It's normal to develop some black technology in the future, right?

Chapter 446: Robot with Excessive Service Awareness
“Mr. Lin, I’m glad that you can personally attend the new product launch of Volkswagen Group.

This is very important for the Volkswagen Group and gives us greater confidence in the sales of the new Audi A series.”

It is true that the global automobile market is huge, but if you look closely, it can be said that there are only two huge markets: China and America.

Among them, China's annual production and sales can reach 1500 million, while America's is million. Here I would like to add that America's sales include used cars.

Even if the European Union were packaged together, it would be just over 10 million.

Therefore, the rise of China's domestic car companies has a huge impact on these overseas car companies.

For example, Volkswagen's unprecedented large-scale layoffs in Germany, Nissan and Honda's merger, and Ford's president shipping cars produced in China back to his home country to drive every day.

This kind of thing is the best proof of the direct impact on China's automobile industry. It is something that people would never dare to think about in other places.

Faced with the severe situation, different car companies have chosen different coping strategies. Among them, Volkswagen chose to fully embrace China and try to further transfer production capacity and R&D to China to increase profit margins.

The cooperation with Guangjia Aerospace is seen by them as an important step in reshaping the Volkswagen Group's luxury car brand.

Volkswagen can cooperate with Xiaopeng and pay technical service fees to Xiaopeng every year. Audi can cooperate with Huawei, and its new models can be equipped with Huawei's intelligent driving system. It is normal to cooperate with Guangjia Aerospace.

Ordinary up hosts are received by Volkswagen China staff. For example, Lin Jia is personally received by the president of Volkswagen Greater China, Bared, who speaks fluent Chinese. If it weren't for his appearance, you would never tell that he is German.

"Cooperation with Volkswagen is equally important to us. The future of light armor aerospace manufacturing will also rely on cooperation with Volkswagen." Lin Jia said.

This includes the super factory jointly built by Volkswagen and Guangjia Aerospace, which can also be a selling point in Volkswagen's calculations.

If the Light Armor Car sells well and establishes a firm foothold in the high-end price range, then Volkswagen, which makes high-end cars in the same factory, can claim in marketing that its cars and the Light Armor Car are produced in the same factory.

If you spend one million to buy a bare-metal car, then consumers will feel they have made a good deal if they spend 6 to buy an Audi AL produced in the same factory.

"So what do you think about Volkswagen's investment in light armor vehicles?" asked Bered.

After Tesla withdrew its investment, naturally there were a lot of companies that wanted to invest in Space, especially after it was confirmed that Space would be renamed Light Armor Automobile, the capital that wanted to participate was even more numerous.

There have been rumors about overseas financial institutions such as Temasek, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock, and domestic capital including Lei Jun's Shunwei Capital, Tencent, Baidu, and so on.

Guangjia Technology also holds a 20% stake in Xiaomi Auto. Although Guangjia Technology is not Guangjia Aerospace, the actual controller behind the scenes is Chen Yuanguang.

There are rumors that some traditional car companies, including FAW and SAIC, will take over the shares withdrawn by Musk.

Especially for the state-owned enterprises in the automobile industry, it is not easy to create a luxury brand on their own. Now that there is a ready-made cake, they will definitely want to get involved.

Among them, Volkswagen is considered by the public to be the most likely to become a shareholder of Guangjia Aerospace.

Because the public has natural advantages.

"Our view remains unchanged. If Volkswagen can help Guangjia Automobile enter the European market directly without building a factory in Europe, then we will seriously consider accepting Volkswagen's investment and selling part of our shares to Volkswagen.

If the public can’t do it, then it’s not considered for the time being.”

If you want shares, the market will exchange them.

There is still a lot of money in the European market, but if you want to sell cars to Europe, you have to build a factory in Europe, otherwise you won’t be able to sell them at all.

In this era of prevalent local industrial protectionism, it is difficult to simply sell goods, especially large items like cars.

"Okay, we must find a way to convince Brussels." Blackrock's mood suddenly turned from sunny to cloudy.

Essentially, Volkswagen does not want the Light Armor car to enter the European market, at least not in this way, where they only send the products there but do not build a factory in Europe.

If you build a factory in Europe, your compound cost will be very high. The final price of the Chinese new energy vehicle companies building factories there will be higher than the price of bringing them from their home country plus tariffs and shipping costs.

In addition, the EU also has requirements on the percentage of European companies in your supply chain, and the percentage of parts must be provided by European companies.

It was 15% before, and it has increased to 30% in the past two years.

In short, local protectionism is particularly serious. Many Chinese car companies have gone to Europe, but very few of them can actually make money.

The deposit rate in the euro zone, that is, the risk-free rate of return, can soar to more than 3 basis points, while England's ten-year government bonds can give you a yield of more than basis points.

Compared with working hard in manufacturing, it is more profitable to directly transfer money to a bank abroad than to build a factory in the EU.

It is also for this reason that a few Chinese car companies have been playing tricks, transferring money to Europe under the pretext of building factories in Europe. After the money was transferred, the factories built were very small. They used 20 billion euros to build a factory that cost not even 5 million euros, and most of the money was used for investment.

After similar operations are exposed, these companies that do this will be on the verge of death. They will not be able to withstand the concentrated withdrawal of loans by banks alone.

The reason why Volkswagen does not want this is naturally not for consideration of Europe's manufacturing industry, nor for so-called local protection of manufacturing industry, but because it may pose a threat to Volkswagen.

Guangjia Automobile did start out by making high-end models with super high prices, but that doesn’t mean they will always do so.

BMW will launch the 1 Series, Audi can produce the A3 for tens of thousands of yuan, and Mercedes-Benz also has the Mercedes-Benz A for less than 20 yuan. How can Guangjia Automobile guarantee that it will not launch such high-volume and high-selling models in the future?

Once the light armor car obtains the privilege, the initiative will no longer be in the hands of the public.

Therefore, the conditions offered by Lin Jia were almost impossible for the public to accept.

Of course Volkswagen can't do that either, and their influence on Brussels is quite limited.

"Wow, it's actually a robot that's here to pick us up at the venue for Audi's press conference."

The next morning, after Feifei finished her breakfast in the hotel's buffet breakfast area, she stood in line in groups of three or four with familiar car bloggers.

A waiting area has been cordoned off on the first floor of the Signiel Hotel, and all invited self-media bloggers have to queue up in this area to wait for the bus.

Everyone was chatting, but when the first blogger in line got on the car, he noticed that it was a white Volkswagen Jetta, and a robot got out of it, opened the door for him, and then drove him away. The whole queue area went crazy, and no one chatted anymore. Everyone quickly took out their cameras to record it.

“As you can see, the vehicle that came to pick up the car was the classic white Jetta that the HBM robot first appeared in.

In this way, Volkswagen pays tribute to the advent of HBM across time and space. Feifei is no exception.

I filmed the entire process from queuing up to the robot helping me open the car door and then leaving. I recorded several times before I put down the DJI Pocket 5.
“It seems that the online rumors are correct, and the products released this time include self-driving robots.

This must be the first mass production of L4-level technology, right?" Two Chinese self-media bloggers next to him also finished recording and started chatting.

"It's obvious that everyone thought Tesla would mass-produce L4 autonomous driving first, but unexpectedly, Volkswagen was the first to do it."

"There is no way. Volkswagen is holding on to a very strong leg. I heard that the Changkong aerospace plane was fully autonomous during the 32 kilometers between the Earth and the Guangjia.

This technology is a bit too difficult to apply to autonomous driving.”

"Why do I feel that autonomous driving in space is not as difficult as autonomous driving on Earth roads?"

“Of course not. What I mean is that Guangjia Aerospace’s research and development capabilities are so strong that it can quickly come up with solutions in this field that are completely different from the past.

Musk does not advocate the first principles. Humans can drive with their naked eyes, so cars do not need lidar; visual cameras are enough.

Guangshen uses a more thorough first principles to directly collect brain waves and use the brain wave data to train robots. I not only use vision, I directly use robots for unmanned driving.

This is a bit too perverted. Have you heard the classic Abelian group joke? "

"what?"

“Someone asked a child what 3+4 equals, and he said he didn’t know, but he knew 3+4 must equal 4+3. Then the other person asked why, and the child replied that it was because integers and integer addition formed an Abelian group.

This is like everyone is learning single-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and the God of Light starts to teach you abstract algebra. "

In fact, it is quite outrageous that the car reviewer knows that Abelian groups are part of abstract algebra.

“In fact, I have always been quite curious about one thing, which is why no one has developed a semi-HBM robot product line.”

"What is a semi-HBM robot?"

"It is a robot with its body fixed in the driving position. It only needs to have the shape of a robot, and then the body is an empty shell fixed in the driving position, with only the arms and the head, which are the same as the self-driving robot.

Wouldn’t this reduce costs?
Isn't it useless to have a robot come down to open the door for you? It's almost the same if you approach the door and it opens automatically, or if you speak to it.

This way, we can directly use HBM technology and save costs.”

The car companies that have survived the battle royale of new energy vehicles on the market now have three main technical routes in autonomous driving. The first is the same visual solution as Tesla, the second is vision plus lidar plus satellite high-precision maps, and the third is the HBM robot.

Among them, the third technical route is the least.

Because if you want to build a robot, the technical requirements are very high, because it needs to move around and not sit in the driver's seat of a car all the time. You want to give it more additional functions and make it more valuable than a driver.

It has high technical requirements, high manufacturing costs, and naturally high selling prices.

You sell a new energy vehicle for 20 yuan, but the robot must be sold for at least 30 yuan to break even, and most consumers will not be willing to pay for it.

Only Volkswagen's many luxury brands, which have a broad user base around the world, dare to make this attempt.

There are very few companies in China that have chosen this technical route and are actually advancing it.

"According to what you said, how low do you think the cost can be?"

"Under 10 yuan, just the head and arms."

"The robot alone is priced at 100,000, and the car will have one less seat, so the car and the robot together should be priced at at least 300,000 to avoid losses, right?
Three hundred thousand is considered a mid-to-high-end price in China. Who would be willing to pay for a cheap version of your robot at a mid-to-high-end price?
In essence, HBM robots are products that only luxury car brands can afford.

Ordinary consumers can neither afford it nor maintain it.”

China's self-media bloggers were relatively restrained, just filming and discussing in low voices.

Foreign self-media bloggers, especially those from Germany and Korea, were all expressing their amazement and shouting as if they had seen alien technology.

“This is incredible. I see future technology in Volkswagen! Is this still the Volkswagen we are familiar with?

Since Mr. Wright of Light Armor Aerospace announced the artificial intelligence model called HBM on New Year's Day last year and demonstrated the application of the HBM model in the field of robot autonomous driving, Volkswagen will become the first company to mass-produce HBM robots and bring them to market, which is crucial for Volkswagen's intelligent transformation. "

After the German blogger finished speaking, the blogger next to him complained: "I really want to know how much German genes are left in Volkswagen after cooperating with Chinese companies?
It took only two years to complete the development and mass production of self-driving robots. Is this still a German company? "

German companies have never been known for their efficiency. Even in the best years for the German economy, German companies and their products were strictly labeled around the world.

"I waited for about 20 minutes before it was finally my turn. Since the hotel and the convention center were very close, and there were about cars running back and forth, the wait was not too long.

I was just counting how many Jettas there are in total, because the number of Jettas means the number of HBM robots shipped to Seoul by Volkswagen.

A picture came to my mind: maybe one day in the future, the soldiers sitting on the transport plane will not be human soldiers, but a row of robot soldiers.

There was no carbon-based life on the entire plane, only silicon-based products. After arriving at the destination, the robots parachuted down one by one.

Doesn’t it look like a futuristic scene?” Fei Fei expressed her overwhelming desire to the camera.

After the robot opened the door for her and she sat in the car, she began to speak to the camera again:
“I just observed carefully and found that this robot is very intelligent. I don’t know whether it is the intelligence or the sensor.

After it opens the car door for me, it will actually help you put your hand on the door to prevent you from hitting your head on the door when you sit in the car!
Are robots so smart now? When I ride in Didi’s luxury cars, many drivers only know how to open the door, but don’t know how to hold it for passengers. ”

(End of this chapter)