Tesla's "shorting shorts" is just Musk's banter, but many car companies are serious about doing side work

Auto-First|Sun Jinfeng

Tesla's stock price has risen more than twice this year, and its latest market value exceeded 250 billion U.S. dollars, making it the world's highest market capitalization car company. In order to mock investors who have been shorting Tesla for a long time, Musk came up with the idea of launching Tesla's "short seller shorts" on July 6, local time, priced at $69.420, which is the first time Tesla has sold shorts in the world. "Short seller shorts" printed on the back of the "S3XY" gold characters, respectively, on behalf of Tesla's four major models Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y. Unexpectedly, the shorts accidentally on fire, Tesla The sale link on the online store had a technical glitch at one point, and Musk followed up with a tweet laughing that said, "Damn, we've got the site down."

It's clear that Tesla's "shorting shorts" are more of a joke than anything else, and Musk isn't trying to get rich with them, but when you look at automotive companies, a lot of them are doing serious side work.

Wuling snail powder

"What the people need Wuling to build", in addition to the masks during the epidemic, Wuling has built a local specialty in Liuzhou - snail powder.

Distinguished from ordinary bagged snail meal, Wuling snail meal packaging using noble and elegant emerald green as the main color of the appearance, built-in in addition to snail meal, but also equipped with exquisite tableware, is committed to creating a snail meal in the luxury goods. In fact, Wuling push snail powder, is not a whim. According to relevant data, the last week of June, 3.2 million people searched for "snail powder", every day late at night there are nearly 500,000 orders of snail powder.

Snail meal origin is Liuzhou, Guangxi, and Wuling automobile base is also in Liuzhou, cross-border production of snail meal for "what people need to build what" for the Wuling, it makes sense.

BYD masks

With Wuling's masks are mainly used for government and social epidemic prevention, and are only gifted but not sold differently, BYD's masks have really made a lucrative business.

BYD gave the task of producing the masks to their ninth division. The division is located in Shenzhen's Baolong Industrial Park, which is known internally as "Baolong Nine". Founded in 2006, the division's initial products and services included Motorola and Nokia cell phones, as well as tablet PCs and laptops. Later, it gradually expanded into automotive retail parts molds, after-sales service and other automotive-related businesses. Before the production of masks, "Baolong nine" already has a medical device system certification.

When the epidemic was at its worst, BYD began producing masks, mainly for front-line infected areas, hospitals and anti-virus-related departments, not for sale. Later, with the expansion of the scale, BYD began to sell masks to Europe, America, Asia-Pacific and other countries and regions of the global epidemic, and gained a good profit. At present, the global new crown epidemic is still spreading, BYD's mask export business is doing well and has become the most profitable new business segment.

Volkswagen brand incense?

The VW brand of sausage is as old as Volkswagen. When Volkswagen decided to settle in Wolfsburg in 1938, Wolfsburg was a small town of just a few hundred people, while VW employees numbered in the thousands. In order to solve the problem of feeding its own employees, Volkswagen set up a meat processing plant, and even set up a farm to raise its own cows and grow its own vegetables, and the Volkswagen brand sausage, labeled "Volkswagen?Originalteil," was born.

Since then, with the development of Volkswagen, the Volkswagen brand sausage has also followed in the footsteps of its globalization, and the Volkswagen sausage is only available exclusively for the canteens of factories all over the world and for sale in individual stores, so it's not something that can be eaten anywhere. Auto-First's editorial team has been to Volkswagen's headquarters in Wolfsburg twice, and had a taste of the famous Volkswagen sausage, which tastes quite good with the Volkswagen ketchup that Volkswagen has developed specifically for the sausage.

Now, the annual production of VW sausages exceeds that of Volkswagen cars in minutes. Some sources show that in 2015, VW sausage production was 7.2 million, while VW car production was 5.82 million in the same year. A VW executive once told the media that VW sausages have become part of its corporate culture.

Honda BAIC Geely to build airplanes

Speaking of car companies to engage in sideline business, Honda is simply the automotive industry on behalf of the fighter. Honda has always been keen on researching robots and airplanes in addition to building cars. In December 2015, Honda's first production airplane HondaJet?HA-420 has been officially certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, delivered to customers to fly.

The HondaJet?HA-420, which can seat six people and is powered by a GM Honda HF120 engine, has a maximum range of up to 2,185km, a cruising speed of 778km/h, and a maximum cruising altitude of 13.1km. these figures are also among the leading ones in its class of competitors.? In order to make the Hondajet as popular as possible, Honda is even considering adopting a "fractional ownership" sales method to lower its price, which shows Honda's usual "pragmatic" style in its side business.

In fact, a number of Chinese auto companies are also building airplanes. BAIC, Chery and Geely all have their own airlines, and BAIC showed off its self-developed general-purpose plane at the Beijing auto show, while Geely's small plane was also unveiled this year.

Ferrari theme parks

Apart from watches and clothes, ultra-luxury brand Ferrari's biggest sideline is the Ferrari theme parks in the United Arab Emirates and Spain.

One of them, Ferrari Park, located in the Yas Island Development Zone in Abu Dhabi, UAE, adjacent to the F1 Abu Dhabi Station Circuit, which is claimed to be built at a cost of 40 billion US dollars, is the world's largest indoor theme park, covering 86,000 square meters. The park's interior design is also very distinctive, inspired by the Formula 1 car Formula?Rossa roller coaster can be accelerated to 240km/h within 5s, followed by a climb to 52 meters in the air, followed by high-speed up and down roll, exceptionally exciting. In addition, there are various simulators for visitors to be subjected to the speed and passion brought by the Italian supercar manufacturer.

In China, automobile companies in order to create a better user experience and enhance brand awareness, have also begun to build similar theme parks, BAIC off-road town, FAW Red Flag town have been the first scale.

Rolls-Royce - Phantom Rose

The luxury of Rolls-Royce is well known, and in order to show its high-end luxury tone, Rolls-Royce specially cultivates a kind of globally unique rose and names the flower with its car name Phantom.

The Phantom Rose is said to have been hand-bred by Philip Harkness, a highly regarded Harkness Rose Nursery breeder. Her family has been dedicated to breeding roses since 1879 and has won more than 25 gold medals at the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower Show over the past 50 years.

The Phantom Rose is distinctive, with creamy-white flowers made up of more than 50 petals, full-bodied branches and a rich, fragrant scent that took Harkness eight years to cultivate. One of the brand's inspirations, the Phantom Rose made its debut in 2017 in the unique Phantom "Artistic Realm Collection" gallery, showcasing the ultimate luxury of Rolls-Royce's flagship model. Let's just say, there's money to be made!

(Image from the network)

This article comes from the author of the Automobile House, and does not represent the views of the Automobile House.