What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 421 Objection
Yu Xing tried MusVid immediately and had a pretty good impression of it.

The development team clearly considered the performance of Vine, Instagram, and domestic products. Its browsing page is as streamlined as Vine's, with a single video scrolling up and down instead of multi-column layouts. However, entering the shooting mode via the "+" sign brings up multiple options, including "select music," "import from album," and "screen filters."

However, it is still in beta and only the overall framework is being developed. For example, the "image filter" effect is only a rough draft and its expressiveness is average. These are the optimization contents for the next stage.

The competitors and products are there, and the strategies have been discussed. However, we will encounter problems in the actual operation and only know how to operate them after some trial and error.

Lu Haiying asked Yu Xing for his opinion, but Yu Xing didn't really have any constructive suggestions. The only point he could make was about the concept of "operation" itself.

According to Lü Haiying's idea, she wanted to transplant the "content platform" as a priority, and the top-level design of the product was entertainment and popular culture, and then community attributes.

Yu Xing believes that both approaches should be taken.

Musical.ly, after becoming popular overseas, did try to return to the Chinese market, but failed and was eventually sold to ByteDance.

TikTok is very popular, and it is a case of a latecomer surpassing the big players. Of course, this is due to factors such as ByteDance's algorithms and technology. However, we must also mention the team's efforts to recruit pretty young women to create content and the actual operational actions taken.

What do users want most?
OnlyFans is also a very intuitive example.

In the internet age, it's easy for a good product to find its way to the market, but competition on the internet is becoming increasingly fierce, and only those without weaknesses are more likely to succeed in the end.

Yu Xing pondered MusVid and thought about how the domestic internet industry borrowed from foreign countries, and then how foreign countries borrowed from China. Whether it was Musical.ly or TikTok, the foreign internet giants' borrowing was quite pixel-perfect, and they even tried to force sales. In this light, Tencent suddenly seemed much more presentable.

With this in mind, the long-term strategy for a product may require expanding its competitive tactics.

Yu Xing tried out the beta version of MusVid for two days. Suddenly, while chatting with Lü Haiying and Ge Zhijie, he remembered Vine and asked about its recent status.

"Not good," Lü Haiying replied, then, noticing her senior's surprise, added, "It probably isn't good."

Yu Xing asked, "Do you have the data?"

Ge Zhijie replied from the side: "President Yu, the lack of data is probably not a good thing. Vine used to release data on growth rate and user scale, but it stopped last month. It seems that it has been greatly impacted by Instagram."

Lu Haiying nodded and said, "Vine's daily active user growth rate in Q2 was said to be 30%, but now in Q3... it feels like the growth rate has slowed down by at least half."

Vine is still quite popular, but as its popularity slows down, some dissenting voices have emerged. For example, it has poor interactivity and lacks Instagram-like filters, but Vine doesn't seem to have any intention of making changes.

The group chatted for a while about Vine, the pioneer, and the differences between it and MusVid.

Ge Zhijie remarked with some emotion, "Although it's just a small sign, it seems that Tencent's Weishi is adjusting very quickly. No wonder it's a giant."

Lu Haiying glanced at her senior brother out of the corner of her eye and said meaningfully, "Weishi can be adjusted so quickly, there must be a master guiding it."

Ge Zhijie felt that President Lü was trying to express something, and looked at her questioningly.

Yu Xing didn't react much, but simply said, "The development of mobile internet is so fast these days, it's like a rabbit rising and a falcon falling in just a few years. There's still a long way to go."

Lü Haiying and Ge Zhijie both nodded solemnly.

Especially Ge Zhijie, who led the development of WeChat, looks back at the industry's development over the past few years and feels overwhelmed by the rapid changes.

After seeing off the two heads of marketing and technology, Yu Xing played with MusVid for a while. Thinking that he hadn't communicated with Xing Hongyu of Weishi recently, he sent him a greeting message, but received no response for a long time.

Since I can't communicate directly with my pen pal, I can only keep an eye on the latest developments on Weishi.

...Carbon Silicon Data needs to continue optimizing its software development and also needs to consider the usage habits of overseas users.

After the high-level intentions were established, the Silicon Carbon Group actively discussed the details of patent cross-licensing with BYD. As the two sides communicated, CATL may have heard some rumors and sent someone over in advance to report on the latest progress in battery research and development.

In addition, CATL reiterated its concerns about the electric vehicle batteries from Silicon Carbon Group.

This time, it was Dou Xinghuai, Senior Vice President of CATL, who came to meet Yu Xing to explain the future of ternary lithium batteries in person.

At the same time, he mentioned in considerable detail the battery standards that BMW has been discussing with CATL.

According to this person, BMW provided 800 pages of battery production standards, which involve stringent requirements on energy density, safety, and cycle life. CATL estimates that it is expected to be able to provide mass production capabilities next year or the year after.

Yu Xing listened patiently to Dou Xinghuai's description, or rather, his persuasion, before saying, "BMW has its own requirements and considerations, Mr. Dou. Does BMW's decision to use it in a certain way mean we have to use it in the same way?"

"Mr. Yu, that's not what I meant." Dou Xinghuai sensed Mr. Yu's underlying stance and explained, "Ternary lithium batteries have a significant advantage in energy density. Moreover, the cooperation between Tesla and Panasonic has set a benchmark for the industry. Our domestic electric vehicle market, whether it's companies or consumers, will more or less take this into consideration."

He continued, "Mr. Yu, I may understand your thoughts, but we also have very high requirements for security, and we are absolutely on the same page on this point."

Simply put, the difference between ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate batteries lies in their energy density, safety, and cycle life, as defined by BMW standards. Currently, the former has a higher energy density, resulting in greater range, while the latter performs better in terms of safety and cycle life.

For electric vehicles, ternary lithium batteries have at least 3% higher energy density, which is quite considerable.

Yu Xing nodded and smiled, "Yes, President Dou, I'm not criticizing you. I believe in CATL's standards. But we are different from BMW. BMW can continue to do its main business even if there are problems when it tries out new energy vehicles. If we have problems, the pressure to start over will be many times greater. Moreover, we are making range-extended vehicles, so we don't have as much pressure on range. We would like to consider other factors more."

Dou Xinghuai paused for a moment before bringing up the data: "President Yu, the lithium iron phosphate batteries we make for BMW have to sacrifice some performance to ensure safety. If we want to catch up with ternary lithium batteries in the next two years, we may need to adjust our progress forecasts."

CATL currently supplies lithium iron phosphate batteries for BMW Zinoro models with an energy density of 89Wh/kg, which is lower than the industry average of 100-120Wh/kg per cell.

Tesla's Model S has a single-unit energy density of 200 Wh/kg and a measured system energy density of 157 Wh/kg.

Comparing models launched at the same time, CATL's lithium iron phosphate batteries have a purity of 89%, while Tesla's Panasonic ternary lithium batteries have a purity of 157%, a huge difference of 76%.

Yu Xing hummed in agreement, and after a moment repeated, "I believe in Ningde's standards."

Dou Xinghuai was slightly pleased, sensing that President Yu was somewhat interested.

“However, I just talked to BYD about their batteries a few days ago. Their lithium iron phosphate batteries will be able to reach around 160 Wh/kg per cell next year, and in practice, they can push them down to 130 Wh/kg. I think such a difference is acceptable for range-extended vehicles.” Yu Xing said with a smile when talking about the progress of another company, “I not only believe in CATL’s standards, but also in CATL’s R&D.”

If the battery's system energy density can reach 130Wh/kg in actual use, that's a 20% difference compared to Panasonic's ternary lithium batteries.

Reducing it from 76% to 20% requires tremendous progress.

Looking at the silent Dou Xinghuai, Yu Xing comforted him, "President Dou, I didn't mention BYD to put pressure on you. I just believe that CATL has the capability. If not, then the Silicon Carbon Group plus CATL should have it. We will continue to increase the R&D budget in this area at the end of the year. If CATL really doesn't want to do this, just sell the department to us and we'll build a Lingang Times here. That's fine too."

Dou Xinghuai shrugged and smiled bitterly.

“President Dou, what are you shrugging for? How much are you getting paid in Ningde? Go back and ask the company. If they don’t agree,” Yu Xing said seriously, “then I support you coming to Lingang to start a new era.”

Dou Xinghuai felt a dull ache in his head.

(End of this chapter)