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"Is this a domestically produced car?" the young man couldn't help but ask in surprise.

He walked over to Qinglongyi, reached out and touched the car door handle, but then gave the staff member a questioning look.

"Yes!" The staff member nodded, walked over and opened the driver's side door. "Tianchao Auto, purely domestically produced. These three are the first generation models that will soon be mass-produced. Qinglong is a sedan, Zhuque is a city SUV, and Baihu is an off-road vehicle. You can sit inside and try it out."

The young man didn't get in right away. Instead, he walked around the Qinglong Yi, got closer to examine the texture of the paint, and tapped the hood lightly with his knuckles.

After knocking, he walked to the front of the car and squatted down to look at the front grille.

After standing up, he turned around and shouted to his colleague, "Come and take a look at this, this car looks really good!"

His friend, still holding a brochure he had just gotten from the joint venture brand's booth, walked over, glanced at it, and was stunned. "This design is indeed better looking than the Santana! Look at this grille; the Santana's looks old-fashioned in comparison."

The young man opened the car door, got into the driver's seat, turned the steering wheel a couple of times, then looked around at the back seat and leaned out the window, saying, "The interior isn't bad either; the dashboard is quite well-made. Are these seats genuine leather?"

A staff member nearby replied, "The high-end version has genuine leather seats, while the standard version has premium fabric seats. The one you are sitting in now is the high-end version of the Qinglong Yi."

The young man got out of the car, walked around to the back, and opened the trunk to take a look. "The space isn't small either. When can I buy this car?"

The staff member said, "Mass production will begin at the end of this year, but the specific launch date has not yet been announced. You can leave your contact information, and we will notify you when the time comes."

At this point, more and more people began to gather at the Tianchao Auto booth.

A reporter from an automotive magazine, with a camera hanging around his neck, squeezed in and walked up to Baihu Yi. His first reaction wasn't to take a picture, but to reach out and touch the thick steel bumper.

After touching it, the reporter turned to his colleague next to him and whispered something.

His colleague also came over and touched it, then walked around to the rear of the vehicle to check the chassis height and suspension structure. He stood up, dusted off his hands, and said, "This thing isn't just for show. Look at this ground clearance, this suspension travel. This off-road vehicle is the kind that can actually go down the ground."

The car magazine reporter squatted down, took several photos of the chassis and suspension details of the White Tiger 1, and when he stood up, his knees were covered in dust.

The reporter pointed the camera at the spare tire rack at the rear of the car—a full-size spare tire was hanging on the tailgate of the Baihu Yi, with the logo of Tianchao Auto and the words "Baihu" printed on the spare tire cover.

He put down his camera, looked at the words on the spare tire cover, then walked to the front of the booth and looked at the brand name on the banner. Suddenly, he muttered to himself, "Celestial Empire Auto, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger. Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, isn't that the Four Symbols? Then shouldn't there also be a Black Tortoise?"

The staff member next to him, who was distributing vehicle information to visitors, laughed when he heard this, "That's right! Our Tianchao Auto's Four Symbols series includes Xuanwu, and it's an MPV, but the Xuanwu MPV is still under development."

The reporter's eyes lit up, and he immediately pulled out his notebook to write down the sentence. He then asked, "So you're planning to collect all four symbols? Do you have any ancient mythical beasts or anything like that?"

The staff member smiled and said, "You can follow our future new model releases."

The reporter gave a meaningful "hmm" and quickly scribbled a few words in his notebook.

……

By noon, the Tianchao Auto booth was completely surrounded by a large crowd.

Many people came from other exhibition halls specifically to see this after hearing about it from others.

A young couple pushing a stroller squeezed next to Zhuque No. 1, and the wife circled the city SUV twice.

The wife opened the car door to check the space in the back seat, then went around to the back to open the trunk, gestured with her hand to show the size, and turned to her husband, saying, "Look at this trunk, it can fit the child's stroller. And the seat is genuine leather too."

The husband didn't respond immediately. Instead, he got into the driver's seat and gripped the steering wheel with both hands to get a feel for it.

The husband tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, then touched the material of the center console, before leaning out of the window and asking the staff member next to him, "How much is this car?"

The staff handed over a configuration sheet and a list of estimated prices, saying, "The official price hasn't been announced yet, but the price range after mass production will be within this range. You can take a look at the configuration sheet first."

The husband glanced down at the estimated price on the list, then looked up at the Chinese car logo in the center of the steering wheel, and turned to his wife, saying, "If it's really this price, it's much more cost-effective than a joint venture car. And the features don't look bad either."

The wife, holding the child beside her, said, "I just don't know how the quality is, after all, it's a new brand."

A middle-aged man who was looking at the White Tiger 1 overheard this and chimed in: "I just heard the staff say that they make their own engine and transmission, and the chassis is also their own. It's rare to see a domestic car that dares to make all three major components themselves."

In one corner of the booth, several young men wearing jackets surrounded Baihu Yi.

One of them, speaking to his companion in an expert tone, said, "Look at this chassis, a non-unibody frame with a transfer case. This thing has the foundation of a hardcore off-road vehicle, not one of those cars with a raised chassis that dares to call itself an off-road vehicle. In China, you can count the number of vehicles with this kind of chassis on one hand."

His companion squatted on the ground, tilting his head to examine the chassis. "What you're saying is making me a little tempted. If this kind of car really went into mass production, how much would it cost?"

The man said, "I asked, and the price hasn't been set yet, but the staff said it will be in mass production by the end of this year. If you want to buy it, you'll have to wait until it's officially launched."

His companion stood up, dusted off his knees, and said, "Then let's just wait! Anyway, my beat-up van needs replacing."

Before the exhibition closed in the afternoon, all the promotional materials at the Tianchao Auto booth were taken.

The staff temporarily retrieved a few more boxes of documents from the warehouse, and they were all distributed in less than an hour.

Those carrying the brochures walked and discussed, some of them genuinely considering buying a car, drawn by its cost-effectiveness and features.

Some people were curious about how such a powerful domestic brand suddenly emerged, so they came specifically to find out.

Some people come to collect information based on industry trends, taking pictures all over the place and stuffing every configuration table into their bags.

Regardless of the purpose, the name "China Automotive" had spread throughout the entire exhibition hall by the end of the first day of the auto show.

……

Tianchao Auto's super factory in Shunyi is currently bustling with activity, and the installation of equipment and production lines is progressing more smoothly than expected.

After the equipment brought back from Tianjin Port entered the Shunyi factory in batches, AI robot engineers, along with the first batch of recruited skilled apprentices, pushed forward workshop by workshop according to the pre-arranged installation plan.

The hydraulic presses in the stamping workshop were the first to be debugged, followed by the industrial robot cluster in the welding workshop, then the automatic spraying system in the painting workshop, and finally the intelligent conveyor belt in the final assembly workshop.

The entire installation process encountered almost no hiccups.

The efficiency demonstrated by the AI ​​robot during the installation and debugging process left everyone speechless.

They don't need rest or to consult manuals; the installation parameters and debugging standards for each piece of equipment are stored in their database.

The torque for tightening screws, the levelness of the guide rail, and the calibration range of sensor sensitivity—every data point is accurate to two decimal places.

Any minor issues that arise during installation can be identified and resolved on the spot by the AI ​​robot. There's no need to wait for someone to fly in from abroad, nor is there a need for a translator to sit by and spend ages looking up information in a thick technical manual.

Once, Assistant Xiao Zhao stood at the entrance of the welding workshop and watched two AI robot engineers squatting next to a welding production line, adjusting the angle and current parameters of the welding torch at a speed that the human eye could not keep up with.

He watched for a while, then turned to Manager Zhou next to him and said, "Manager Zhou, where did our CEO Su recruit these engineers from? I've been in this industry for so many years, and I've never seen anyone so efficient. They don't even talk much; they just get to work."

Manager Zhou is in charge of quality. He's been spending all his time in the workshop lately, dealing mostly with the AI ​​robots. "General Manager Su said they were brought in from abroad. Don't ask around. When General Manager Su introduced them, he specifically mentioned that these engineers don't like dealing with people; they prefer dealing with machines. Don't try to get close to them and delay their work."

Xiao Zhao shrugged. "I'm not trying to get close to them. I just think their work is terrifying. One person can do the work of ten."

Manager Zhou said, "Then stop talking nonsense and look at the blueprints more. If others can do the work of ten people, you should at least be able to do the work of one person."

Xiao Zhao laughed: "Okay, Manager Zhou is right to reprimand me."

……

After the equipment installation and commissioning were completed, the Shunyi factory entered the trial production stage.

The main task of trial production is to transform the three prototype vehicles from handcrafted prototypes to small-batch trial production on the production line.

The handcrafted prototypes are painstakingly built by AI robot engineers, each one meticulously crafted, but that doesn't represent the mass production level.

The real test is whether mass production on the production line can achieve uniformity and prevent process fluctuations from affecting the overall vehicle quality.

The trial production ran for two rounds, with ten vehicles in each round.

During the first round of trial production, some common problems encountered during the break-in period were exposed.

The die clearance in the stamping workshop still needs fine-tuning, and some of the stamped fender parts have slight springback at the edges.

After working continuously for a certain period of time, several robotic welding torches in the welding workshop experienced slight displacement, with the welding point position deviating by a few tenths of a millimeter.

The paint thickness in the painting workshop is somewhat uneven near the waistline of the car body.

Suning would visit the workshop every day. On the day the first round of trial production encountered problems, he called together the heads of several workshops and held a short meeting right next to the production line in the welding workshop.

"We're not afraid of problems." Su Ning stood in front of a row of newly rolled-out white cars, pointing to several weld points circled in chalk on the body, and said, "Trial production is for discovering problems. Now that we've found and solved them, there will be one less problem in mass production. Whoever's problem is responsible for taking it back and providing me with a rectification plan by today."

AI robot engineers guided their apprentices through a process of troubleshooting and calibration, resolving each problem one by one.

The mold clearance was readjusted, the welding torch calibration program was rewritten, and the motion trajectory of the spraying robot arm was re-optimized.

During the second round of trial production, the smoothness of the entire production line had improved significantly, and the gap between the finished vehicles and the hand-made prototypes in various testing indicators had narrowed to an acceptable range.

Next, Manager Zhou took the quality inspection comparison reports from the two rounds of trial production to Suning.

Suning flipped through the report, page by page. When he got to the last page, he closed the report. "The second round was much better than the first round, but there are still a few indicators that I'm not entirely satisfied with."

Manager Zhou asked, "Which ones?"

Suning said, "Although the paint film thickness near the waistline of the car body in the painting workshop is more uniform than in the first round, the tolerance range is still too large. You need to have the people in the painting workshop optimize the movement trajectory of the robotic arm again, and control the paint film thickness tolerance to within plus or minus five micrometers. This standard cannot be lowered."

Manager Zhou nodded and said, "I'll arrange it right away."

……

The Shunyi Super Factory is such a huge construction site, with 24-hour construction. Heavy trucks are hauling equipment in one after another, and then trial production has quietly begun...

These things cannot be hidden from people at all.

The relevant departments in Beijing had already taken notice of the project and had been tracking its progress since it was initiated, as it was a key investment project that the city had designated.

So when the news of the factory's successful trial production reached the relevant departments, several groups of people almost simultaneously requested to visit the factory.

The Economic Commission wanted to see the production line, the industrial authorities wanted to see the workshop, and several industry associations also wanted to organize a delegation to come and inspect.

Meanwhile, the media was also busy. Several automotive newspapers and magazines called to request interviews, and some even called Xiao Zhao's landline.

"Assistant Zhao, we are from China Automotive News. We would like to arrange an exclusive interview with Mr. Su. Does Mr. Su have time this week?"

"Hello Assistant Zhao, we are from the Economic Channel of Beijing TV. We would like to make a special feature filming the production line of automobiles in our country."

Xiao Zhao compiled a list of reception requests and took it to Suning's office.

Suning was reviewing the quality inspection report for the trial production when Xiao Zhao placed the list on the table. "President Su, we've received several more applications this week to visit the factory. The Economic Commission called once, the industrial sector came once, and two industry associations want to send delegations. As for the media, *China Automotive News* wants to interview you, and Beijing TV wants to film a documentary. How should we respond?"

After reading the last page of the quality inspection report in his hand, Suning closed the folder and politely declined all of them.

Although Xiao Zhao knew his boss's style, he still confirmed again: "All of them?"

“All.” Su Ning put the folder aside. “The unified reason is: the factory is currently in the equipment debugging and trial production stage, and cannot receive external visits or media interviews. Open days will be arranged after mass production begins, and everyone is welcome to come then.”

Xiao Zhao wrote two words in his notebook: "politely declined".

Then he looked up and asked, "President Su, roughly when is 'after mass production'?"

Suning said, "Once our cars officially roll off the production line and hit the market, no one will believe anything you say if there are no mass-produced cars on the road. Once we have cars on the road, everything we say will have more credibility."

"clear."

Suning has its own plans.

Although China Automotive is now well-known, that's because of its reputation at auto shows and its prototype models.

There's a hurdle between a prototype and a production car; on one side is public attention, and on the other is the market.

Opening the factory gates to the public before mass-produced vehicles have officially rolled off the production line and been tested by the market will only attract unnecessary attention and discussion.

Too much attention is not a good thing, especially the attention that scrutinizes everything with a magnifying glass.

In my factory, AI robots now serve as engineers and technicians. Although they look no different from ordinary people, their quantity and efficiency are truly outstanding.

If someone in the know came in and saw a group of "engineers" who didn't need to rest, didn't need to consult manuals, and whose work speed and precision far exceeded those of ordinary people, they might have some doubts.

Suning does not want to answer these questions now, nor does it need to.

There is another, more practical consideration.

China's automotive industry has publicly tendered for so many parts suppliers and dispatched on-site technical supervisors, and its supply chain system is gradually being established.

However, the system is not yet stable. Some suppliers are still in the adjustment period, and the yield rate of some components needs to be further controlled.

If the media is invited in to film before everything is ready, and they happen to capture details of a workstation that is not yet fully debugged, or a defective part, it will only create more trouble in the public eye.

While Suning politely declined, it doesn't mean they intend to remain low-key.

Suning still had Xiao Zhao prepare a schedule for external publicity.

After Xiao Zhao finished making the schedule, he showed it to Suning.

Su Ning glanced at it and said, "Read it once."

Xiao Zhao read aloud: "The first phase is the mass production rollout ceremony. It will be held after the trial production is completed. At that time, we will formally invite leaders from relevant departments, heads of industry associations, and mainstream media to the Shunyi factory to participate in the rollout ceremony. When the first batch of mass-produced cars roll off the production line, we will let them see it with their own eyes."

“…” Su Ning nodded.

Xiao Zhao continued reading: "The second stage is user word-of-mouth. After the mass-produced vehicles are delivered to the first batch of customers, we collect user feedback. Real user experiences are more convincing than any advertisement."

Suning asked, "What about the third stage?"

Xiao Zhao said, "In the third phase, we will gradually open up factory visits, arrange media interviews, and launch a brand promotion plan."

Suning said, "Just do it this way. Remember, the order can't be messed up. Let the cars run on the road first, then let the reporters enter the factory to take pictures. Before the cars are on the road, we won't accept any interviews."

"clear."

Xiao Zhao took the schedule and arranged the cooperation between various departments.

After receiving the polite refusal, most of the relevant departments expressed their understanding.

A section chief from the Economic Commission said on the phone, "General Manager Su is a reliable person. We'll wait until mass production begins before making a decision. Don't forget to send us invitations for the roll-off ceremony."

A section chief in the industrial sector put it more bluntly: "They're private enterprises! They have their own pace, we understand."

Of course, there were also a few who were not so happy.

After being politely declined, the secretary-general of an industry association sounded rather grumpy on the phone, saying, "Our association organizes these visits to give face to the companies. So many companies want to invite us, but we don't go."

Xiao Zhao replied politely over the phone: "Thank you for the association's attention to Tianchao Auto. Once mass production begins, we will definitely invite all the leaders to come and provide guidance as soon as possible."

As for the media, some people still wouldn't give up even after being politely refused.

A reporter from a newspaper spent two days wandering around outside the factory gate with his camera, hoping to take some outdoor shots to report back on.

After the factory's security captain discovered this, he took two men outside and politely asked the person to leave.

When the security captain returned, he reported to Xiao Zhao: "Assistant Zhao, the reporter said he'll just take a picture of the gate and won't go in."

Xiao Zhao said, "Even the main gate is out of the question. President Su said that before mass production, not even a single tree outside the factory is allowed to be photographed."

The security captain scratched his head: "Not even one tree?"

Xiao Zhao said, "Not even one tree. You should tell him that once we officially open, he can be the first to come and take pictures, and he can take whatever he wants. Not now."

"..."

...(End of this chapter)