From knock-off old-man's electric vehicles to industrial giant

Chapter 172 It Doesn't Matter—We, the Stars, are the Strongest!

soon.

Various news websites across the country reposted it, and some even extracted the content, rewrote it, and used it to generate traffic.

Content like this is suitable for all ages.

If there's any way to verify its authenticity, that would be even better!

There are also headlines like "Domestic manufacturing has taken off" and "Leisure vehicles for the elderly are sweeping overseas markets"...

Nearly a year has passed.

"Starry Night Old Man's Fun" has once again become a trending topic.

People from all walks of life have seen it.

Everyone was both amused and exasperated.

It feels incredibly abstract!
This trending video was even copied from an overseas website. Is it really an export-to-domestic re-import?
Previously, there were many voices online attacking Xingchen as a "manufacturer of electric vehicles for the elderly." These voices were not only driven by industry insiders, but also by some online trolls and biased consumers.

That's just how the internet is. If you start from the bottom, you can't avoid this process. If you have some shady past, it's not surprising that people will bring up old grievances for five or eight years.

But now.

These haters, however, were a little hesitant to speak.

They were all dumbfounded.

--broken!
This is about to turn someone's embarrassing past into an MVP record!

Conquering overseas? They've already been adorned with a halo of honor!
How the hell can you even criticize this??

It's not over yet!
The official accounts of Luzhou Online and Luzhou Evening News reposted this trending topic!
Then, less than twenty minutes later...

The official account of Shandong Online also reposted and liked the post.

China News Network officially reposted this trending Weibo post!

……

Xingchen In-Vehicle Intelligent Business Unit.

After several months of accumulation and subsequent development work.

Currently, Linux-based in-vehicle infotainment systems have also completed internal development of the Starry Sky 1.1 in-vehicle infotainment system version, following the trend of Starry Sky 1.0.

Version 1.1 for in-vehicle infotainment systems primarily focuses on optimizing the underlying code, fixing vulnerabilities, improving smoothness, updating and deeply adapting to third-party in-vehicle infotainment systems, and optimizing the voice assistant recognition rate.

In addition to further improvements in response speed, even the app's minimized/exit and expanded/enlarged states have been enhanced with transition animations, making them even smoother.

It can be said.

Xingchen has incorporated the entire mobile phone system. It's worth noting that transition animations and animation framework elements in the domestic mobile phone industry have only started to emerge and gain some attention in the last two years.

In addition, the background memory usage of all in-vehicle applications that are compatible with third-party manufacturers has been strictly controlled and optimized.

Currently, the only Star Auto models that support OTA updates for the vehicle's infotainment system are the "Star S7" and the "Star Mini Premium Edition," with the software installation volume reaching hundreds of thousands per year.

This user activity level is sufficient for the software vendor to proactively optimize for Xingchen Automotive's Linux platform. Both parties have also signed a "long-term adaptation and support agreement" and are satisfied with the revenue sharing terms.

Once the volume of software increases, the initiative becomes much greater.

Meanwhile, the engineers in Xingchen's vehicle infotainment software department are extremely enthusiastic about solving problems related to proactive adaptation, compatibility, smoothness, and interaction design. They are also very passionate about collaborating with third-party software vendors on in-depth development.

This is also what Xu Yi requested.

The primary goal was to ensure smooth operation of the vehicle's infotainment system, and we made the most of our limited computing power!

Long-term facts have proven that relying solely on chip computing power to achieve "great strength and speed" is not a viable approach.

If it's a pile of shit, even if you put the world's best chip on it, it's still a pile of shit!

Conversely, there's no limit to the optimization of the underlying system and software code!

It depends on the skill and intelligence of the development team members.

As for development bottlenecks? Is it due to excessive difficulty?
Strange to say.

In theory, system development is quite difficult. Not only is the workload large, but it is also very difficult to do it well and with many bottlenecks.

But the in-vehicle infotainment developers at Xingchen didn't seem to have this feeling.

It's like as long as you put in the effort, the problem can be solved quickly, the collaboration between departments is smooth, and everyone's work efficiency is very high!
I occasionally encountered a few troublesome problems, got stuck for a moment, and then a better idea immediately came to me!
The development of the in-vehicle infotainment system was mainly led by directors Zhao Yang, Mark, and Wang Yuchun, who were respectively responsible for the architecture development, software embedding, and hardware driver development.

After the new version's beta test was completed, everyone was very happy and relieved.

"With the 1.1 update to our car infotainment system, the smoothness is at least comparable to CarPlay. The native system can achieve this level, which is unique in China. It's just that there are fewer applications."

Mark, who was in charge of the architecture development, laughed.

During this period, many of the original functions of car infotainment systems were not very user-friendly and could not be described as "smooth and responsive".

Apple's CarPlay is highly praised in both domestic and joint venture car markets.

It's almost been touted as a god-like function.

This is also because the infotainment systems in many cars are so outdated, like old-fashioned feature phones, that even navigation animations take forever to load.

To increase their appeal, some domestic car manufacturers simply pay Apple to install chips and use CarPlay as a selling point.

Android followed suit and launched CarLife, but unsurprisingly, it was heavily criticized, and sometimes the connection would drop when connected to navigation.

This shows how rare it is to create a smooth in-car infotainment system these days.

These two solutions are completely useless for companies like Xingchen that develop their own in-vehicle infotainment systems.

...

"This is just the first step in our Stellar System, not even the first step."

Zhao Yang took a sip of water and, seeing the proud expressions on their faces, couldn't bear to dampen their spirits: "President Xu said we want to create the smoothest system in the world, not just for car systems, but even surpassing the smoothness of mobile phone systems... So the development tasks ahead are still very heavy."

"Wow, it's smoother than mobile phone systems, does that include Apple too...?" Wang Yuchun stared wide-eyed.

“Nothing is impossible. The next generation of our car infotainment system is expected to be equipped with the Qualcomm 820a, and we will also reserve interfaces for future upgrades. This is already close to the computing power of last year's flagship mobile phone chips. Moreover, the car infotainment system is more closed, so it is really possible to achieve this. After all, many mobile phone systems are not very smooth these days,” Zhao Yang said, shaking his head.

After developing the StarCraft vehicle infotainment system.

Looking at these domestic mobile phone manufacturers, he saw them as mere tokens for sale!

Current state of the industry.

The computing power of automotive chips is much lower than that of mobile phone chips.

For example, the Cortex-A9 used in their Star S7 was roughly equivalent to the low-end mobile phone processor level of 12.

They can optimize their systems to this level through their own research and development.

If the next generation uses a car infotainment chip modified from a flagship smartphone SoC, wouldn't that be phenomenal?!
According to sources within the supply chain, Qualcomm's next-generation automotive SoC, codenamed something like 8155, will have significantly improved computing power.

There is a lot of room for development in in-vehicle infotainment systems if you are willing to invest the money.

Besides the advantage of a closed system.

The working environment for automotive chips is much better than that for mobile phones.

When the temperature of a mobile phone chip rises, it has to reduce its frequency.

Given the vast interior space of cars, they are already designing active cooling solutions for the next generation of chips.

This generation uses air cooling, while the next generation...

They plan to create a small water cooler specifically for chip heat dissipation, which will result in more unrestrained and higher performance in actual use compared to mobile devices.

-

This is where the skill lies in the details.

Sometimes, even when using the same chip, the performance delivered by different manufacturers can be completely different.

Take Mercedes-Benz, a century-old car company, for example. Their car infotainment chips are integrated inside without any heat dissipation. When the external temperature rises, overheating is inevitable.

Therefore, you can see many cases of screen glitches and system crashes online.

They use a good chip as a gimmick.

As a result, no effort was put into training and development.

This problem isn't limited to the mobile phone and tablet industries; the automotive industry is also a major victim.

The reason it hasn't been widely reported is that most people don't understand the automotive industry and related vehicle infotainment chips, and haven't bothered to learn about them.

-

Xu Yiren was in his office when he received a message from Luzhou.

After browsing through the entire trending topics, including the "Fast and Furious" segment, he was somewhat dumbfounded.

really.

Everything is going as expected, and the overseas sales data shows a very encouraging growth trend. Judging from this, the business of Luzhou Xingchen Automobile Factory may even recover to the level of 30,000 to 40,000 units per month with the help of this wave of overseas sales.

Wouldn't that boost revenue?!
I just didn't expect these foreigners to be so wild.

The storyline of "the last freedom" was even brought to life, generating a buzz ahead of time.

Otherwise, Xu Yi would still be thinking of making a lot of money quietly.

It was to be expected.

With the announcement of the overseas market as a major hot topic, other manufacturers in lower-tier markets are bound to be eager to enter. Several new tricycle and four-wheeled vehicle manufacturers have already been listed on Amazon and Alibaba International.

But it doesn’t matter.

In terms of product strength and quality compared to others in its class.

—They, the Stars, are the strongest!!
Moreover, they have the advantage of being first to move in.

Even in lower-tier overseas markets, it can still maintain a leading position.

Xu Yi replied to Liu Shengjun's message, and a short while later, he received a message from the vehicle infotainment department that the development of the Qunxing 1.1 version vehicle infotainment system was completed.

-

ten minutes later.

Xu Yi arrived at the vehicle infotainment department.

"Mr. Xu, please check it out. Our Starry Sky beta version is now completely complete. The homepage icon has been optimized, the zoom animation when opening and closing has more seamless transitions, the system's response speed is faster, the UI has undergone minor adjustments, and some bugs have been fixed..."

Zhao Yang explained the functions one by one on the demonstration machine.

Xu Yi did a quick test and found that both navigation and app opening speed were faster than before.

It's no exaggeration to say that the software animations, the smoothness of the in-car system, and the further optimized UI aesthetics—in every aspect, it's far superior to other domestic cars.

“We might have lagged behind Apple’s CarPlay before, but now I think we’re basically on par, except for having fewer features…” Zhao Yang repeated, revealing a relaxed and cheerful smile.

Currently, apart from Tesla's self-developed Linux-based car infotainment system, CarPlay is widely regarded as the best car infotainment system on the market. Their initial goal was based on this, and now that they have achieved that goal, they are naturally relieved.

"Very good, very energetic!"

Xu Yi gave his approval.

At this critical juncture, it is no easy feat to have achieved this level of system development using domestically produced chips.

The hard work and sweat that everyone has put in are evident to all.

He thought for a moment, then said:
"Now that you've completed the first step, I have an even more challenging task ahead..."

……

　I'll post one chapter now, and another one later. I'll also add a bonus chapter for the Alliance Leader, which will be completed in the early morning.

　　Updates may be late, but they will not be absent.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)