The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Chen Pingsheng increased his holdings in Nvidia by adding to his position and raising his stake.

Google's stake remains the same, at 1%.

Mid-August is just around the corner, and the new school year is about to begin. He has been invited to attend the opening ceremonies of three universities in Shanghai.

This is probably hoping he will donate money, as good universities have substantial research and development funding every year.

Part of this money comes from local and higher-level government allocations, while a large portion comes from donations from alumni and successful individuals in society.

Chen Pingsheng also donates money to many universities every year, but those donations are concentrated in the field of science and technology, and also in university majors related to his new energy vehicles.

He didn't donate much to Shanghai University, mainly because he didn't attend university.

The university holds an annual anniversary celebration and invites some successful alumni to give speeches.

If we're talking about the most famous person in the field of university donations in recent years, it would undoubtedly be Lei Jun.

He donates a significant amount of money to his alma mater every year.

Chen Pingsheng was just there to take a look; he hadn't decided to donate to Shanghai University right now.

The main reason is that this kind of fame doesn't mean much to him, and he doesn't want to be too famous.

On August 17th, he went to Beijing to ask when his illness would be completely over.

The opening is expected to take place around December of this year, starting with a partial reopening in some cities, followed by a full reopening.

He also inquired about the future of the real estate industry, which was a more serious topic.

Over the past two decades, the biggest driver of China's economy has undoubtedly been the real estate sector.

Looking at how the real estate industry operates, it's clear that the industry, which has been booming for over 25 years, is about to undergo an epic transformation.

This transformation is not subject to individual will, but is ultimately guided by the market economy.

To put it bluntly, not many people will buy houses anymore. Just like the stock market, even if the price is driven up to a high level and there are no buyers, even if the stock price exceeds 10,000 points, everyone only makes paper wealth and cannot exit normally.

An era of high prices but no market is coming.

Besides, the first thing to impact housing prices will not be new homes or second-hand homes.

It's a foreclosed property.

Once a foreclosed property is sold at a certain price, it also means that the property prices in that area will be capped at that level.

After the real estate industry experiences a downturn, countless other industries will be affected as well.

Chen Pingsheng had been preparing for this for a long time, and now that things had come to this point, it meant that no one could cover it up anymore.

Public sentiment will continue to spread across short videos and various online media platforms.

This is an inevitable trend.

It's safe to say that in the next five years, any industry linked to the real estate sector will be unsuitable for investment.

Besides drinking tea and discussing future industry changes, he also asked about some new energy-related matters.

The biggest change in new energy vehicles is that they are no longer limited to pure electric models.

What do you mean?

New energy vehicles in China enjoy numerous preferential policies from the government, including exemption from purchase tax and substantial subsidies.

Only then can we achieve the same market share as traditional gasoline-powered vehicles.

But to say that pure electric vehicles have surpassed traditional gasoline vehicles is pure nonsense.

The simplest explanation is that if the purchase tax on traditional gasoline vehicles were also eliminated and oil prices were lowered, we could see if ordinary people would still choose new energy vehicles.

That's only one point. More importantly, the new energy sector is only doing well domestically.

Most traditional, century-old car manufacturers abroad don't produce pure electric vehicles at all.

They even developed pure electric vehicles decades ago, but later abandoned them.

If you're only doing well domestically, you won't be able to expand overseas and capture market share.

That would defeat the greatest purpose of supporting new energy vehicles. This means that Chen Pingsheng himself not only needs to increase further research and development of solid-state batteries, but also needs to further increase investment in range-extended vehicles, including hybrid technology.

Only then can we truly gain a foothold overseas.

Despite the hype surrounding new energy in China, none of the domestic companies have yet managed to gain a foothold in overseas markets.

This is also the biggest pain point for the new energy sector.

There are no preferential policies for new energy vehicles abroad, let alone oil prices of seven or eight yuan per liter.

In short, if gas prices were halved, most people would choose traditional gasoline-powered cars without hesitation.

All that talk about intelligent driving and all those other systems is just nonsense.

This has led to the new energy vehicle industry, which has been booming in recent years, actually falling into an awkward situation.

Whether it's lowering oil prices or canceling the purchase tax exemption, if either one is implemented, it will revert to its original state.

If you really say it has become number one in the world, that would be absolutely true, because nobody else is playing it anymore.

This is awkward.

New energy vehicles must break free from this awkward situation in order to truly become a vital national asset.

Unfortunately... looking around, there isn't a single one that can escape this situation.

Chen Pingsheng stayed in Beijing for almost three days before returning to Shanghai.

He always kept a low profile when he went to the capital, so that not many people would know.

After returning this time, he made several important decisions again.

One aspect is to increase research and development of solid-state batteries, which is being handled independently by Tenda Technology.

Having just gone public and already secured 50 billion yuan for R&D, they will undoubtedly recruit a batch of top-notch R&D engineers in the future.

In addition, we should increase investment in the research and development of range-extended vehicles, including hybrid vehicles.

They will definitely launch specialized models in related fields in the future.

In this day and age, doing research and development is risky, but without it, there are virtually no opportunities for growth.

Fortunately, the government strongly supports R&D investment, and there are various subsidy policies available.

Although he doesn't need those subsidies, the benefits of investing heavily in research and development are still very obvious.

The new energy vehicle industry has moved from the first half to the middle stage, which is a typical knockout stage.

Many slackers will eventually face elimination.

There are advantages... but the disadvantages are even greater, as it will naturally make a large portion of ordinary customers distrust new energy vehicles when choosing a car.

In the future new energy market, at most only three to five companies will remain; all others will be eliminated.

Fortunately, he is not short of money at all. Turning a profit is just a small goal in the first stage. The second stage is to establish a foothold in the global market.

As for the real estate sector, he currently has no related industries at all.

There's no need to sell any more important assets.

The once-booming milk tea industry is not doing so well now.

As for the catering industry, the gross profit margin is shockingly low. Given a choice, such an industry with extremely low gross profit margin is really not suitable as a startup project.

It's hard work, and you don't earn much money.

As for his wife's business, Shuiyunjian, it was also affected by the overall market trend.

Revenue has been declining year by year, but no matter how much it drops, it can still maintain its core business.

After all, the Shuiyun Pavilion stores in the four major first-tier cities, including Hong Kong, all belong to him.

The advantages of having a storefront are very obvious, namely, a high degree of resilience against risks.

(End of this chapter)