Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 231 Electric Vehicle Prototype

Shenzhen, Hailan Automobile Co., Ltd.

An automobile company that attracted considerable attention in the industry when it was founded, but later fell into silence due to lack of movement.

The reason why it attracted attention in the industry is naturally because the owner of this automobile company is Xu Shenxue, and this is not an investment in setting up a new company or acquiring a company in the conventional sense, but Xu Shenxue specifically applied for and obtained the approval document and then directly established a new enterprise with a large amount of money.

When the company was first established, it injected billions of dollars in capital, and it poached talent from all over the country, saying it would invest billions of dollars to build a car factory. It was quite a big deal.

At the same time, Xu Shenxue had long talked about the concept of unmanned transportation, and even now he occasionally comes out to promote things like smart cities and unmanned transportation.

Zhiyun Technology also has a serious unmanned vehicle project R&D team.

Therefore, many people who are familiar with the internal situation of the automotive industry were quite cautious at the beginning. Many car companies also followed the trend to develop driverless cars. Of course, driverless cars are something that traditional car companies cannot handle at all. Even large-scale high-tech companies are basically out of business.

However, Baidu in BTA is particularly interested in this thing and has really invested a lot of resources to start doing it.

However, as time passed, there was no news from Hailan Automobile, and no research and development results were released, let alone concept cars. There was not even a PPT, and it almost disappeared from the media's sight.

Even the automobile factory only acquired a piece of remote suburban industrial land and began to slowly carry out factory construction. Now it has just completed the construction of the main early buildings. Let alone putting it into production, in fact, this factory has not even decided what kind of production line it should have.

Due to the influence of the previous group of management, Hailan Automobile Company did not even determine the technical route of electric vehicles for a long time.

At that time, Xu Shenxue did not expect that the group of people could actually make him a hybrid car with lead-acid batteries.

I can't even copy.

Tesla has already set an example for a large number of car companies on how pure electric vehicles should be made. At the same time, domestic company BYD has also developed electric vehicles.

It is worth mentioning that BYD has a very early history in electric vehicles. Its early electric buses were very famous. Later, it entered the electric car industry step by step, developing both plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicles, and laid a very solid foundation.

However, the original management of HaiLan Automobile pretended not to see these things and insisted on feeding shit to Xu Shenxue.

After Xu Shenxue discovered the problem and took steps to rectify it, although the direction was changed, a lot of time was wasted.

After the new management team was in place, HaiLan Automobile resumed the technical route previously set by Xu Shenxue: to create a dream car with full high-tech attributes.

The new management team is pretty good, especially the new general manager Bao Yongyan. Although he is a foreign Chinese, he mixes English words in Chinese when he speaks, which sounds weird.

But he has really good abilities and a very broad vision. His ideas about future electric vehicles are highly similar to Xu Shenxue's.

Under his leadership, Hailan Automobile's R&D center shifted its focus to new electric vehicles and began to develop the first pure electric model.

The first car model is used to establish the brand, and the goal is to implant an idea in people all over the world at the first possible moment: Hailan cars represent high technology and the future.

Therefore, the first model is pure electric, and then all kinds of sci-fi small functions and configurations are added.

It should amaze people at first sight.

In the Hailan car, Xu Shenxue saw this eye-catching prototype car.

Bao Yongyan said: "For the exterior design of this pure electric coupe, we referred to some existing sports cars and sedans. We also invited some famous designers to design the exterior and conducted wind tunnel tests. The overall appearance is very beautiful!"

Xu Shenxue could see this car without Bao Yongyan saying anything. Just from the appearance, it was really beautiful. Just based on this appearance, even if it was used for more than ten years, it would still be a very good-looking car.

The overall look is smooth and simple, and the deep-pore gray paint with very good texture makes it look very high-end.

I have to say that industrial design is really something mysterious. Good industrial design can make people feel high-end at first glance.

"This design is very good, it gives me the same feeling as when I first saw the S9 phone!"

Bao Yongyan smiled when he heard Xu Shenxue's agreement. "I think that although performance is important for cars, people are human. The first thing people see is the appearance, and appearance is also the first factor in deciding whether to buy a car."

"It's just like men and women. Although everyone cares about inner beauty, the prerequisite is outer beauty. Only after the outer beauty is achieved will people consider the inner beauty of the person!"

"The same goes for cars. There is no market for ugly cars!"

"I asked people to conduct a lot of research on the automotive market. Even though performance is important, appearance is still the most important factor in purchasing decisions."

"Especially our electric cars, which are expected to be priced higher, have high-net-worth individuals as their potential users. They are mainly second cars for high-net-worth individuals, and are positioned as toys, with cool features rather than practical features. Therefore, appearance is more important."

Xu Shenxue said: "The positioning of this cool toy is still desirable in the early stage. Given the high prices of electric cars at this stage, ordinary people will not spend 400,000 or 500,000 yuan to buy a newly released domestic coupe. Even if this domestic coupe is made by my company, my title as the richest man in the world is not enough to make ordinary people grit their teeth and spend 450,000 yuan to buy this car!"

"Although the ordinary middle class has the money, they now prefer international high-end car brands. This is the brand influence accumulated by international brands over decades. We cannot blindly ignore them, so the market positioning and marketing positioning of this first electric car is very important."

"Relatively speaking, high-income groups, especially those who already have luxury cars at home, have already tried traditional luxury cars when they plan to buy a second car, so they will not be so superstitious about brands. At the same time, they are more receptive to new things, and because they already have one or more gasoline cars at home, they will not be so sensitive to the range of electric vehicles!"

"In this case, our main customer group in the early stage should be the younger high-net-worth group, well, probably living in first- and second-tier cities, working in large companies or company management, especially some people in relatively high-tech industries, with an annual income of around 400,000 to 500,000, or even more than one million. This group of people around 30 years old are relatively receptive to new things and have sufficient spending power!"

"At this time, some of them will be willing to try newer things, such as our pure electric vehicles, and experience the new lifestyle brought by the latest high technology." "Targeted product design, positioning and subsequent marketing for this group of people are the key to the success of our first pure electric car!"

At this time, Bao Yongyan said: "Boss Xu, you see things more clearly than I do. I had a vague idea about these things before, but it was still a little incomplete. Now that I've heard what you said, my thoughts have become clearer!"

"In fact, when we were doing market research before, we also surveyed employees of many sister companies in the group, especially the high-income groups at Zhiyun, such as management and senior engineers. We found that they are very willing to buy electric vehicles!"

"Many of them are high-income employees under the age of 30. They have clearly stated that if there is such a high-tech electric car, they will tend to buy it. Of course, the appearance must be beautiful enough."

"As for the choice between domestic and imported vehicles, they did not show obvious bias. They believed that as long as domestic high-end electric vehicles were good enough, they would be willing to try them!"

"Many people have also explicitly stated that if the electric car was made by our company's boss, then they wouldn't have too many concerns!"

"If it was an electric car made by other car companies, they would still worry about product quality, brand and subsequent maintenance, but if it was an electric car made by you, their concerns would be eliminated directly and they would have no worries!"

Bao Yongyan couldn't help but sigh as he spoke: "To be honest, Mr. Xu, your personal brand appeal is worth at least several billion dollars. If you stand up and say a few words, even if the car's performance is not very good, I guess you can still sell a lot of them!"

Xu Shenxue laughed. He was naturally very clear about the value of his brand... Not only because of his title as the world's richest man, but also because he was a high-tech person and a leader in the field of consumer electronics.

In addition, there is another point, that is, Xu Shenxue, who is familiar to the public, is engaged in very high-end things, such as the mobile phones, PCs, tablets, smart watches from Zhiyun Technology, plus a large number of ecological chain products and artificial intelligence. Just by looking at them, you can tell that these things are high-end and high-end goods.

As for WeCool Electronics... although it makes low-end products, people often subconsciously ignore that this company is also owned by Xu Shenxue, and even think that this is a stain on Xu Shenxue's early years, or simply think that it is a legacy of when Xu Shenxue took over the family business.

Many people even refuse to acknowledge that the Xiaolan and Weiku brands of Weiku Electronics are also mobile phone brands created by Xu Shenxue...

Our richest man Xu deals in high-end goods and high-tech products. You, a bunch of low-end products from Weiku Electronics, should stop trying to smear Zhiyun and the richest man Xu for marketing purposes. Do you have any shame?

In fact, WeCool Electronics is already very large in scale and has considerable revenue. Although its ability to make money is far inferior to that of Zhiyun Technology, it is actually a very important part of Xu Shenxue's career sector. WeCool Electronics has a huge driving effect on the domestic electronics and even semiconductor supply chain.

Without WeCool Electronics' large-scale shipments of various low- and mid-end smart terminal products, the domestic consumer electronics supply chain and the semiconductor supply chain behind it would not have been possible to mature and develop so quickly.

A large number of domestic supply chains relied on Wecoo Electronics in the early days. Even now, Wecoo Electronics' huge shipment volume is an important source of blood transfusion for the domestic supply chain.

As for Zhiyun Technology, its main role in the early and mid-term was to invest money and, by the way, paint a rosy picture for the domestic supply chain: as long as you produce high-quality spare parts, we will purchase them!
Only after the domestic supply chain gradually developed did Zhiyun Technology's products gradually adopt the domestic supply chain.

In such a process, Weiku Electronics actually plays a very important role. Countless domestic supply chain manufacturers have rapidly grown their orders thanks to Zhiyun Technology's strategic investment and Weiku Electronics' orders.

This is Xu Shenxue's strategy of supporting the domestic supply chain by "giving money with one hand and orders with the other"!

Give money and orders together, use two prongs to pull it together... As long as the supply chain company is not too weak, it can basically be pulled to a usable level. As for whether it can go further in the future, it depends on the efforts and luck of these supply chain companies themselves. After all, Zhiyun Technology and Wecoo Electronics are not just pulling one company, but often choose two or three supply chain companies of the same type to support together.

If you can't pull it up, just give up and choose another target and try again.

In such a process, we can see the importance of Weiku Electronics...For many newly emerging domestic supply chain companies, their first super customer is not Zhiyun Technology, but Weiku Electronics.

Even Zhiyun Technology's own core supply chain companies, including Zhiyun Semiconductor, Zhiyun Microelectronics and Huaxing Technology, initially survived by relying on orders from Wecoo Electronics.

Low-end products are actually the best choice for developing a supply chain in the initial stage.

As for high-end products, it is too difficult to raise product quality, cost control and technical content to world-class levels all at once.

However, people in the industry are aware of these things, but ordinary people outside do not understand them. People's impression of Xu Shenxue basically remains that Xu Shenxue is the world's richest man who is involved in high-tech.

Therefore, they would have greater interest in some of the high-tech products developed by Xu Shenxue, and even feel more reassured, thinking that no matter how bad the things made by Xu Shenxue are, they would not be that bad.

What this brings is extremely high appeal, or personal brand value.

However, Xu Shenxue seldom endorses any product. The last time he personally endorsed a product was for a drone.

For the previous spring smartwatch launch conference, Xu Shenxue did not personally host the press conference and introduce the platform.

But electric cars are different. Once they are developed and ready for market, Xu Shenxue will have to come out in person to promote them.

Because the electric vehicle industry is a huge industrial chain comparable to consumer electronics, it is enough to cultivate world-class giants.

At the same time, the electric vehicle industry, because it uses electric drive and assisted driving, is also an important part of Xu Shenxue's layout for driverless cars, and even future unmanned transportation and smart cities.

If you have a driverless car, no matter how good the AI ​​algorithm is or how advanced the technology is, you still need an electric car platform.

The electric cars in Hailan Automobile are a carrier platform prepared by Xu Shenxue for future AI driverless cars.

Such a carrier platform must not only have top-notch appearance, but also have top-notch internal technical performance.

At this time, Bao Yongyan took Xu Shenxue to the prototype car in front and began to introduce the specific parameters of this electric car to Xu Shenxue.

(End of this chapter)