加强市场推广，希望开新店和新充电桩之前先获得大笔收入。特斯拉就在北京设了一个展厅，位置在一家华丽丽的购物中心里，对面是美国服装品牌。

Even if Tesla doesn’t become a mass-market brand, sales in China alone could soon climb to 100,000 a year, impacting Tesla as intensely as a new, 1.4-billion-person market would Coca-Cola. “I could see a future where Tesla is displacing a lot of those Audis and Mercedes-Benz that are everywhere on Chinese roads,” says Dunne.

Not bad for a company that, until recently, was digging out from under past mistakes.

Tesla began taking preorders in China for the Model S in August 2013. The company didn’t know exactly how much each car would cost, and deliveries were eight months away. But anticipation ran high. The combination of Musk’s renown, stories comparing Tesla’s acceleration to a Ferrari’s, and intrigue over the new technology sent preorders above 5,000 by the end of the year.

The hype was there, but the sales and support were not. The original head of Tesla’s China business was Kingston Chang, formerly of luxury automaker Bentley. Chang wanted to broadly expand Tesla’s operations, including customer service centers, public relations, and car-charging networks, according to tech news site PingWest. But Tesla headquarters told him to build a sales team first, betting that good marketing could bring in more revenue before more stores and charging stations were finished being built. Tesla opened just a single showroom in Beijing, opposite an American Apparel store in one of the city’s glitziest malls.

2013年12月吴碧瑄加入特斯拉，战略也随之改变，此前吴碧瑄曾供职苹果公司负责中国业务，在大企业销售和教育促销方面业绩甚佳。加入特斯拉后，吴碧瑄希望增加传统的经销商渠道，苹果就在中国添了零售渠道。虽然总部不同意，但特斯拉还是很快在中国鼓励汽车租赁公司和机构批量购买100辆以上，希望借此刺激需求。特斯拉在中国的员工由此猛增，当然主要是销售人员，员工由10人增加到超百人，后来到600人。

当时，特斯拉的种种规定对个人买家并不友好。客户下单买车之前，特斯拉为了确保良好体验要求车主提供证明拥有车位，而且得有家庭充电桩。此外，如果买家所在城市里有售后服务中心，特斯拉才允许下单，然而到2014年中只有北京和上海才有符合条件。而且一些高层公寓物业并不许在楼里安装充电桩。

特斯拉的销售路子跟客户需求出现很大错位，却给不少钻空子经销商带来好机会。这些经销商批量进货，然后卖给不符合特斯拉标准无法通过官方渠道购买的客户。特斯拉其实没有官方经销商，但车辆还是经过各种渠道到了经销商和购车中心，甚至阿里巴巴旗下的天猫上都有售，价格自然比官网要高。“没想到出现这么多黄牛，”吴碧瑄感叹道。也有人怀疑特斯拉是否真不知情：“大部分所谓的‘批量’销售都是幌子，最后都到了经销商手里，”汽车行业网站Dailykanban.com的司博特总结说。所有流程都合法，只是能看出特斯拉不再坚守过去的高端销售路线了。

特斯拉第一次在中国交付车辆是2014年春。吴碧瑄告诉路透社中国市场可以推动全公司销量增长35%。但即便当时看来也有些异想天开。特斯拉急匆匆地建起了客服中心，但北京和上海以外的车主都收到通知，客服中心建完之前没法交货。一位买家的车辆延迟几个月才到，愤怒地砸碎了挡风玻璃，这事还上了各大媒体。与此同时，中国的媒体也不像西方媒体总是大篇幅报道特斯拉，所以很多潜在客户并不了解特斯拉的产品。很多人不知道可以每晚在家给车充电，就像给手机充电一样；大部分人都以为还得靠城市里几处超级充电站。

Tesla’s strategy shifted again after Veronica Wu came aboard in December 2013, after a successful stint in big enterprise and education sales for Apple in China. At Tesla, she discussed adding traditional outlets like dealerships to the mix, similar to the way Apple had added retail channels in China. Though headquarters balked, Tesla in China was soon encouraging fleet sales orders of 100 or more cars from car-rental agencies and institutions, to jump-start demand. Staff, especially salespeople, soared from 10 employees to more than 100, and later to 600.

At the same time, Tesla imposed rules that frustrated individual buyers. Before customers could order a car, Tesla required that they prove they had a parking spot and a home charger, to ensure a good experience. The company also required that buyers live in a city that had a Tesla service center—even though, as of mid-2014, only Beijing and Shanghai had such centers. Some high-rise apartment managers, meanwhile, balked at having chargers installed in their buildings.

The mismatch between Tesla’s approach and customer demand created a big opportunity for gray-market resellers—who bought in bulk and catered to buyers who didn’t meet Tesla’s criteria. The company had no official resellers, but the cars made their way to many, who sold in dealerships, car centers, and even on Alibaba’s TMall for more than the same models cost on Tesla’s website. “There were a lot more scalpers than we expected,” Wu now says. Others questioned whether the company was really in the dark: “Most ‘fleet’ sales were just a flimsy cover for sales to resellers,” concluded Bertel Schmitt of Dailykanban.com, an auto industry site. It was all legal, but also a sign that Tesla had strayed from the high-touch sales approach it used elsewhere.

Tesla’s first China deliveries arrived in spring 2014; Wu later told Reuters that China sales could drive 35% of the company’s growth. But that was already sounding fanciful. Tesla was hurriedly building customer-service centers, and customers outside of Beijing and Shanghai were told they wouldn’t get their cars until those centers were finished. One buyer made national news when he smashed the windshield of his own Tesla, after it arrived months later than expected. Meanwhile, the Chinese press didn’t shower Tesla with as much coverage as the West’s did. As a result, most potential customers didn’t know much about Tesla’s product. Consumers didn’t know they could charge their car at home every night like a cell phone; most thought they had to rely on the still-small Supercharger network.

到2014年底，特斯拉的中国业务一团乱。运到中国的大概有4700辆，却只有2500辆卖给了车主并且完成注册。（去年特斯拉在美国的销量是18500辆。）对于没成功卖出的车，特斯拉公开谴责一些下了单但等运到又决定不买的投机者。但有几位特斯拉前员工表示，真正的问题还是缺少客户支持。曾负责传播事务的理卡多·雷耶斯表示，“我觉得特斯拉好像感觉在中国市场成功理所应当一样。”

到2014年底，郑顺景和吴碧瑄都离开了特斯拉。加州总部特斯拉高官们抱怨说，中国市场没什么特别，用不着专门制定战略。但没过多久，特斯拉举办了一场抱歉之行，情况也出现转机。2015年1月一个寒冬晚上，在底特律国际车展上，马斯克承认中国市场销售“比预期中疲软”。当年春天，他亲自到访中国，与国家主席习近平和其他领导会见，还发推表示虽然“此前犯过错”但仍然“非常看好”。2015年春天，特斯拉破天荒参加了中国车展，雷耶斯也公开道歉：“我们在中国市场有点不够耐心。”不过特斯拉的悔悟很有效，之后情况持续好转。

2015年，原先特斯拉超级充电站负责人，深受尊敬的工程师朱晓彤接手中国业务。截至当年年底销量仅有3700辆，但转机已现。首先，中国超级充电站搭建速度全球领先，解决了客户的“充电焦虑”。如今中国有120个超级充电站，美国也只有370个，特斯拉表示到2017年底中国的充电站将超过800个。

By the end of 2014, Tesla’s business was a mess. About 4,700 cars had been shipped to China, but only 2,500 were sold and registered to drivers. (The company delivered 18,500 cars in the U.S. that year.) Publicly, Tesla blamed the gap on speculators who entered orders, then didn’t buy the Teslas once they shipped. But several former employees say the real problem was the lack of customer support. Says Ricardo Reyes, Tesla’s former communications chief: “I think Tesla took for granted that they were just going to succeed in China.”

By December 2014, both Chang and Wu had left Tesla. Tesla executives in California griped privately that China wasn’t so unique that it demanded a different strategy. But not long afterward, the company began an apology tour that marked a turning point. On a frigid evening in January 2015, during the Detroit International Auto Show, Musk admitted China sales were “unexpectedly weak.” That spring, he traveled to China to meet with President Xi Jinping and other leaders, tweeting that he remained “very optimistic” despite “earlier mistakes.” Reyes offered a mea culpa at the Shanghai auto show in spring 2015, the first Chinese motor show that Tesla bothered attending: “I think we have been a little bit too impatient in the Chinese market.” It was as contrite as the company would get—and the news it was generating was about to get better.

In 2015, Tom Zhu, a respected engineer responsible for China’s Supercharger network, became the top executive in the country. The company ended that year with a disappointing 3,700 cars sold, but there were slivers of optimism. For one thing, Tesla was building Supercharger locations in China at a faster pace than anywhere in the world, addressing consumers’ “charge anxiety.” About 120 Supercharger locations exist in China today, compared with 370 in the U.S., and Tesla says China will have more than 800 charging stations by the end of 2017.

还有件事同样重要：当时广为传播的信息是买特斯拉比买别的豪车容易。中国的汽车经销系统又称“4S店”（4个S代表“服务、零部件、销售和调研”），把持着宝马、捷豹路虎和梅赛德斯-奔驰等奢侈品牌的渠道。4S店会以各种模糊的名目向顾客多收成千上万美元费用。特斯拉的直销展厅就跳出了这一系统。虽然进口关税增加了成本，但调整汇率后其他方面特斯拉在中国的销售跟在美国完全一样。

朱小姐决定买Model X之前考察了其他三个品牌。她说，路虎经销商要多收30万元（4.5万美元）的标准费用；保时捷说要买凯宴SUV的多等三个月，还要多收10万元。相反，特斯拉只是将她加入等待名单，没有任何附加费用。“在中国，车象征着社会地位，所以大部分人都不在乎多花点钱，”朱小姐表示。“但我在意。我不喜欢白白多花钱。”

特斯拉车主还发现在车牌上也有优势。中国政府为解决拥堵污染的道路问题，决定限制车牌号发放。要想买车，司机得在摇号系统里等上好几年。（2015年初北京有620万人申请摇号，额度只有36757个。）即便摇到号，每周还有一天限行。

但由于政府鼓励电动车，所以车牌要宽松得多。从2014年开始，上海允许电动车直接上牌，省下1.2万牌照费，而且不用限行。其他城市也纷纷跟上，推动了中国电动车企业发展。如果没有各地限制政策，“个人客户才不会买电动车，”国企北京汽车工业控股有限公司新能源子汽车子公司副总经理张勇表示。

各地限制政策对特斯拉也是大大好机会。前六个宣布电动车不受牌照限制的城市为：上海、北京、深圳、杭州、广州和天津。据JL Warren Capital李君蘅分析，特斯拉销量最高的城市为上海、北京、深圳、杭州、广州和天津。

虽然政策有助于Model S轿车销售，但特斯拉还是很快意识到Model X在中国前景更好。近十年来，中国人都很迷SUV，而且愈演愈烈。SUV之所以受欢迎有几个原因：国产车有些型号不错；车里空间大，能坐下一大家人；人们多认为SUV更安全；另外SUV更贵可以彰显身份。德国豪车制造商保时捷在中国卖得最好的并不是运动超跑，而是Macan SUV。

到了2015年，SUV已成中国汽车市场上唯一增长的车型。2016年上半年，SUV占了乘用车销量的35%；所以特斯拉2016年6月向中国交付第一辆Model X之后销量同步增长，也就能解释了。2016年下半年随着SUV出厂，特斯拉销量为7670辆，约为中国市场全年销量四分之三。特斯拉的销量终于跟上了声势。

在中国的外企都要跟政府搞好关系，特斯拉在这方面小心翼翼。跟苹果一样，特斯拉也因中国制造的零部件需求高而新建工厂，主要是汽车上的大触摸屏。2015年，朱晓彤曾表示特斯拉将在中国制造的零部件上支出翻倍，承诺当年购买价值5亿美元的产品；类似支出今后只会越来越多。

更重要的问题是特斯拉会不会，或者什么时候宣布在中国建厂。每一家在中国销量高的汽车生厂商，包括梅赛德斯-奔驰和宝马都跟本地企业成立了合资公司。几十年来政府一直如此要求。进口车要支付高额费用，特斯拉车主都能深刻感受到。Model 3轿车在美国起售价为3.5万美元，到中国加了25%的关税和17%的增值税后价格变成5万美元，对中产阶级买家来说是个不小的负担。“如果不打算在本地生产，想保持业绩挺难的，”曾负责克莱斯勒东北亚地区事物，上海高峰咨询董事总经理比尔·鲁索表示。

建厂问题上，特斯拉一直守口如瓶。汽车行业协会官员董扬表示，已经有几家潜在合作企业在找特斯拉谈，也有多个省市希望特斯拉能合作建厂：“条件一个比一个开得好，”董扬说。今年5月，马斯克表示到今年年底特斯拉会进一步明确在中国建厂的事宜。公司发言人拒绝透露更多信息。

特斯拉犹豫可能是因为现在的销售数字略显尴尬。常驻香港的彭博行业研究分析师史蒂夫·曼恩表示，如果每年制造汽车不到10万辆，就没必要在中国建厂。特斯拉在加州弗里蒙特的工厂每年可出产50万辆。即便今年中国销量翻倍，也就刚超过2万辆。摆在眼前的是类似“第22条军规”窘境：如果不在本地建厂就没法降价推动销售，按如果销售上不去在本地建厂就不划算。

知识产权保护也是个让人头疼的问题。批评中国商业界的人士表示，特斯拉如果在中国建厂，很快就会遇到知识产权失窃的问题。“是的，一定会有技术被偷走，”加州大学伯克利分校研究中国汽车市场的讲师克里斯托儿·张表示。但张补充说技术失窃的风险也没那么大。“只是盗走技术并不意味着（对手）能变成竞争者，”她表示，“还是要看品牌。”

现在已有十多家中国资本支持的电动车制造商（很多原本是美国创业公司，被中国人收购了）紧追慢赶，拼命推广自家的电动车，比拼加速时间；Faraday Future、卡玛汽车、蔚来汽车和Future Mobility只是其中几家。不过未来几年里大部分都会停留在概念车或者原型车阶段，眼睁睁看着特斯拉抢占中国市场。

正是因为技术领先，特斯拉才有可能跟中国政府争取到优惠条件然后建厂造车。而中国不仅热爱特斯拉的技术，还希望引进其管理经验。其实特斯拉已经向申请者公开专利，所以马斯克很有可能同意分享更多信息，推动特斯拉汽车在中国进一步拓展。

Just as important: Word was getting out that buying a Tesla was easier than buying other luxury cars. In China, dealerships known as “4S stores” (for “service, spare parts, sale, and survey”) largely corner the market for popular luxury brands like BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, and Mercedes-Benz. The stores inflate costs for consumers by tens of thousands of dollars with various vague fees. Tesla’s direct-sales showrooms eschew that system. And while import tariffs increase their overall cost, Tesla otherwise prices its cars in China at the same level that it does in the U.S. after currency adjustments.

Vanessa Zhu visited three other brands before she settled on her Model X. The Range Rover dealership asked for an additional 300,000 yuan ($45,000) as its standard fee, she says; Porsche told her she had to wait three months for its Cayenne SUV and required a 100,000-yuan delivery fee. Tesla in contrast, put her on a one-size-fits-all waiting list and didn’t impose fees. “In China, a car is a symbol of your status, so most people don’t care what you pay in terms of those extra fees,” Zhu says. “But I do care. I don’t like it.”

Tesla owners also found out they could beat China’s bureaucracy in the license-plate game. China’s local governments restrict the number of drivers on their clogged, polluted streets by controlling the number of plates issued. Drivers have to wait years to get one through a lottery system. (In early 2015, 6.2 million people applied for just 36,757 available Beijing plates.) And once drivers get a plate, they are barred from driving one day a week.

But plates for electric cars now fall under different rules, thanks to the government’s push for electric vehicles. Beginning in 2014, Shanghai allowed electric-car drivers to get a license plate without facing a wait, a $12,000 plate fee, or driving restrictions. Other cities followed suit, and such policies became a boon for China’s electric-car makers. Without them, “there’s no possibility that private consumers would buy these vehicles,” says Zhang Yong, deputy general manager at the electric-car offshoot of state-owned Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co.

The policies were game changers for Tesla too. The first six cities in China to have exempted electric vehicles from license plate restrictions: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Tianjin. The cities with the highest Tesla sales, according to Junheng Li of JL Warren Capital: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Tianjin.

While the policies helped sell Model S sedans, Tesla realized quickly that the Model X would be a much bigger story in China. China’s obsession with SUVs is 10 years old and going strong. Their popularity stems from a variety of factors: Domestic ¬makers produce good models; their seating can accommodate an entire extended family; they’re widely believed to be safer; and their higher prices imbue status. German luxury-car maker Porsche’s bestselling vehicle in China isn’t a sports car but its Macan SUV.

By 2015, SUV sales were the only growing part of the Chinese auto market; in the first half of 2016, SUVs accounted for 35% of passenger-vehicle sales. It’s no coincidence, then, that a spike in Tesla sales coincides exactly with the first Model X deliveries in China, in June 2016. In the second half of last year, with the SUV available, Tesla notched 7,670 sales—about three-quarters of its total for the year in China. Tesla’s sales had finally caught up to its hype.

Close government relations are a must in China for foreign companies, and Tesla has carefully cultivated them. Like Apple, Tesla has created new businesses thanks to its demand for Chinese-made components, particularly its cars’ giant touch screens. In 2015, Tom Zhu said Tesla would double its spending on Chinese-made parts, committing to buying $500 million worth of supplies from Chinese companies that year; such spending has likely only skyrocketed.

The far bigger question mark is whether, and when, Tesla will announce plans for a factory in the country. Every car brand with significant China sales—including luxury-auto makers like Mercedes-Benz and BMW—runs a joint venture with a local partner. The government has required as much for decades. Imported cars face hefty fees, as Tesla owners are painfully aware. A Model 3 sedan’s $35,000 starting price in the U.S. becomes $50,000 in China after a 25% tariff and 17% value-added tax—a heavy lift for a middle-class buyer. “If they don’t announce plans for local production, they will struggle to sustain this performance,” says Bill Russo, former head of Chrysler North East Asia and managing director of Gao Feng Advisory in Shanghai.

Tesla remains cagey about what those plans could look like. Dong Yang, the auto lobby official, says several potential local partners are courting the company, and that multiple provinces and municipalities want Tesla to build a plant with them: “They all offer better and better options,” Dong says. In May, Musk said Tesla would more clearly define its plans for China production by the end of this year; a spokesman declined to give further details.

Tesla may be hesitating because of today’s sales numbers. If you build fewer than 100,000 vehicles a year, it doesn’t make sense to manufacture in China, says Steve Man, analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong. Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., can churn out more than 500,000 vehicles annually. Even if it doubles China sales this year, Tesla will just pass 20,000 cars. It faces a catch-22: It won’t sell cars at lower prices that drive sales if it doesn’t produce them locally, but local production won’t be economical until sales rise drastically.

Intellectual property is a looming headache as well. Critics of Chinese business practices argue that Tesla faces certain IP theft as soon as it brings manufacturing into China. “Yes, some of its tech will be stolen,” says Crystal Chang, a lecturer at University of California at Berkeley who studies China’s auto market. But Chang adds that the danger inherent in that theft is overstated. “Just stealing tech does not make [a rival] a competitor,” she says. “It’s all about brand.”

Today more than a dozen Chinese-backed manufacturers (many of them American startups that now have Chinese owners) are tripping over one another to promote their electric cars and acceleration times; Faraday Future, Karma Automotive, NextEV, and Future Mobility are but a few. But most are likely to be stuck in the concept or prototype phase for the next several years—even as Teslas zip across China.

That’s one reason Tesla may be able to reach an agreement to produce cars in the country on favorable terms. China lusts after Tesla’s technology but also its management practices. And Tesla already offers its patents to anyone who asks—making it highly plausible that Musk would agree to more information-sharing in return for a vastly expanded market for Tesla’s cars.

有一家中国巨头看起来极为看好特斯拉的前景。3月底，跟政界联系紧密的科技巨头腾讯宣布斥资18亿美元买入特斯拉的股票，腾讯最近跻身全球十大上市公司之列。之后不久，特斯拉市值超越通用汽车，成为美国最值钱的汽车公司。

最近一个周日晚，三十多位潜在买家齐聚北京特斯拉展厅品酒。这些人大部分三十多岁，非常富有而且关心环境，但多数对特斯拉品牌比较敬畏。特斯拉的买家圈子正日益扩大，从富裕人群拓展到富豪。杰夫·于家里做酸奶生意，原本打算买辆梅赛德斯-奔驰SUV或玛莎拉蒂，感觉太浮华了。“特斯拉很有科技感，符合我的口味，”他说。

做音响设备生意的艾文·曲身材颀长，穿着一件设计师衬衫，手上戴着手串。他认为，如果下次跟大客户中央电视台高层谈生意时开着特斯拉去，散发的环保气质会有帮助。“开这种车能帮我多谈成生意，”他说。他在特斯拉官网上定制了海蓝色的Model X，总价120万元（17.5万美元）。

一位侍者往曲的酒杯里斟满酒，背后循环播放着特斯拉的广告，跟他的远大抱负交相辉映。广告里一遍遍说着，“选择特斯拉绿色汽车，享受未来更美好的生活。”（财富中文网）

本文节选自2017年6月15日出刊的《财富》杂志。

译者：Charlie

审稿：夏林

One big Chinese corporate player seems to have no doubt about Tesla’s prospects. In late March, Tencent, the politically connected technology giant that recently became one of the world’s 10 largest publicly traded companies, said it spent $1.8 billion buying Tesla stock. Not long afterward, Tesla’s market capitalization edged past that of General Motors, making it the most valuable American automaker.

On a recent Sunday night, three dozen prospective buyers gather in a Tesla showroom in Beijing for a wine tasting. The crowd of mostly thirtysomethings skews wealthy, and cares some about the environment, but they’re mostly in awe of the brand. Tesla’s buyers’ circle has expanded to include the rich along with the very rich. Jeff Yu, whose family runs a yogurt business, thought about buying an SUV from Mercedes-Benz or Maserati, but was put off by their glitz. “Tesla is a tech thing. That’s my taste,” he says.

Evan Qu, a slim man sporting a designer shirt and Buddhist wrist beads, sells audio equipment; he thinks executives at his biggest customer, CCTV, the central broadcaster, will appreciate the environmentalist aura of the Tesla when he rolls up to their next meeting. “This car helps you get more deals,” he says. On Tesla’s website, he’s customized his Model X—color: ocean blue—for a total cost of 1.2 million yuan ($175,000).

A waiter refills Qu’s glass as a promotional video on a loop in the background underscores his aspirations. Choose a Tesla green vehicle, it says, over and over, to advance a better life in the future. 

A version of this article appears in the June 15, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline "Tesla Makes a U-Turn in China."