新闻周刊:马斯克的豪赌:特斯拉能为汽车制造带来革新吗?(3)（在线收听）

What the Future Looks Like’

“未来是什么样子的”

“There’s a savior mentality in Silicon Valley,” says Lucie Greene, worldwide director of the Innovation Group at advertising and marketing giant J.

“硅谷有一种救世主心态，” 广告和营销巨头智威汤逊广告公司创新集团全球总监露西·格林说道。

Walter Thompson and author of the forthcoming book Silicon States, about the growing influence of high-tech companies.

露西·格林即将出版的《硅州》一书，讲述高科技公司日益增长的影响力。

“Because these companies can attract so much money despite not having to succeed by traditional metrics like profitability, they’re able to position themselves to define what the future looks like.”

“尽管不需要通过盈利能力等传统指标取得成功，但因为这些公司可以吸引如此多的资金，所以他们能够通过定位自己来定义未来。”

For Musk, that means transforming the auto industry through innovative manufacturing built around leading-edge robots, advances in batteries and a unique approach to sales that cuts out the need for car dealerships.

对马斯克来说，这意味着通过前沿机器人的创新制造、电池技术的进步以及独特的销售方式来改变汽车行业。

Tesla has almost single-handedly energized the electric car industry by bringing out sleek, fast,

特斯拉几乎是单枪匹马为电动汽车行业注入了活力，

luxurious vehicles that can travel over 300 miles between charges—a welcome development on a planet devastated by our over-reliance on fossil fuels.

特斯拉推出了时尚、速度快、豪华的汽车，一次充电可以行驶300英里以上——在我们过度依赖化石燃料的地球上，这是一个可喜的发展。

Tesla’s revenues are climbing as shipments of its first mass-market model start to take off.

随着第一款大众市场车型的出货量开始激增，特斯拉的收入正在攀升。

The company has already taken deposits on the car from half a million apparently eager buyers,

特斯拉已经从50万急切的买家那里拿到了预付款。

and Musk announced in August that Tesla is poised to turn a profit for the first time in the next six months.

今年8月，马斯克宣布，特斯拉有望在未来6个月内首次实现盈利。

There’s a consensus among analysts that should Tesla burn through the nearly $2 billion it still has on hand—

特斯拉是否应该消耗掉手头上的近20亿美元——

the company incinerated a billion dollars in the first quarter of 2018 alone—

特斯拉仅在2018年第一季度就烧掉10亿美元——

Musk can raise the funding he needs to keep going, in part because Tesla may have already become too big to fail.

分析师们一致认为，马斯克能够筹集到继续运营所需的资金，部分原因是特斯拉可能已经大到不能倒了。

“The company has a market value of $60 billion, so investors will give him more money,” says Colin Rusch, lead analyst on sustainable energy for Wall Street investment company Oppenheimer.

“特斯拉市值600亿美元，所以投资者会给他更多的钱，”华尔街投资公司Oppenheimer可持续能源首席分析师科林·罗斯克说道，

Even with the beating Tesla stock has taken recently, the company is still worth more than Ford.

尽管特斯拉的股价最近跌宕起伏，但该公司的市值仍高于福特。

To be sure, high-tech companies have long boasted of disrupting industries with innovative products and new ways to do business.

可以肯定的是，高科技公司长期以来一直以创新产品和新的经营方式颠覆行业而自豪。

They’ve unleashed vast improvements in information access, communications and productivity while creating incredible wealth for investors, entrepreneurs and key employees.

它们在信息获取、沟通和生产率方面取得了巨大进步，同时为投资者、企业家和关键员工创造了难以置信的财富。

What Musk represents is the problematic Silicon Valley Effect—

马斯克代表的是有问题的硅谷效应——

the troubling contradiction between tech companies’ loudly proclaimed dedication to making the world a better place and their quieter dedication to making products for the rich at the expense of workers.

科技公司高调宣称要让世界变得更美好，而他们以牺牲工人利益为代价为富人制造产品，两者之间存在着令人不安的矛盾。

Just as Amazon’s rise has been a disaster for many of the 12 million American workers in the retail industry, Tesla’s ascendance could decimate U.S. manufacturing—and not just the automobile industry,

正如亚马逊的崛起对零售业1200万美国工人中的许多人来说是一场灾难一样，特斯拉的崛起可能会摧毁美国制造业——不仅是汽车工业。

which at last count employed 7 million people and supports the livelihood of many millions more.

据最新统计，汽车工业雇佣了700万人，支撑着数百万人的生活。

The catch to building world-changing companies, of course, is that they eventually have to turn a profit.

当然，打造改变世界的公司的关键在于，最终必须盈利。

That pressure to make money tends to push even leading-edge companies to focus on those who can afford premium, higher-priced products, and to slash labor costs through automation and squeezing fewer workers to do more for lower wages.

这种赚钱的压力往往会促使甚至是最尖端的公司将重点放在那些能够负担得起高质量、高价格产品的企业上，并通过自动化来削减劳动力成本，并迫使更少的工人为更低的工资做更多事情。

Tesla is not exempt from the laws of financial gravity.

特斯拉也不能逃脱金融引力的法则。

The cheapest vehicle that the company will currently accept an order for is a $49,000 version of its newest model, the Model 3—a car Musk has long bragged would have a starting price of $35,000.

特斯拉目前接受订单的最便宜车型是Model 3，售价4.9万美元。马斯克一直吹嘘，Model 3的起价为3.5万美元。

That’s essentially the average price for a new car in the U.S., but there are plenty of models priced under $20,000.

这基本上是美国新车的平均价格，但也有很多价格在2万美元以下的型号。

His disputed claim—that Tesla can make money selling a $35,000 car to millions of people—has come to sound like the practice Silicon Valley fondly calls “fake it till you make it.”

他有争议的主张是，特斯拉可以通过向数百万人出售3.5万美元的汽车来赚钱，这听起来就像硅谷天真的说法，“真成功之前先假装”。

That is, a disruptive new company that has a lot of kinks to work out needs to drum up a certain amount of hype to pull in the investors, talent and customers it needs to sustain itself while it tries to make a profit.

也就是说，一家有很多问题需要解决的具有颠覆性的新公司，需要进行一定程度的炒作，吸引投资者、人才和客户，以便在盈利的同时维持自身的生存。

And then it has to figure out how to deliver on that hype before everyone notices.

然后，须得在所有人都注意到之前，找出传播这种炒作的方法。