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

Chapter 177 How about we go back to talking about naming?

Names like "Bob" and "Tom" are common abroad, just like "Dog Egg" and "Cuihua" were common in China in the early days.

However, this is due to the additional layer of transliteration and cultural differences.

It doesn't sound like a big deal.

But to domestic consumers, it's not the same story.

“We did consider it, but we couldn’t think of a better brand for the time being. To be honest, instead of worrying about this, we should focus our energy on the product track… In fact, the release of the Starry Sky S7 has brought unprecedented pressure to us internally.”

After considering it for a moment, He Xiaopeng said with a wry smile.

Unlike NIO, which focuses on high-end battery swapping, XPeng Motors' current new car projects, besides highlighting "AI voice" and "intelligent driving" as selling points, are priced between 13 and 17 yuan after subsidies, and have a range of around 350km.

After all, this range is quite good in the pure electric vehicle sector.

There were originally no competing products at this price point.

But who would have thought.

The Starry Sky S7 has emerged out of nowhere, with a 400km range and a price tag of just over 17 yuan.

After watching the press conference.

He Xiaopeng felt like half the sky had fallen.

Fortunately, Xingchen Motors did not emphasize slogans like "intelligent driving" and "AI voice," and it did not invest much in the field of intelligent driving; otherwise, XPeng would not have needed to launch this new car at all.

They are already internally considering lowering the price for the sale.

Otherwise, since they are both pure electric vehicles, their prices are too close, and if they collide with the Starry Sky, they will definitely be crushed.

"Hey—the new energy vehicle sector is just getting started. There's no pressure at all. If even one-fifth of gasoline car users are willing to switch, it'll be enough to support many domestic brands." Xu Yi chuckled.

Based on the current annual sales volume of over 20 million new cars in China, more than 95% of them are gasoline-powered vehicles.

It's unrealistic for Xingchen Motors to try and dominate the entire market.

It's even impossible.

On the contrary, more new energy brands will accelerate the penetration rate, which is also the major trend in the next few years.

As soon as these words came out.

Both Li Bin and He Xiaopeng felt much relieved.

That's right.

This is why new energy vehicle companies can still get along well with each other and discuss cooperation.

As a growth market, everyone is focused on how to gain more market share from gasoline car manufacturers and make the entire market bigger and stronger!
"Does Mr. Xu believe that intelligent driving is a necessary condition for new energy vehicles to enter the high-end market?"

He Xiaopeng asked casually.

Everyone has a different understanding of the high-end and new energy vehicle sectors.

For example, NIO believes that battery swapping is the path to the high-end market, while XPeng believes that intelligent technology and smart driving technology are the way forward.

XPeng Motors, on the other hand, is eager to know Xu Yi's perspective as CEO of Star Auto.

Xu Yi: "Yes and no."

He Xiaopeng looked puzzled: "Huh?"

"The addition of autonomous driving to new energy vehicles is like how primitive people discovered salt when roasting meat."

Xu Yi gave a simple example.

"To equate the emergence of the internal combustion engine with the development of mankind from the era of horse-drawn carriages and raw meat to the stage of industrialized and cooked food in the automobile industry."

For the automotive industry, intelligent technology and advanced intelligent driving are like the invention of seasonings in cooked food. Seasonings and salt are essential, but you can still make do without them.

But if the seasonings aren't added properly, they can ruin the food itself.

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The benefits of intelligent and sufficiently powerful advanced intelligent driving are self-evident.

Active safety features like AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) have been developed for many years, even in gasoline-powered vehicles, and have indirectly or directly saved the lives of countless car owners.

The advanced AES (Active Emergency Avoidance) and advanced intelligent driving technologies, from highways to urban areas, are also very powerful.

The problem is that getting the seasonings to work their magic is quite difficult. Let alone combining all the "ingredients" to create a high-end dish.

Some people add a lot of seasonings, but the final result is not as good as not adding any.

"That's a very novel way of putting it."

He Xiaopeng took a breath: "But I think that mastering advanced intelligent and intelligent driving systems is the first step from eating raw meat to eating cooked food."

"Taking L2-level advanced intelligent driving as an example, we have implemented many functions, including traditional ACC and LCC functions, passive safety and active safety, as well as automatic parking, etc. Once mass-produced, it can replace human power in 90% of scenarios on highways and 60%-70% of simple urban roads. If we continue to develop, in three to four years, urban autonomous driving will be launched, and it can even replace human power in more than 90% of scenarios. At that time, cars with intelligent driving functions and cars without advanced intelligent driving will form a stark contrast."

Mr. Xu, you should know this.

Once people get used to convenient things, they won't want to go back to an inconvenient era.

Done.

He, like Li Bin just now, exuded a confident aura.

That's a very confident smile.

The founders of these emerging forces are all top-notch at attracting investment.

Although XPeng Motors isn't as high-profile or extravagant as NIO right now, it has still attracted a lot of big capital investment.

So they also have their own set of logic.

When it comes to intelligent driving technology, if you can't even easily convince a passerby, how can you promise investors a bright future?

At first glance, this argument seems very convincing.

Xu Yi nodded and asked simply, "What about the remaining 10%?"

He Xiaopeng was taken aback: "Huh?"

Xu Yi continued, "What I mean is, although we've solved 90% of the scenarios where human labor can be replaced on the roads, what about the remaining 10%?"

He Xiaopeng: "With the advancement of technology, we will certainly try our best to narrow down this scope."

Xu Yi nodded again: "Okay, now let's expand this scenario to the point where intelligent driving replaces 99%, or even 99.99%, but what about the remaining 1% and 0.1% of scenarios? How do we ensure safety in these scenarios, and also address the randomness of these 1% of unexpected scenarios?"
If users need to constantly pay attention to their environment and guard against even a 1% chance of something happening, does that mean they are still consuming most of their attention?

Would you consider this feature convenient?

He Xiaopeng answered with a forced smile: "As time goes by, this 1% range will naturally shrink smaller and smaller, and may even completely replace human driving and reach the standard L3 level."

Finished saying this.

Then Xu Yi smiled.

It's important to understand that the most challenging part of intelligent driving isn't replacing the first 90% of scenarios, but rather the remaining 1%, or even one in ten thousand.

The final intelligent driving algorithm and large model training are all aimed at overcoming these demanding random scenarios.

This is precisely the most difficult problem to solve, and it's definitely beyond what XPeng Motors has been able to achieve with its current projections.

Not to mention the deeper issue of responsibility delineation in intelligent driving.

But he didn't delve into the issue further.

"Okay, I'll assume it will eventually come true. How long will that timeframe be?"
It must have been more than five years.

If we're aiming for an eight- to ten-year development cycle, wouldn't relying solely on intelligent driving features as a high-end approach be rather weak?

Xu Yi asked again.

He Xiaopeng and his team were drenched in sweat!

Take a breath.

--hiss!

As a technical team, we faced this tricky question.

That's hard to refute!

Mr. Xu of Xingchen Automotive clearly has a deep understanding of intelligent driving, unlike other car company CEOs and investors who are so one-sided. Otherwise, it would be impossible for him to be so precise and to deduce the timeline of intelligent driving development.

"How about we get back to the brand naming issue?"

He Xiaopeng is a little numb!
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(End of this chapter)