Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 629 The era of intelligent electric vehicles has arrived!
Although Xu Shenxue has many companies under his management and a lot of things to do, he will naturally make time to meet with the CEO of the fruit company who came to Shenzhen, first to meet with Bao Yongyan of Hailan Automobile Company, and then to visit him.

After all, he was happy to see fruit companies enter the smart electric vehicle industry, and could even be said to support it...

Xu Shenxue's goal was never simply to sell a certain number of cars, because no matter how good or cheap Hailan Auto or Weiku Electronics' cars were, they could never truly capture a large share of the automotive market... The automotive industry involves the enormous interests of various countries and conglomerates, and even extends to the employment and tax revenue of countries with automotive industries.

The automotive industry is not simply a commercial issue, but a higher-level economic issue... and an international economic issue, which is very complex.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue's goal is to build Hailan Automobile into a leading intelligent electric vehicle company, directly and decisively entering the automotive industry, hoping that Hailan Automobile Group's annual car sales can exceed ten million.

On the other hand, it leverages its many core technological advantages to enter the major intelligent electric vehicle parts industry, especially the power battery sector!
Finally, the two should be combined to fully develop the intelligent electric vehicle industry... not only domestically, but also globally.

As long as intelligent electric vehicles become widespread globally, Xu Shenxue's company will be invincible... It can influence the automotive industry in various countries through many parts of the industrial chain, from automotive-grade chips to electronic control, motors, and power batteries.

However, many countries are rather stubborn and conservative in the automotive field, and are quite resistant to intelligent electric vehicles...

Although domestically produced high-performance electric vehicles have been exported one after another, and the Ella brand under the Hailan Auto Group has also made large-scale overseas expansions, the penetration rate of smart electric vehicles is still relatively low in most overseas automotive markets.

Therefore, he has always been supportive of other car manufacturers or emerging manufacturers entering the smart electric vehicle industry, not only domestically but also internationally!

The goal is to popularize smart electric vehicles globally... and strive to double the global production and sales volume of smart electric vehicles from the current nearly 20 million to 40 million or even more.

We need to not only penetrate the passenger vehicle sector significantly, but also make large-scale inroads into the goods sector.

Under this strategic requirement, Xu Shenxue not only did not oppose the fruit company's plan to develop smart electric vehicles, but actually supported it...

Because the fruit company is a high-tech enterprise and has little to do with the traditional fuel vehicle industry, once it enters the smart electric vehicle industry, it will inevitably stand directly against the major international traditional fuel vehicle giants, just like Tesla.

In addition, Apple's influence is still very large. Although it has been overshadowed by Zhiyun Group in recent years, it has always been the number two in the field of smart terminals, and it is a very profitable global number two with a strong high-end brand value.

The entry of such a company into the smart electric vehicle industry has a much greater impact than that of Vcool Electronics Group.

This can effectively promote the further development of the global wave of intelligent electric vehicles...

Finally, even if Fruit Company were to manufacture cars, its car manufacturing plant could very well be located in China... After all, China is the largest electric vehicle market, and its automotive supply chain is mature. In addition to meeting domestic demand, Fruit electric vehicles produced in China would inevitably have a large amount of production capacity for export, or even resold back to the United States.

Just like Tesla is now!
Xu Shenxue supported Tesla back then, and now he also supports a fruit company entering the electric vehicle industry!

The meeting between Xu Shenxue and Cook was not a big deal. Of course, both of them are business giants and attract a lot of attention from the outside world, so the news of their meeting could not be kept secret... especially Cook's trip to Shenzhen, which had already been known to the media.

During their private meeting, the two reached an agreement on the supply of power batteries and various computing chips.

The two parties agreed that the fruit company would purchase Hailan Battery's Poseidon solid-state battery system for use in some of their high-end car models, and would also purchase Ningdai Battery's semi-solid-state batteries for use in mid-to-low-end models.

Zhiyun Group has pledged to provide the PX8 chip, which is expected to be released at the end of this year, without any restrictions. This chip is a general-purpose mid-to-large-sized terminal computing chip using a 5-nanometer process. Its performance is extremely powerful, and it is currently the most powerful general-purpose terminal computing chip besides the EYQ chip. It is very suitable for use in mid-to-large-sized terminals such as robots or automobiles that require high computing power.

This chip has just been successfully taped out, and various tests are still needed before it can be mass-produced and supplied. It is expected to be after December... Of course, before that, after the successful taping out, some high-level cooperative manufacturers and customers will receive samples to conduct various experiments, such as Vcool Electronics, Apple, and other car manufacturers developing advanced driver assistance systems.

Tesla is an exception... because their self-developed chips have also come up, and their driver assistance technology is self-developed, without relying on Zhiyun's YUDA platform, and can use their own chips. Therefore, for next year's new models, they have decided to use self-developed chips and no longer purchase PX chips.

However, Tesla is currently the only automaker capable of developing its own automotive-grade high-performance computing chips; other automakers do not yet have this capability.

Meanwhile, during his visit, Cook also reached a new agreement with Xu Shenxue regarding the procurement of APO graphics cards. Apple has always wanted to obtain more APO6000 graphics cards, but the production capacity of APO6000 graphics cards is limited and needs to supply the global market. Therefore, even though Apple is not short of money, it still has to obediently follow the quota.

After all, these days, every single company that makes large-scale purchases of APO6000 graphics cards is a well-funded enterprise... And the APO6000 graphics cards from Zhiyun Group are to some extent biased towards orders from domestic companies... The overseas market share is limited, and Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, Apple, Samsung, and a bunch of European companies are also vying for such a large share.

In fact, Zhiyun Group allocates quotas based on multiple conditions, including price quotes, previous years' procurement volume, the scale of cooperation in other businesses, the openness of the local market, and so on!
For example, companies in India have very few quotas... because Indian companies have little cooperation with Zhiyun, and also have relatively little cooperation with other companies under Xu Shenxue's control. Furthermore, the local market is relatively closed and not open enough.

Therefore, the overall quota is relatively small.

Cook's visit this time was also about using collaborations in other areas to secure more APO6000 graphics card allocations... such as large-scale procurement of semi-solid-state power batteries and cooperation in the supply chain of smart terminals.

The two companies actually have a lot of supply chain cooperation in the field of smart terminals... and their supply chains are even very similar!
For example, in terms of screens, in addition to using screens from Four Star Company, Apple also uses screens from Huaxing Technology in some areas.

For example, their smart terminal batteries all use solid-state batteries from Hailan Battery, a subsidiary of Hailan Automotive Group. In fact, it's not just these two companies; the high-end smart terminal models from Sixing, Huwei, and Weiku Electronics also all use solid-state batteries from Hailan Battery.

Solid-state batteries were used earlier and in a wider range of applications in the field of smart terminals!

Nowadays, most new high-end smart terminals on the market use solid-state batteries, which have better battery life and are safer.

The meeting between Xu Shenxue and Cook yielded many results, and the overall atmosphere was quite relaxed... Of course, everyone tacitly avoided discussing opening up their respective domestic smart terminal markets!
The fierce competition between the two sides in the early years prevented Smartisan phones from entering the US market and Apple phones from entering the Chinese market. After years of embargoes, the market structure of high-end smart terminals has actually been formed. No one wants to rashly open up this structure and cause their core domestic market to be impacted.

The smart terminal market is already saturated, and no one wants their core domestic market to suffer any unexpected setbacks. So, dividing the core market like this and placing the competition in third-party markets is just fine.

In addition to these cooperation agreements, Xu Shenxue also finalized some informal verbal agreements with Cook.

As Xu Shenxue promised to assist the fruit company, following the precedent of Tesla, by obtaining a Chinese automobile license through a joint venture, allowing their electric vehicles to enter the domestic market, and providing supply chain guarantees... In return, the fruit company's Chinese automobile company, Hailan Automobile, will retain a 30% stake, just like Tesla.

Similarly, Fruit Company also pledged to assist Mittel, the Mexican brand under Hylan Motors, in successfully entering the US market. Hylan Motors' Mexican subsidiary will also issue 30% new shares to Fruit Company through a private placement.

It is an act of exchanging shares and markets between two parties.

There was also an additional verbal agreement: to work together to eliminate traditional gasoline-powered car manufacturers, especially giants like GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Volkswagen.

For the fruit-themed smart electric vehicle business to succeed, it must eliminate the mid-to-high-end models of these traditional car manufacturers!
In this regard, Hailan Auto, Tesla, and Fruit Auto share a highly consistent interest... Cook is also very eager for this, and even discussed with Xu Shenxue how to conduct bundled marketing to expand the market.

Just like when the two joined forces in the smartphone field and swept away traditional mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, BlackBerry, and HTC...

The rise of smartphones was built upon the corpses of feature phones. Similarly, for smart electric vehicles to sweep the globe, they must inevitably step over the corpses of traditional gasoline-powered cars!
Cook hopes to repeat the scene of the smartphone market back then... How to put it, even if we become the world's second largest player in the smart electric vehicle industry, or even just the third, fourth, or fifth largest player, we can still make a fortune, enough to boost the stock price again, break through the one trillion dollar mark, or even head towards two trillion dollars.

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Although Xu Shenxue and those American conglomerates fought fiercely, they still had many in-depth collaborations in various fields... The automotive industry is a typical example.

Competition coexists with cooperation, and the two sides are even highly intertwined and mutually dependent in some areas... This is the current characteristic of the relationship between Xu Shenxue and the American conglomerate.

The relationship between the two sides is extremely complex and cannot be simply determined by saying they are enemies or friends.

This is also reflected in the case of Apple Company. While Zhiyun Group and Apple Company are engaged in fierce competition as third parties in the field of smart terminals, Xu Shenxue is also cooperating deeply with Apple Company in the field of smart electric vehicles.

After Cook and Xu Shenxue reached an agreement, Cook quickly boarded a private jet and left Shenzhen to return to the United States. He still had a lot of things to do back home.

The research and development of intelligent electric vehicles must continue, and the pace should be accelerated. In the second half of the year, the focus of research and development should be on adapting solid-state batteries and PX chips.

Other supply chains also need to be addressed and improved.

Then we need to build car factories, not only in the United States, but also in China, and later we need to consider building car factories in Europe.

This strategy is actually very similar to Tesla's strategy back then; they're essentially learning by analogy from Tesla...

The fruit company is venturing into the smart electric vehicle market and has even gone to Xu Shenxue to discuss cooperation. While the outside world may not know what they discussed or what specific agreements were reached, one thing is certain.

Fruit is really going to manufacture cars, and they've even reached a cooperation agreement with Xu Shenxue.

This news quickly spread around the world... Fruit Company still has some prestige; after all, it's one of the world's top high-tech companies. If they're shameless enough, they could even say: "Second only to Zhiyun Group!"
The aggressive expansion of such companies into the field of intelligent electric vehicles has posed a significant threat to many automakers.

Especially those international giants of traditional gasoline-powered vehicles... In recent years, they have also successively transformed and launched their own new energy vehicles, with people working on the three major technical routes of plug-in hybrid or range-extended and pure electric vehicles.

However, to be honest, their results were only so-so.

General Motors and Ford need no introduction; their new energy vehicles are utter garbage, they don't even have a single reliable mass-produced product.

While European automakers like Volkswagen Group also produce new energy vehicles, they are outperformed in the Chinese market and even lag behind brands like HiCar and Tesla in the European market.

Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and other Japanese and Korean automakers also rely on the Chinese market to develop various new energy vehicles, but none of them have done well... In the domestic market, when it comes to new energy vehicles, BYD is basically the first choice for plug-in hybrids, and Hailan is the first choice for pure electric or range-extended vehicles, and then Aila, a brand under the Hailan Auto Group, is added.

Starting last year, even Vcool Electronics, a newcomer to the automotive industry, relied on just one model, the Blue 2020, to crush them in sales of new energy vehicles in the same price range.

The Bluegogo 2020 sold quite well, with annual sales approaching tens of thousands of units in the domestic market alone. At the same time, it is actively expanding into overseas markets, and the markets it is expanding into are not the EU, but Vcool Electronics' traditional main smart terminal markets, namely ASEAN and South America.

Many analysts predict that, relying solely on the loyal fans and large number of ecosystem users under Vcool Electronics, its Bluegogo cars could sell two to three hundred thousand units annually...

Then... there are a large number of other new energy vehicle manufacturers in China with very strong capabilities.

BYD needs no introduction; it's the second-largest player in the new energy vehicle sector, and globally, its annual sales rank second only to Hailan Auto Group.

Other domestic automakers, such as the joint venture brand Wuling Hongguang and the traditional automaker's own brand Aion, are also selling well.

In addition, some of the new energy vehicle manufacturers' models are selling quite well.

China's new energy vehicle market is the largest in the world, and also the most competitive... Many traditional international gasoline vehicle giants have to admit defeat here.

The automotive industry was already in a disruptive period, with new energy vehicles gaining immense popularity... Now, the fruit companies are stirring things up, which is making them very worried!
This worry intensifies the desire for change!
Especially some automakers in the United States and Europe... well, Japanese and Korean automakers are currently an exception, especially Japanese automakers, whose global sales of gasoline vehicles are still very good, and their supply chain burden is too heavy, so it is not so easy for them to make a significant turnaround.

European automakers, on the other hand, are very proactive in embracing new energy vehicles.

After Cook left Shenzhen, Volkswagen's CEO also flew to Shenzhen to meet with Xu Shenxue.

The purpose of his visit was simple: to ensure that Volkswagen could obtain a sufficient share of solid-state battery supply next year. They had already discussed this before and placed orders in advance. However, Cook did not follow the rules and went to meet with Xu Shenxue in person. Moreover, industry rumors suggest that Cook actually secured a significant share of solid-state batteries.

Next year, Hailan Auto's production capacity for solid-state batteries for export will be limited. Since the fruit company has taken a portion of it, it means that other companies will take less.

The CEO of the Volkswagen Group must ensure that the company's share of solid-state batteries is not short or delayed.

As for increasing market share, that's out of the question... There are too many car companies vying for solid-state battery production capacity, and the cost of increasing supply share under such circumstances would be enormous... It's not worth it.

If you want more solid-state batteries, you might as well wait two more years... Hailan Battery is rapidly expanding its solid-state battery production capacity, and it is expected to increase its capacity significantly every year.

With the CEO of the Volkswagen Group flying over to discuss solid-state battery share, the CEOs of other car companies are getting nervous... The solid-state battery share of Hailan Battery next year will determine the success or failure of their high-end smart electric vehicles to be released next year.

What if there's no solid-state battery supply? Wouldn't we be in trouble?

As a result, many car company CEOs have come knocking on our door, fearing that their share of solid-state batteries will be squeezed out next year.

Of course, not all CEOs of major automakers will come. The CEOs of GM and Ford won't come... and it wouldn't make a difference anyway, as Xu Shenxue doesn't plan to supply solid-state batteries to these two companies for the time being.

When these two companies joined forces to drive Hailan Motors out of the US market, Xu Shenxue's various enterprises had already stopped cooperating with them in many ways... For example, they could not buy advanced chips and power batteries and could only purchase products that were a generation behind.

Then, Toyota, Honda and Nissan from Japan didn't come either. They were still immersed in the sales myth of gasoline cars and refused to acknowledge the arrival of the era of intelligent electric vehicles!
However... whether they are willing to admit it or not, with the development and large-scale application of solid-state batteries by Hailan Automotive Group, the full arrival of the era of intelligent electric vehicles is already unstoppable!
Now, we live in the era of intelligent electric vehicles!

(End of this chapter)