Reborn in 2011, 985 missing from two copies

Chapter 742: Global changes, major reshuffles in many industries!
With its million-level configuration and experience, and a price range of 40 to 80 yuan, the Xingyi S5 targets both BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) and Porsche's high-volume models!
Many customers who originally planned to buy Porsche or BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi have turned to the Xingyi S5.

The overwhelming success of the Xingyi S5 delivery has even made the neighboring Porsche 4S store envious, with BBA sales staff considering switching jobs!

Unfortunately, since the release of the Xingyi Auto S5, both BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) and Porsche have gone from being packed with customers to being practically deserted.

Many customers who had been waiting for a long time to complete their purchase were shocked by the scene of people queuing up to pick up their cars at Xingyi Auto next door, and walked into the Xingyi Auto Experience Center in disbelief.

At first, I was puzzled and dismissive, but after learning more about it, I couldn't help but be tempted. After a test drive, I couldn't resist ordering the premium version, or even the smart version!

This left the sales consultants from BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) and the Porsche saleswoman speechless with frustration!
This further solidified my resolve to change jobs!

Especially with BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) and Porsche, sales consultants have to beg and plead, and they can only close a few deals a week.

Meanwhile, at the Xingyi Auto Experience Center next door, customers were lining up to swipe their cards and pick up their cars!
Many people don't even need a test drive; they just pay the final payment and take delivery of the car after inspection!

It's so silky!

Salespeople from BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) are very interested in this!

Even the Porsche-driving lady is starting to have fickle tastes!

Those who can do sales are all shrewd and astute.

These people are not only tempted, but they also act quickly!
From the very first day of its hot sales, many top sales professionals from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi, including Porsche saleswomen, contacted the Xingyi Auto Experience Center next door with their sales reports to apply for employment.

Xingyi Auto naturally wouldn't refuse such a request.

These sales elites are all talented individuals, possessing a wealth of high-end customer information, all of whom are Xingyi Auto's target customers.

In addition, Xingyi Auto currently has too many orders and its employees are too busy to handle them all, so we promptly processed their onboarding.

They are all sales backbones from BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) and Porsche. After a simple training session, they can work independently after spending a day with Xingyi Auto's employees.

Then an interesting scene unfolded.

Since the launch of the Xingyi car, BBA and Porsche have seen a decrease in customers, orders, and even sales!

People resign every day.

They were selling cars yesterday, and this morning they've already quit.

In the morning, he was still talking to clients, and in the afternoon, he changed into the Xingyi Auto employee uniform, appeared next door, and even took away all the clients he had been working with!
The managers of BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) and Porsche were furious about this, but there was nothing they could do.

Some managers and store managers even considered applying for jobs at Xingyi Auto!
Trees move to death, people move to live.

This has always been the case.

With the addition of talent from BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) and Porsche, Xingyi Auto's delivery efficiency has been increasing, and its sales performance has been improving.

Logically, after selling 30,000 units in five days, subsequent sales should have declined significantly.

Daily sales should have dropped from several thousand units to three or four hundred units!

However, with the addition of BBA sales elites and Porsche ladies, not only has their business capabilities been greatly improved, but they have also brought in a large number of high-quality BBA and Porsche customers!
These people originally planned to buy BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Porsche, but when they saw so many people buying Xingyi cars, it was hard not to be tempted.

Then I saw that the BBA sales consultant I used to contact, the Porsche lady, had all switched to Xingyi Auto, and her WeChat Moments posts had all changed from Porsche BBA to Xingyi Auto S5!

Customers will also have their own opinions, and they will feel that BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) is ruined, Porsche is doomed, and even the consultants have betrayed them!
If the consultant you contacted earlier gives you a little more advice and explanation, the customer will be tempted to come to the store for a test drive. They'll then see that the price is much lower than that of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi, while the configuration is better, the interior is more luxurious, and the technology is more advanced!
In the end, I placed an order for the Xingyi S5!

This directly led to another surge in S5 sales!
The daily sales of Xingyi Auto S5 have once again exceeded 500 units, and can reach over 1,000 units on weekends!
Such sales figures shocked Song Sining.

This matter was specifically brought up at a high-level meeting:
"Chairman, with the support of our competitors' sales and customers, our Xingyi Auto sales are quite impressive."

"At this rate, we expect to sell 40,000 Xingyi S5s in June! And around 20,000 in July. Then our inventory will be almost depleted!"

Xingyi Auto S5 started trial production last December, but production was very low in the early stages of ramping up production capacity.

It took six months to go from producing one or two thousand units per month to producing ten thousand units per month.

Therefore, in six months, there were a total of 40,000 units in stock, plus those produced in June, totaling a maximum of 50,000 units.

However, 6 units were sold in June alone, leaving 4 units in inventory.

Adding the 10,000 units produced in July, that's just enough to sell in July!
In August, the monthly production will be 10,000 units, but the sales volume will definitely be more than 10,000 units, and then there won't be enough to meet the demand!

"Are we going to run out of stock again?"

Wang Yi frowned: "We really underestimated the sales volume of range-extended electric vehicles!"

If it were a pure electric vehicle, in 2015, let alone monthly sales of 20,000 units, even 5,000 units would have been difficult to achieve.

However, range-extended vehicles sell much better.

Until batteries are powerful enough and pure electric range is long enough, range-extended vehicles are absolutely wishful thinking!

In addition, the Xingyi car boasts high configuration, low price, and intelligent driving capabilities, making it a top seller as its overall experience surpasses that of BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi).

Of the more than 30,000 Xingyi S5s sold so far, more than 25,000 are range-extended vehicles, while the pure electric version accounts for only a little over 6,000!

The ratio is basically 8:2!

"When will the second phase of the Shanghai Xingyi Automobile Factory be able to start production at the earliest?" Wang Yi asked.

"The second-phase factory was delivered ahead of schedule and is currently undergoing production line debugging. It will be put into production by the end of the month. However, the original plan was to use it to produce the Xingyi SUV X5, but the sales of the Xingyi S5 have far exceeded our expectations, so I asked the factory to change to produce the Xingyi S5 sedan..." Song Sining said.

Wang Yi nodded: "Very good, let's do it this way! We'll temporarily suspend mass production of the Xingyi X5 SUV, and the second-phase factory will also start mass production of the Xingyi S5 sedan at the end of the month. We'll use half of the production capacity to produce the Xingyi S5. The remaining half will be used to produce the Xingyi X5 SUV. At the same time, we'll accelerate the construction and commissioning of the third-phase factory to comprehensively increase production capacity!"

"Okay, Chairman, this way the monthly production capacity of Xingyi S5 will reach 1.5 units, which we can handle for now, but in three or four months, we probably won't be able to handle it. At that time, the monthly sales of our Xingyi S5 will drop to around 1 units!"

Song Sining's concerns are quite reasonable.

In June, the Xingyi S5 achieved monthly sales of 40,000 units in its first month of launch. It also sold 20,000 units in July and 15,000 units in August. However, it is expected to sell 12,000 units in September and 10,000 units in October!
Going forward, monthly sales will likely remain around 8000 units.

But if the factory's monthly production capacity is maintained at 1.5 units, then it's dangerous; the inventory is too large!
Wang Yi waved his hand and said, "It's alright, we'll be setting up our international market presence in August, in less than six months!"

"In the domestic market alone, we certainly can't reach monthly sales of 1.5 units, but if we include overseas markets, monthly sales of the Xingyi S5 reaching 1.5 units shouldn't be a problem!"

"As for the Xingyi X5 SUV, there's no rush. Let's make the Xingyi S5 a bestseller first, quickly seize the market, and get off to a great start. The sales of the Xingyi X5 will naturally be good afterwards!"

"Yes!" everyone responded.

"Chairman, many companies are planning to buy our Honghu 9100 automotive-grade chip. Should we sell it to them?" Zhang Chao asked.

In fact, Xingyi Semiconductor has developed two types of automotive-grade chips for Xingyi Automotive.

The team led by George developed the Kunpeng 9020, an automotive-grade chip based on the ARM instruction set and upgraded from the Kunpeng 902. Although it was successfully developed, its computing power was low.

The initial test versions all used this one.

Another one was developed by Zhang Chao's team. It also uses a 28-nanometer process, but it adopts the Lingxi instruction set developed by Xingyi Semiconductor. It is a brand new instruction set and a brand new architecture, all designed from scratch!
Two years ago, Zhang Chao was entrusted by Wang Yi with the important task of developing his own instruction set.

As expected, Zhang Chao's team actually created the Lingxi instruction set.

The first chip developed by Lingxi Instruction Set is the Honghu 9100 intelligent driving chip!

The Honghu 9100 and Kunpeng 9020 are products of the same generation. I thought that the Honghu 9020 was far less powerful and mature than the Kunpeng 9020.

Unexpectedly, the HH9100, thanks to the powerful Lingxi instruction set, made a comeback!
Especially in terms of AI computing power, it completely outperforms the ARM instruction set.

After all, the advantage of the ARM instruction set is low power consumption, but its performance is poor.

The advantage of the Lingxi instruction set is its powerful performance, with AI computing power as its main focus!

This is precisely why, while other manufacturers' automotive-grade intelligent driving chips only have a computing power of 0.256 TOPS, the Honghu 9100 has achieved 2.5 TOPS!

Therefore, Xingyi Auto abandoned the Kunpeng 9020 and chose the Honghu 9100, and began automotive-grade certification!

It was precisely because of the waiting for the Honghu 9100 to obtain automotive-grade certification that the launch of the Xingyi S5 was delayed again. There was no other way; although the Honghu 9100 fully met automotive-grade certification requirements after extensive testing, the procedures still had to be followed step by step!
By May of this year, the HH9100 had completed all automotive-grade certifications.

In June, Xingyi Auto was officially launched!
"Chairman, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have both contacted us, wanting to purchase the Honghu 9100 automotive-grade chip. BMW is also interested," Zhang Chao said.

Wang Yi nodded: "Sell! Chips and development kits are both available for sale. We can price them a bit higher, referencing our competitors' automotive-grade chips, since our Honghu 9100 has powerful computing capabilities!"

"Okay, Chairman. Currently, the EyeQ3 automotive-grade chip sells for 500 yuan per chip, while our Honghu 9100 chip sells for 1000 yuan? Development kits are separate?"

“1000 is too low. The computing power of the Honghu 9100 is ten times that of the EyeQ3. We’ll sell it for 3000 yuan a unit, which is six times the power!”

Wang Yi said, "We also sell cameras, millimeter-wave radar, and even lidar! We can sell the whole set!"

"The pure vision version can be priced at market price. The LiDAR kit will be more expensive. Semi-solid-state LiDARs can also be sold separately, at 20 each!"

"Yes!"

Everyone responded one after another.

Wang Yi understood clearly that both the intelligent driving chip Honghu 9100 and the semi-solid-state LiDAR were based on economies of scale.

If Xingyi Technology relies solely on its own resources, the diluted R&D costs will be very high. However, if other companies place orders together, the costs will be lower!

There's no reason not to sell!
With these features, will competitors be able to catch up with Xingyi Motors?
That's not a problem either.

Their purchasing speed is far behind the speed at which Xingyi cars are updated and replaced!

Sure enough, after Xingyi Technology made its offer, both Mercedes-Benz and Audi showed great interest.

Although it is 6 times more expensive than the EQ3, its computing power is 10 times stronger!
There is still no competitor. The computing power of the EQ3 is so low that it is unusable for intelligent driving. The Honghu 9100 is 6 times more expensive, but we still have to buy it!
More importantly, new energy is the general trend, and BBA are all competing. Now, Xingyi Auto has emerged out of nowhere and is directly leading the way. If BBA doesn't want to fall behind, it has no choice but to follow!

Therefore, Mercedes-Benz placed an order for 1 HONGHU 9100 automotive-grade intelligent driving chips.

Audi also placed an order for 9000 units!
There are no impervious walls in the world.

Nvidia quickly intercepted this information.

The vice president immediately approached Lao Huang, as if facing a formidable enemy:
"Chairman, this is a huge problem! Audi and Mercedes-Benz have both abandoned our NVIDIA consumer-grade intelligent driving chips and opted to order Xingyi Semiconductor's Honghu 9100 instead!"

"Sigh!" Old Huang sighed, as if he had expected this: "The Honghu 9100 is too powerful. It's only natural that Mercedes-Benz and Audi chose the Honghu 9100. We at Nvidia must develop automotive-grade chips, no matter how difficult it is!"

"Okay, Chairman, but automotive-grade chips aren't so easy to come by; we need time. We also need to sell our current consumer-grade autonomous driving chips!"

The subordinate said, "Although the reliability of consumer-grade intelligent driving chips is far inferior to that of automotive-grade chips, they are cheaper!"

"The cost and selling price of automotive-grade chips are many times that of consumer-grade chips! We can use low prices to entice automakers to use our consumer-grade intelligent driving chips, and maybe some fools will fall for it..."

Old Huang frowned, feeling that this was unfair, but considering Nvidia's interests, he still said:

"Hopefully so, but how many companies will buy consumer-grade autonomous driving chips for short-term savings, without fear of large-scale recalls later?"

The vice president sneered: "Chairman, this is none of Nvidia's business. As long as it's sold, that's all that matters. In the end, some fool will naturally foot the bill!"

However, God did not fulfill his wish.

Nvidia's consumer-grade autonomous driving chip has been reduced in price to 300, but still no one is buying it!
These days, the only cars that can offer intelligent driving features are the top-of-the-line models from BBA (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi) like the million-yuan S78 and the seven or eight hundred thousand-yuan E56, which are all quite expensive.

And the intelligent driving chip is the core of the core!
With nearly a million vehicles on the market, who cares whether the core intelligent driving chip is 300, 500, or 3,000?
The most crucial aspects are performance computing power and automotive-grade stability!
To put it bluntly, what luxury car manufacturers lack is never just a few thousand dollars, but computing power and automotive-grade reliability!
Therefore, even with price reductions, Nvidia couldn't sell its products because they lacked automotive-grade certification.

Similarly, even though the EQ3 was cheap, it began to sell poorly.

Following Mercedes-Benz and Audi, BMW, Porsche, Volvo, Toyota, Honda and other automakers have also placed orders for the HH9100!

With ten times the computing power, major automakers simply cannot refuse.

It's easy to imagine that in 2015, the top brands of intelligent driving chips, such as EyeQ3, were all top-notch.

But by next year, the intelligent driving chips of major brands will all be top-notch, such as the HH9100!

This made Eye feel like the sky was falling!

Velodyne also felt like the sky was falling!

The launch of Xingyi Auto has not only revolutionized the automotive industry and the intelligent driving chip industry, but also the LiDAR industry!
This directly led to a major reshuffle in multiple industries!
Previously, in order to develop autonomous driving, major companies could only purchase mechanical LiDAR from Velodyne, just like Baidu, at 50 yuan per unit!
Now, Xingyi Technology has launched a new generation of advanced semi-solid-state LiDAR, and it only costs 20 yuan per unit!
Not only is it more powerful, but it also has a longer lifespan, better stability, and the price is 40% off!

The result can be imagined.

Major companies are abandoning Velodyne's mechanical LiDAR and opting to purchase Starry Sky Technology's semi-solid-state LiDAR.

Orders that have already been placed are being cancelled.

Those who have already shipped their goods are thinking about returning them.

Those who hadn't placed an order yet simply gave up on cooperation and instead placed orders for Xingyi semi-solid-state LiDAR.

Everyone knows that mechanical LiDAR is outdated, and semi-solid-state LiDAR is the future!

As a result, over the next month, major brands flocked to Xingyi Semi-Solid-State LiDAR suppliers.

And each and every one of them is a big order!
On June 25, Google and Starlight Technology signed an agreement to invest 200 million yuan to purchase 1000 Starlight semi-solid-state LiDARs with 64 lines for use in Google's Waymo autonomous driving project!

On June 27, Uber ATG signed an agreement with Xingyi Technology to invest 100 million yuan to purchase 500 Xingyi semi-solid-state LiDARs for the research and development of autonomous driving!

On July 3, Baidu and Xingyi Technology signed an agreement to purchase 300 Xingyi semi-solid-state LiDAR units for use in the Apollo project!

On July 8, Audi and Xingyi Technology signed an agreement to purchase 200 Xingyi semi-solid-state LiDAR units for pre-research on autonomous driving in the A8!

On July 12, Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, purchased 200 Starlight semi-solid-state LiDARs for autonomous driving testing in San Francisco.

On July 19, Ford purchased 200 Starlight semi-solid-state LiDAR units for its Argo collaboration project.

On July 24, BMW purchased 200 Starlight semi-solid-state lidar units for technology verification in its iNext concept car.

On July 28, Mercedes-Benz purchased 200 Starlight semi-solid-state LiDAR units for use in the development of S-Class Intelligent Driving!
On July 30, Volvo purchased 200 Starlight semi-solid-state LiDAR units for the development of its intelligent driving concept car!
……

In just over a month, Xingyi Technology sold 3500 semi-solid-state LiDAR units!
One unit costs 20, and the total revenue is 7 million!
Xingyi Technology spent one billion yuan developing semi-solid-state LiDAR, and has already made back most of it!

This further reduces the cost of Xingyi's semi-solid-state LiDAR.

However, the reduction was limited.

After all, the current procurement is mainly for testing intelligent driving projects and developing intelligent driving models, and the scale is very small.

Only after these automakers have mastered intelligent driving models will they make large-scale purchases of Xingyi semi-solid-state LiDAR.

That was the time when Xingyi's semi-solid-state LiDAR began to be shipped in large quantities.

It seems unlikely next year; most likely the year after!
The next step depends on the sales of the Xingyi S5 Smart Edition.

6月份，星逸S5纯电版售出8100台，增程版售出33105台。总共卖出去41205台。

In July, 4405 pure electric units and 17730 extended-range units were sold, for a total of 22135 units.

Basically, the ratio of pure electric to range-extended electric vehicles is 2:8!

For two consecutive months, the Xingyi S5 has won the national sales champion!
However, the best-selling model is still the lowest-priced Enjoy Edition, accounting for about 50%, followed by the Premium Edition at 35%.

On the contrary, the most expensive Smart Edition had the lowest sales volume, accounting for only 15%!

With sales of over 60,000 units in two months, the Smart Edition only sold 10,000 units.

Even so, Wang Yi was already very satisfied.

(End of this chapter)