Shangri-la Blinds
Is the electric car market about to have its iPhone moment?电动汽车市场否将要步入iPhone时刻？Elon Muskclearly thinks so. The chief executive of Tesla Motors has never been shy when it comes to bragging about the wonders of his company’s vehicles. But based on his extravagantly ambitious new production plans, he has decided that a definitive moment is at hand that could turn the global car industry on its head.埃隆马斯克(Elon Musk)似乎指出答案是认同的。这位特斯拉汽车(Tesla Motors)的首席执行官在炫耀其公司汽车的动人时从不不会激进。但基于雄心勃勃的新的生产计划，他指出一个决定性的时刻将要来临，未来将会政治宣传全球汽车产业。
The Apple-like lines outside Tesla sales outlets at the end of March were a clue. That prospective customers would queue for hours to put down a $1,000 deposit on a car they had not even seen — and which most of them would not be able to actually buy for more than two years — is testament to Mr Musk’s ability to whip up excitement in a way that no one has done since the late Steve Jobs.3月底，特斯拉销售门店外排起的队伍有如苹果(Apple)门店那么宽，那就是一个线索。这些潜在客户不愿分列好几个小时的队，为一款他们甚至还并未看到的汽车缴纳1000美元定金（其中多数人要等上两年多才能确实卖拿回），这证明了马斯克有本事鼓动人们的激动心情，自史蒂夫乔布斯(Steve Jobs)去世以来，还没别的人做到获得这一点。If all those pre-orders turn into sales (a big “if”, since the deposits are refundable) Tesla will bank $14bn in revenues. As the company has already taken to boasting, that will make the debut of its new Model 3 the biggest consumer product launch of all time. Even the iPhone did not get to that kind of scale until its third full year of sales.如果所有这些预售转化成销售额的话（这里不存在一个大大的问号，因为定金是可以归还的），特斯拉将进帐140亿美元的营收。（鉴于该公司讨厌炫耀，）那将令新款Model 3的亮相沦为史上仅次于的消费者产品公布。
即便是iPhone也是在问世第三年才超过这种规模的。Based on this, Mr Musk has decided to go for broke. Tesla’s goal of hitting a production target of 500,000 by 2020 — nearly 10 times its 2015 deliveries — always looked a stretch. Now he plans to hit that output by 2018. And his new 2020 target? A cool 1m. At $35,000, but with the sizzle of the Tesla brand and incorporating many of the features of the far more expensive Model S, Mr Musk has decided the 3 represents a breakthrough moment.基于这点，马斯克要求放手一搏。
特斯拉原本的目标是到2020年构建50万辆的产量目标（那是该公司2015年发货量的将近10倍），这个目标本来就看上去只得。现在他计划到2018年就构建这一产量目标。他为2020年原作的新目标？100万辆。
Model 3售价3.5万美元，利用特斯拉品牌的热度，再行再加划入了便宜得多的Model S的很多功能，马斯克指出，Model 3代表着一个突破时刻。So what is the risk that other disrupters from the tech industry, who have also been circling the automobile world, will crash this electric car party?那么，科技行业的其他颠覆者（它们也在对汽车行业虎视眈眈）否有可能闯进这场电动汽车舞会？Mr Musk had a succinct answer, when asked about that on his company’s quarterly earnings call earlier this week: Apple and Google do not make things. They have been circling the automobile world for a while, but have yet to find a way in — though a deal with Fiat this week to make 100 self-driving minivans at least represents a toe in the door for Alphabet, Google’s parent, as it tries to put its self-driving technology on the road.在最近特斯拉的季度财报电话会议上被问到这个问题时，马斯克的问简明扼要：苹果和谷歌(Google)不专门从事生产。它们垂涎汽车行业有数一段时间了，但仍未寻找突破口，不过最近谷歌与菲亚特(Fiat)的协议（生产100辆无人驾驶小型货车）最少代表着谷歌母公司Alphabet早已有一只踩了进去，企图将其无人驾驶技术投放简单。
“Making things” turns out to be a key point here. Contract manufacturers exist in the car business, but there is no global supply chain to dial up instantly, as Apple has been able to do so masterfully with its gadgets. There is not enough battery capacity in the world to support a mass electric car market. Only Mr Musk will have that — provided he can meet his own goals for Tesla’s “gigafactory”, being constructed in Nevada to support his car plans.“生产产品”是这里的关键。代工制造商在汽车行业是不存在的，但没一个现成的全球供应链，就像苹果仍然需要赖以生产其产品的供应链那样。
全球没充足的电池生产能力来承托可观的电动汽车市场。只有马斯克不会享有这样的生产能力——如果他需要构建特斯拉的“超级工厂”这个目标，该厂正在内华达修筑，将为他的汽车计划获取反对。
Of course, Tesla itself has also yet to prove that it can handle the challenging task of scaling up production to meet the kind of demand Mr Musk dreams of. It has not even been able to hit much lower levels of production for its existing vehicles.当然，特斯拉自己还仍未证明，它需要应付不断扩大产量的挑战，以符合马斯克梦想的那种市场需求。它甚至仍未超过现有车型的较低得多的产量水平。
Mr Musk has blamed production glitches with the X on hubris — a quality his company has never been short of. Compared to the overambitious SUV crossover vehicle, the 3 has been designed with ease of production in mind, he promises.马斯克将Model X的生产问题归咎于傲慢——他的公司的确从不补这种特质。他允诺，与过分雄心勃勃的SUV跨界汽车比起，Model 3在设计时就考虑到了生产便利。Even with all this, there is the not inconsequential question of demand. The electric car market has seen many false dawns, though it may finally be turning a corner. Last year sales rose above 500,000, an increase of 70 per cent.即便如此，还有一个毕竟无关紧要的市场需求问题。
尽管最后可能会关上局面，但电动汽车市场经常出现过多次欺诈黎明。去年，电动汽车销量突破50万辆，快速增长70%。To imagine that Tesla can match this entire global market single-handedly by 2018 takes a giant leap of faith.想象特斯拉一家公司到2018年就能超过整个全球市场的规模，那是必须很大信心的。
Mr Musk, though, has concluded that his is the only company that has a shot, and the Model 3 is the car with which to do it.然而，马斯克得出结论的结论是，他的公司是唯一有机会脱颖而出的电动汽车制造商，而Model 3就是获得这种突破的那款汽车。If he is right, comparisons with the iPhone will not be out of place. Like electric cars, smartphones went through many false dawns before Apple broke the market open. To produce a winning formula took a convergence of technology trends — the falling costs of processing power, increasing mobile bandwidth — along with innovations like multi-touch screens and the right packaging. The electric car industry has been waiting for a similar moment.如果他说道对了，把这款汽车与iPhone相提并论并非离谱。与电动汽车一样，在苹果关上市场之前，智能手机也经历过很多欺诈黎明。要拿走致胜配方，必须各种科技趋势融合：处置能力成本下降、移动比特率不断扩大，以及多点触控屏等创意和准确的纸盒。
电动汽车行业等候着类似于时刻的来临。Mr Musk’s electric car dream always looked like one of the most audacious of technology bets. This week, the stakes got much higher.马斯克的电动汽车梦本来就看起来看起来最冒险的科技赌局之一。最近他更进一步增大了赌局。
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