Chapter 119 Lin Jia’s opinion
“Brother, I think you have thought very clearly about su7, including positioning, pricing, and even the subsequent marketing strategy. I think you should have thought it through too. . ”
After getting out of the Ultra, Chen Yuanguang and Lei Jun went to the conference room of Xiaomi’s production base, while Lin Jia stayed at the test track. She also wanted to try Xiaomi’s new car.
Lin Jia has much more driving experience than Chen Yuanguang, and has handled many more luxury cars. As a shareholder of Guangjia Technology, she can also be regarded as a shareholder of Xiaomi Motors after her equity is penetrated. , she is also curious about what the cars made by Xiaomi are like.
After arriving in the conference room, Chen Yuanguang changed from his relaxed demeanor to serious. He was not sure whether Xiaomi su7 could succeed, and he could not change the design and positioning of the car because it was too late.
However, Ultra may still undergo major adjustments. It is still an engineering vehicle and there is still time before it is officially put into production.
"Yuanguang, you said, you are welcome to give your opinions, and we will seriously consider your opinions." Lei Jun saw that Chen Yuanguang became serious, and he also made a gesture of listening carefully.
Whether Chen Yuanguang is a shareholder, a core supplier, or a successful entrepreneur, no matter which one of these identities is taken out individually, Lei Jun deserves to listen carefully to his point of view, let alone so many identities overlap. .
Chen Yuanguang said: "I think Ultra is very good, but it still lacks some elements.
Can the whole car's climate control system and unbounded audio and video system alone support its price of 500,000? , I think there is still a question mark whether consumers will buy it.
Can we add some unique technologies or elements to it? "
Chen Yuanguang also wanted to add more ingredients, but he always felt that it was not stable enough if he didn't add it.
After hearing this, Lei Jun looked helpless, "If possible, we naturally hope to have exclusive technology. Add it in, but the problem is that Xiaomi’s current exclusive technologies in the automotive field are still being developed in-house.
What is more impressive is the connection between Xiaomi Auto and Xiaomi’s previous smart ecological chain. The entire smart ecosystem of Xiaomi Auto, Xiaomi home appliances and Xiaomi mobile phones is fully covered, which is the biggest feature of Xiaomi Auto.
In terms of automotive technology, we have not made any major breakthroughs yet. Most of some internal projects are in the research and development stage. If we purchase externally, the technology that can be purchased will not be exclusive technology. ”
This is not a press conference, and Chen Yuanguang is not a potential consumer. Lei Jun is very candid.
Lei Jun continued: "Have you seen "I, Robot" starring Will Smith? A movie adapted from Asimov's novel, in which the future car
used It's a spherical tire.
When we were brainstorming internally, we also considered whether we could build a car with spherical tires, even if it was just a concept car, but we found that spherical tires were too difficult. Involving a more complex rotation control device, the contact surface is smaller than the cylindrical tire, and its friction is greater
It's a completely beautiful but not practical design.
The automobile industry has developed for more than two hundred years, and electric vehicles have a history of twenty years. If you want to write on the technical level, Xiaomi’s accumulation is not enough. ”
Chen Yuanguang thought that in the future time and space, luxury sports cars will use spherical tires. Magnetic levitation materials and room temperature superconducting materials solve the problem of spherical tires controlling steering, while new rubber materials solve the problem of friction.
Spherical tires have greatly improved the control sensitivity, so all luxury sports cars use spherical tires.
However, not many of these sports cars are sold in a year.
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For ordinary people, if they have this money, it is better to spend one-twentieth of the money to buy a virtual helmet and operate it as they want in it.
Chen Yuanguang said: "OK, I understand that it is indeed difficult to make breakthroughs in technology in the short term, and innovation in application is also innovation.
We also talked about it before, in order to maximize the solar energy absorption rate , the entire top is made of a flat surface, which is an openable skylight.
Can this flat surface be turned into a screen? It is divided into two layers, the outer layer is the solar cell, and the inner layer is the solar cell. A whole screen that can be controlled by a mobile phone to project pictures and even GIF animations on the mobile phone.
This is also a manifestation of intelligence. In addition to this, in terms of human-car interaction, Can more intelligent modules be added, such as adding a weight sensor to the main driver to automatically adjust the steering wheel and seat position based on the driver's weight and past driving habits?
Many new energy vehicles now do not emphasize what can record the driver's status, but they need to choose and control the record by themselves. Xiaomi can automatically adjust it based on weight.
The level of intelligence is immediately apparent.
When it is difficult to make breakthroughs in technology, we focus on the intelligence of vehicle systems and cockpits. I think this is also a direction for breakthroughs.
Of course these are just some of my temporary ideas. The specific implementability depends on your specific schedule and launch time. ”
Lei Jun is obviously thinking about the feasibility of these points mentioned by Chen Yuanguang, such as making a whole screen inside the roof. If it is a curved roof, it will be difficult and costly, but a flat roof is No more questions.
As for intelligence, they are all very basic. It just depends on who can think of so many details and whether there are enough engineers and programmers to do the development.
Lei Jun looked a little more relaxed. He looked at Chen Yuanguang and said firmly: "Junior brother, we will definitely consider your suggestions seriously.
Let's start making improvements on these.
< br>Our current plan is to launch Xiaomi su7 and Ultra at the beginning of next year, and then start pre-orders for Ultra in the third quarter of next year, and officially launch it in the fourth quarter.
This is the preliminary timetable, Ultra will be according to your needs. It’s completely timely to make adjustments according to the suggestions.”
On the way to leave Xiaomi Automobile after chatting with Lei Jun, Lin Jia drove the old S-Class Mercedes-Benz that his father left behind in Yanjing, and said with emotion: "After driving a new energy vehicle, even a Mercedes-Benz I feel that there is nothing wrong with it." Habit. ”
Lin Jia flew directly from Yantai to Yanjing with Chen Yuanguang. The gray suit he wore at the signing ceremony with the Aviation Technology Group was also temporarily made by a clothing store that Lin Jia found.
Lin Jia has always disliked Yanjing. She felt that the atmosphere in Yanjing was too depressing. Back then, she had enough points in Zhejiang Province to attend Yanjing Normal University or Yanjing Institute of Technology, but she did not choose Yanjing simply because she didn’t like Yanjing. these two schools.
Usually when the two of them go out, Lin Jia drives. Chen Yuanguang doesn’t drive if he can’t drive: “This is because the electric cars you drive are more expensive.
These are more expensive. For electric vehicles, it adopts integrated casting method to integrate the body battery.
This reduces the center of gravity of the vehicle and at the same time increases the torsional stiffness of the vehicle body to reduce the amount of deformation during cornering, thus achieving the effect of improving controllability.
On the other hand, the electric drive platform of electric vehicles is much simpler than that of gasoline vehicles, which allows many electric vehicles priced at 200,000 yuan to have better controllability than gasoline vehicles priced at 600,000 to 700,000 yuan. . ”
After Chen Yuanguang finished speaking, he was surprised to find that his way of thinking had changed.
When he was admitted to Jiangnan University, as a science student, he was in the School of Chemistry in college. His way of thinking is mainly rational. Later, when he started writing online articles, emotional color and emotional expression gradually replaced rationality.
In the past few years, he felt that his emotional color had almost disappeared. We try to give reasonable explanations based on the principles behind any issue we talk about.
Paying too much attention to rationality and logic, Chen Yuanguang thought that if he went back to write Tokyo romance novels now, he would probably not have a single reader.
Lin Jia was confused by what she heard, and she directly changed the subject: "Yuan Guang, do you think Xiaomi Auto can be successful?"
Chen Yuanguang said: "There are many factors that can make it successful. Xiaomi's long-term operation With offline channels, supply chain management accumulated over the years, and strong self-owned capital reserves, the senior has also invested in new energy car companies like Xiaopeng, so he started building cars without any experience.
Xiaomi. Its own brand image is still recognizable in the minds of consumers. I think it has a high probability of success.”
This is also the unanimous view of the outside world after Xiaomi decided to build a car, compared with LeTV and Evergrande. , Xiaomi’s talent to start building cars is great.
Lin Jia shook her head, and the open window blew her hair a little messy. She drove seriously and said, "When a giant starts a business across fields, all the advantages it seemed to have in the past are just clouds. Their past successes Experience will become a constraint.
If these so-called success factors of Xiaomi really work, then Microsoft will not be obsessed with promoting their browser, but the market share has not been able to increase. Gone.
Facebook’s success in social media cannot be replicated in the field of short videos, and it cannot defeat TikTok despite all efforts.
These are at the software level. In terms of hardware, Sony has failed in the past. Their accumulation in consumer electronics, semiconductors and games must be deep enough. Their predecessor, Ericsson, made mobile phones. In the era of smartphones, they can only be others in the global market, barely relying on the parent company to survive, with a market share of 10%. None.
There are always more success factors for traditional car companies. Why are they being suppressed from entering new energy vehicles from gasoline vehicles, and the brand reputation they have accumulated in the past has even become a burden?
With so many cases before us, can Xiaomi really succeed in building a car? I very much doubt that Geely will fight this battle with new brands when it enters new energy, such as Changan and Great Wall. Xiaomi will directly enter the market on its own. Once it fails, will it still have room to move around?
And Xiaomi's brand image may not really play a positive role in Xiaomi's car manufacturing. Maybe like traditional car companies, the brand image accumulated in the mobile phone field has become a burden.
I took it for a test drive and the control felt pretty good. I think it depends on the price. If you take the cost-effective route, you can still save it. Let’s focus on volume first. If it is as consistent as Xiaomi’s flagship phones in recent years If you want to take the high-end route, I think it will probably be a waste. ”
Lin Jia’s views are completely different from Chen Yuanguang’s. Her understanding comes from the cases she has studied at the School of Economics and Management, including that she is not optimistic about the Xiaomi brand.
Chen Yuanguang asked: "Then why didn't you raise objections when we cooperated with Xiaomi?"
"If you had raised objections at that time, we could have changed our partners." Chen Yuanguang said angrily.
He was not really unhappy with Lin Jia for this reason, but simply wanted to question Lin Jia and see the other person's panic.
Lin Jia covered his mouth and smiled: "Because when I knew about it, you had already talked to Lei Jun. If I give you advice now, wouldn't I be slapping you in the face?"
Chen Yuanguang leaned close to Lin Jia’s ear: “Can’t hear you clearly.”
Lin Jia rolled down the car window, repeated what he just said, and then continued: "We only spent 500 million to get 20% of the equity of Xiaomi Motors.
Even if Xiaomi The car failed, but the deal was still very profitable, especially considering that you plan to use the ore as a gimmick to build a luxury car after asteroid mining.
If you have this plan, it is definitely impossible. With the Xiaomi brand, in the future, we will either cooperate with luxury cars or build a brand ourselves.
Based on this consideration, the experience brought to us by investing in Xiaomi is valuable, and it is not worth 500 million. Guangjia Technology has more than enough liquidity on its books."
After Lin Jia finished speaking, Chen Yuanguang asked: "Why can't Xiaomi make a luxury car?
BYD can make more than one million people look up to it, and Xiaomi may not be able to become a luxury brand with the support of light armor aerospace derivative technology. "
Lin Jia shook his head: "I didn't say it was impossible, it was just a matter of probability. The probability of it becoming a luxury brand is too low. Business cannot place its hopes on small-probability events.
It is better to acquire second-tier luxury brands from abroad, like Geely acquired Volvo, and then let us inject new technological genes into them.
I think about it this way.
So investing in Xiaomi is considered a way out.
Besides, the failure of Xiaomi Auto does not mean that Ultra equipped with light armor technology will fail. The success of Ultra means you have succeeded.
Once Ultra is successful, Xiaomi Motors will rely more on Guangjia Technology and Guangjia Aerospace. We can send some senior executives to Xiaomi Motors to prepare for the future of building our own cars. "
Chen Yuanguang asked again, "Didn't you just say you would cooperate with other luxury brands? "
Lin Jia continued to explain: "Because space ore is a gimmick, it will not be essentially different from the earth's own ore. You won’t say that because you used space ore, the car will accelerate faster to 100 meters, or the brakes will be more sensitive.
It is just a gimmick to build a luxury brand and make consumers pay for the super premium. Since it is a gimmick, if you cooperate with other luxury brands and everyone uses it, is this gimmick still valuable? ?
Moreover, the excess profits you can enjoy from cooperation are extremely limited, which is simply a drop in the bucket when it comes to recovering the initial asteroid mining costs.
Porsche’s annual profit is about 7 billion euros. It is the most profitable luxury brand. How much profit can it give you if it uses your ore? Five percent is as high as the sky, which means nothing to Light Armor Aerospace.
In order to ensure that the gimmick is valuable, you can only license it to one or two luxury car companies at most. This revenue is too little. In the end, we will definitely embark on the road of building a luxury brand by ourselves, whether it is an acquisition or starting a new one. . ”
Lin Jia saw it very clearly. Chen Yuanguang just put forward an idea, and Lin Jia thought about this idea concretely.
Chen Yuanguang would not think about such details. , when they start to do this, the executives will naturally come up with several solutions for him to choose.
Chen Yuanguang found it a bit difficult: "If we make cars, there are thousands of people at least. This is a huge challenge to our organizational management capabilities."
Lin Jia feels that Chen Yuanguang is simply living in his own world. She lamented, "Do you know how many people there are in Guangjia Technology now?" As the company grew, there were more and more unfamiliar faces at each executive meeting. The frequency of meetings between Sun Renjie and him was reduced from once a week to once a month.
“I don’t know.”
Lin Jia said: “There are 1,761 people in the headquarters of the Huaguo company alone, a total of 963 people in the provincial branches, and a total of 758 people overseas. The total number has been More than three thousand people.
Not to mention the future of Light Armor Aerospace. According to the expansion rate of our current organizational structure and the long-term prospects of Light Armor Aerospace, we must have a scale of 20,000 people to achieve the goal of asteroid mining.
When you manage an organization of 20,000 people, how difficult is it to build a car? ”
Aerospace engineering is definitely a systematic project that is much more difficult than building a car, not only because there are more people to manage it. In history, it took more than 40,000 scientists and engineers to land on the moon. It took engineers eight years.
It was a long and arduous journey.
Although with the advancement of computer technology, so many people are not needed now, asteroid mining is still huge. Project, Guangjia Aerospace has just taken the first step in recyclable rockets
Therefore, Lin Jia felt that Chen Yuanguang had not considered the difficulty of this matter and the number of people needed. When she went to Shenhai Jiaotong University to take a public elective course, the professor in the public elective course gave them an assignment:
" Today I will give you an after-school thinking question. With the recent successful recovery of the Trail Blazer rocket, Dr. Chen’s Light Armor Aerospace has taken another step forward in asteroid mining. When you go back, please calculate how Light Armor Aerospace will achieve their goals.
If you still have time, you can count the number of aerospace graduates every year, so that you can have a preliminary estimate of the future employment situation after graduation. Is it optimistic or not? Pessimistic. "
Later, the professor combined quantitative analysis and calculated the number to be 20,000 engineers and R&D personnel, excluding blue-collar manufacturing workers.
Chen Yuanguang said: "This is estimated based on existing technology. With the advancement of AI technology, there will actually be less need for so many people."
He thought to himself that in the future, Alpha would take care of it all by himself, and there would be no need for humans at all.
When Lin Jia saw Chen Yuanguang’s explanation, she said calmly: “Then the reduction in the number of people needed to build cars should be greater than the reduction in asteroid mining.”
Chen Yuanguang learned from Lin Jia’s tone There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice, and he said: "I understand what you mean. I just had an idea before. There is a long way from this idea to whether we will build cars and build brands ourselves.
My attention is not on this.
But now it seems that your thinking makes sense, so have you considered becoming a senior executive at Xiaomi Automobile?”
First attempt to add illustrations
(End of this chapter)