We are all reborn, who wants to be the richest man?

Chapter 514 Lithium Batteries

The office of BHP CEO Lowton at its headquarters in Melbourne.

Lotton, who was handling things, looked up after hearing the noise. Seeing that it was his confidant Sarchi, he continued to deal with the documents with his head down.

"How is it, have you investigated it clearly?"

"The general situation has been sorted out, but the other party is a non-listed company. There are definitely some industries that we don't know about, but it has little impact on the overall valuation."

Seeing that Lorton didn’t look at him, Sarchi said, “Leading Mining was established in January 1985, and has grown very rapidly in recent years by acquiring various small mining companies.

The largest acquisition was the purchase of Utah International for US$1986 billion in 21.3. In addition to the large investments in the past two years, it has established a foothold in multiple mining industries.

Moreover, the debt ratio of this company is not high. It is said that the Luo family invested 1 billion US dollars when the company was established.

In addition, the acquired companies are all capable of sustained output and fixed profits. Although they are all acquired at a premium, the valuation exceeds US$1.2 billion.

It is worth noting that Lingling Mining owns 10% of the shares of Rabbit Linghang Mining, but we are still unaware of the specific situation of Linghang Mining."

"You don't have to worry about this. This part of the shares will be transferred out in due time. Are there any others?"

Lorton finally raised his head, not sure if it was because he was interested in leading the mining industry or because he had finished his work.

"Another interesting point is that the mining industry is very interested in lithium mines and has acquired many lithium mines, which always gives people a feeling of buying at the bottom."

"Oh?" Lorton became interested and asked, "Tell me more about it."

"We know that the main uses of lithium are glass, ceramics and lubricants.
The small lithium mines they acquired are more than enough for their own use, but recently Leading Mining has been discussing the acquisition of the Greenbushes mine with Taliesin.

"You mean they're not going for tantalum?"

Everyone knows that the Greenbushes mine is the world's largest lithium mine, but it is also a super-large tantalum mine.

Tantalum mining began here as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Lithium was only discovered later, and its reserves have not been explored.

Because lithium ore is too worthless nowadays, Taliesin only started to develop lithium ore in 1983, but on a very small scale.

“The tantalum resources in Greenbush have been developed for more than 80 years. Although the reserves are huge, they are almost exhausted. It is estimated that they will only be enough for to years of mining. There is little point in acquiring it for tantalum.

With current reserves, there are definitely better options to lead the mining industry.

Taliesin’s hydroelectricity is convenient to transport, and it can be put into production and make profits right after purchase, but most of the equipment is aging. With this money, I would rather buy a new mine and build it from scratch.”

After listening to Sarchi's analysis, Loton's eyes narrowed and he began to ponder.

"John said that joining BHP will bring a super gift to everyone, the gift, lithium mine. I don't know if there is any connection here."

Connection? A big connection.

Fujian Province, Ludao, Qilin Battery Headquarters.

Kirin Battery is not a large company among all the companies in the Far East system and can only be described as lower-middle sized.

However, what Luo Nianzhong did not expect was that when he was looking for a headquarters for Kirin Battery, the coastal cities of Rabbit were scrambling for it.

Batteries are not regulated. In the next few decades, Kirin Battery's main production capacity will be in Rabbit. So the moment Kirin Battery was split out, Luo Nianzhong had the idea of ​​setting up the headquarters in Rabbit.

His original plan was Pengcheng. The biggest application of lithium batteries in the future will be mobile phones and electronic products. In this regard, Pengcheng will definitely be the leader in the country for a long time to come.

But who would have thought that as soon as Luo Nianzhong revealed the news, people came to intercept him, one or two at a time.

In the end, I chose Ludao for no other reason than that the discounts were big enough.

Not only was the land for building the factory given away for free, the Ludao government also promised to set aside a piece of land in Siming District and give it to Kirin Battery at a very low price for the future construction of its headquarters.

There are also great tax benefits, two exemptions and three reductions by half, and the most critical thing is talent support.

The government has promised to do its best to coordinate talents for Kirin Battery. If necessary, Ludao University can open relevant majors specifically for Kirin Battery.

As for why Ludao is trying so hard, it is actually because they are taking a gamble.

Kirin Battery is definitely one of the leaders in the mobile phone battery industry, but in the entire battery field, its size can only be considered medium-sized.

First of all, the annual shipment volume of mobile phones is there, and secondly, the service life of mobile phone batteries is not short.

What Ludao values ​​is not the size of Kirin Battery, but Luo Nianzhong's free investment in research and development.

This is no secret. There are also employees from Rabbit in Kirin Battery.

When these cities learned that Luo Nianzhong was spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on research and development for Kirin Batteries as if it were free, they immediately felt that there was something wrong.

Is it normal for a business that could be doing well to spend huge amounts of money every year?

Especially since the person who spent the money is called Luo Nianzhong, which is even more abnormal.

Therefore, these cities that have intercepted the opportunity all think that Kirin Battery has the potential to become a world-class battery company, so they have jumped out to intercept the opportunity.

As the world's leading battery manufacturer, how much foreign exchange can it generate every year? How many economic and employment opportunities can the downstream and related enterprises around this company create for a city every year?
But in the end, Ludao was the winner. Other cities thought that Qilin was the industry leader, so what? Isn't it a battery manufacturer?

We value it, but it is totally incomparable to an industry of the same level as automobile manufacturing.

I just wonder if these cities will regret it when the era of electric cars arrives and Kirin Battery has strangled all battery manufacturers through various patents and has occupied half of the global battery industry.

At the entrance of Kirin Battery Laboratory, Luo Nianzhong, who had flown back from Melbourne, Australia, met someone he felt should not be there.

"How did you come?"

"Hey, I heard that lithium batteries have been manufactured. Come and take a look.

I didn’t expect the news was kept so secret that it was only revealed after mass production began.”

"What does this have to do with you, the CEO of Audi, coming here?"

The person who came was Audi President Piech. Ever since the two had a conversation and Luo Nianzhong proposed the concept of electric cars, Piech felt that this was a feasible solution.

Energy conservation and emission reduction has now become a global topic, and many countries in the United States have promoted this issue.

For advertising purposes, they also hired a super spokesperson, who was the then President.

This advertisement is awesome, they just installed solar panels on the white house.

However, the beautiful Chinese people could never have imagined that they got up early and arrived late.

The White House started using solar energy in the 79s, but was beaten to a pulp by the East a few decades later.

But that's all in the future. At least the United States has opened up to new energy sources and accelerated the promotion of energy conservation and emission reduction.

So when Piech learned that Kirin Battery's new generation of lithium batteries had been developed, he immediately thought of electric vehicles. Although electricity also requires the use of coal, there are other ways to obtain it besides coal, which is better than burning gasoline.

Let’s not talk about whether it can be sold or whether it sells well, but it will definitely attract attention.

The cost is too high? Which new product of the new era does not have this problem? What is the purpose of investing money in research and development?

Luo Nianzhong also knew Piech's thoughts and the purpose of this trip, but he felt that the other party was just wasting time.

“As I said, lithium batteries are still in their infancy and are not as technically mature as nickel-metal hydride batteries. Don’t even think about it in the next three to five years.

The most important thing about electric vehicles is safety, so it would be better to consider modifying the current Audi A1 plan."

I have to say that Piech is a genius. After Luo Nianzhong talked to him about trams, he took action.

It is made into a cylindrical shape using a winding process, which is Kirin Battery's signature technology, the world's leading nickel-hydrogen battery.

This car, which is still being manufactured, is named A1, and Audi models have officially begun to transform into the A series.

"But nickel-metal hydride batteries are destined to be eliminated. Not to mention the high cost, even the battery memory means that the first-generation A1 can only be a toy for the rich and cannot be mass-produced."

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$33000 is just the material cost, and does not include labor, R&D, taxes and other costs.

According to internal data from the Audi Group, the first-generation Audi A1 must be sold for at least $5.5 to make a profit. If it is sold in a country with high import tariffs, the price will be infinitely higher.

There is also battery memory, which is a common problem of nickel batteries and cannot be solved at all.

Battery memory means that nickel batteries must be fully charged when charging and must be drained before charging.

Although Kirin Battery has made a breakthrough, nickel-hydrogen batteries can be made thinner and lighter, have a higher energy density, and only need to be fully charged and discharged more than twenty times to eliminate battery memory, but this will increase costs.

You can't let consumers execute it, because that would reduce the selling point.

The Audi Group's A1 can be said to be just like the Phaeton originally developed by Piechenberg, which is a money-losing product.

It's not even as good as the Phaeton, at least it can be mass-produced. To put it bluntly, the A1 is just a collector's item, the kind that cannot be driven on the road in many countries.

However, Luo Nianzhong did not prevent the other party from spending huge sums of money to develop the A1, because this would accumulate valuable electric vehicle experience for the Audi Group.

"President Piech, although lithium batteries are the trend of the future, it is impossible to install them in cars now."

Yoshino Akira, the chief technology officer of Kirin Battery, objected.

Seeing Piech's eyes fixed on him, Yoshino Akira explained.

“As Mr. Luo said, the current technology of lithium batteries is only in its early stages and is not mature at all.

Although it solves the shortcomings of nickel batteries, it is expensive and the energy density is not increased much.

The most important problem is that it has not been verified on a large scale by the market. Although safety issues have been tested countless times, they still need to be proven by the market.

Electronic devices are not a problem, after all, their size is limited, but cars are completely different."

That's a problem, but it's too early to think about it now.

On the one hand, it will take a long time to complete the design of A1, and on the other hand, no one knows the development speed of lithium battery technology.

And it is indeed as Yoshino Akira said, cars are not small household appliances. If there are problems, people may die. This will definitely cause an immeasurable blow to the reputation of the Audi Group.

Piech stopped dwelling on the issue and decided to take a tour first.

When we arrived at the conference room, the table was filled with various electronic products.

Luo Nianzhong took a quick look and saw all kinds of portable devices under the Far East Group, such as Walkman, Gameboy, cameras, video recorders, mobile phones, laptops, etc.

He picked up Han Tang's latest flip phone and opened the battery on the back of the laptop to take a look.

"How much can the power be increased?"

"80%".

That's enough. Today's mobile phones only have the functions of making and receiving calls and sending text messages. This battery life is three days, so there should be no problem making and receiving calls for two or three hours.

This is because these latest mobile phones are lighter and smaller. If they are replaced with big bricks, it would be no problem to increase the battery size or even double it.

"Tianfan, tell me what you think?"

Not only Luo Nianzhong came to the Kirin Battery trip this time, but also CEOs of Far East Communications, Honor Group, and other related companies were present.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible for the top leaders of Ludao and Fujian Province to call shortly after the plane landed and ask if we had time for dinner.

Many of these companies are giants in their respective fields, and any profit they make would be enough to feed many places.

"I wonder if we can implement more possibilities on mobile phones? Increasing the battery life is a selling point, but more and more luxurious functions are more in line with our high-end positioning.

For many people, it is normal to have several spare batteries, so can the extra power of lithium batteries be used to supply more functions and components, such as screen ringtones, etc.?

The idea is good, and he is worthy of being a figure verified by history.

Luo Nianzhong nodded with satisfaction and asked Kirin Battery CEO Liu Tianming, "How is the production capacity?"

"With our current production capacity, we can only meet about 20% of the orders for various companies' products.

However, the first phase of our factory in Ludao is about to be completed and will be put into use in three to four months.

We asked the government for another piece of land, and they agreed very readily. The foundation stone for the second phase of the project will be laid soon.

In addition, the battery specifications of various products are not uniform, and it would waste time for us to switch production lines."

Luo Nianzhong frowned. John Baibo had mentioned this problem to him before. Wasn't it solved?

Early products were all independent of each other due to issues such as battery and size.

The market has gotten used to it, and so have the suppliers, and this is also to promote consumption more.

Just like the battery specification of Honor's Walkman is 26500, while that of Sony is 18500. They are the same in shape but different in size and are not compatible at all.

Not to mention different manufacturers, even the same manufacturer can have such problems.

John Baibo felt that this was not a solution. With the increasing variety of electronic products, consumers couldn't carry a large amount of batteries with them when going out every day, right?
This would make consumers bored and the business had to be streamlined. Luo Nianzhong knew this and handed the task over to him.

It's been half a year, why is it still like this?
However, Luo Nianzhong did not say anything and decided to go back and find out more.

(End of this chapter)