Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 312: Is Hailan still making a car? A robot!
May 15th, Friday, the weather was sunny.

Shenzhen, which has just entered the summer, is already feeling a bit stuffy, with the highest temperature even reaching 30 degrees during the day.

People generally began to wear various short-sleeved cool clothes.

It would be fine if the temperature was just a little higher, but it happens to rain a lot at this time of year. It rained for ten days in the first half of the month, and the air humidity was high, so the temperature felt quite high.

On this day, the Hailan Automobile headquarters attracted a large number of guests, including representatives of partners, a large number of media, some car enthusiasts, etc.

Nearly a thousand people came to attend the annual Hailan Automotive Hailan launch conference.

Since the launch of the HaiLan SEC in the first year, HaiLan Automobile has held a press conference every year in April or May, announcing the new generation of models and various technological advances, and more importantly, launching new models.

Every year's press conference attracts a lot of attention from the media and even ordinary people.

HaiLian Automobile has been very popular in recent years. It can even be said that it is the biggest variable in the automotive industry in the past three years and it is also the most popular car company.

Its product launch naturally attracted countless attention, whether it was peers, the media or even ordinary people!

After all, the current Hailan Automobile is different from the past. It has become an important player in the automotive industry, and even the most watched and most popular automobile company in the past three years.

Although HaiLan Automobile rarely announces its sales volume, let alone revenue and profit data, many external analysis agencies are still able to analyze a rough figure.

A professional statistics agency in the automotive industry counted the sales volume of Hailan Automobile last year, and the total sales volume was 630,000 vehicles.

It is also predicted that Hailan Automobile's revenue last year reached US$480 million and its net profit reached US$5 billion.

HaiLan Auto will not comment on any predictions or analyses from the outside world!
HaiLan Automobile can’t say: You have underestimated my revenue and even more so my profits!

Hailan is producing smart electric cars, and high-end smart electric cars at that. They have high configuration and high premium, and they have high prices and profits. They are different from the fuel vehicles of ordinary car companies.

But no matter what, HaiLian Automobile has grown into an automobile company that cannot be ignored by the outside world...not to mention that it also represents the future.

HaiLan Automobile is the leader in the field of smart electric vehicles. Tesla can only bow its head and serve as its younger brother in front of it, and BYD can only look up at the greatness of HaiLan Automobile from the foot of the mountain.

And the others...well, can only be listed as others!
In the current field of smart electric vehicles, there are actually only the three main players mentioned above, and the rest are "others" that are not up to standard. Overseas, a large number of traditional car companies have started to play the electric vehicle business, but they are doing a very poor job. Domestically, there are traditional car companies doing it, and some new capital has also come in to try to build cars... Among them, there are also a lot of companies that are specifically trying to cheat subsidies.

In the field of smart electric vehicles, Hailan Automobile is currently the undisputed leader, with its production and sales accounting for more than half of the global market... although the global market size is less than one million vehicles.

However, smart electric vehicles represent the future, and HaiLan Automobile has gained an undisputed leading advantage in this future market.

Such a Hailan car, holding its annual new product launch conference today, naturally attracted countless people's attention.

Moreover, unlike the first year's press conference where Xu Shenxue had to be on the stage to promote the event, this year everyone was scrambling to attend the press conference.

The reason why HaiLan Automobile's first year's press conference attracted attention was not because it was a world-leading smart electric vehicle company, but because it was Xu Shenxue's company and the press conference was hosted by Xu Shenxue himself.

It can be said that it was thanks to Xu Shenxue's personal support and the marketing promotion of Hailan Automobile that the first generation of Hailan Automobile attracted huge attention in the early stage when it was released.

However, Hailan Automobile's autonomous driving technology was indeed considered black technology at the time... No, even today, several years later, Hailan Automobile's autonomous driving technology is still considered black technology!

It has surpassed all its global rivals to the point where other companies in the same industry don’t even know how to catch up!

Xu Shenxue's appeal and marketing, coupled with HaiLan Auto's self-driving technology, eventually made HaiLan SEC popular around the world overnight, attracting countless wealthy people to place orders to satisfy their curiosity.

This led to huge sales of Hailan SEC.

In the first year of the launch of the HaiLan SEC, due to limited production capacity, deliveries only began in September, but even so, 50,000 units were sold.

By the second year, HaiLan Automobile's HaiLan SEC was launched and sold in many countries around the world. At the same time, the Shenzhen automobile production base at the headquarters was completed and started large-scale mass production.

That year, the HaiLan SEC sold nearly 400,000 units, shocking the world.

However, the Hailan SEC is a coupe model with a wide range of usage scenarios. It is a stunt work by Hailan Automobile to pry open the market and become an overnight success, and it places great emphasis on the sense of technology... So this car can be used to show off and to "play", but it is not suitable as a family car or a business car, and its usage scenarios are quite limited.

Therefore, after the initial sensational sales, the market's curiosity was gradually consumed and sales eventually calmed down.

However, HaiLan Automobile launched an SUV model in the same year: HaiLan SEV.

The market potential of this model is even better than that of the coupe model. After all, this model is mainly aimed at the family market, with personal cars for high-income groups and family cars as its core usage scenarios.

Therefore, after its launch, its sales performance was extremely good, and it successfully replaced the HaiLan SEC and became the main shipment product of HaiLan Automobile.

By last year, sales of the SUV model Hailan SEV had reached 330,000 units, surpassing the 290,000 units of the sedan sports car Hailan SEC, whose sales had been declining.

At the same time, the large luxury sedan Hailan SLC, which is biased towards the business market, was released last year. The sales of this car are not very good. So far, only more than 8,000 units have been sold... The main reason is that the application limitations of this car are relatively large. It is directly benchmarked against the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. The average sales price is very high. The average sales price of its standard configuration has reached 1.2 million yuan, and the average sales price of high-end and top-end configurations is even more than 1.5 million yuan.

A bulletproof version is also available, which is called the President Edition by HaiLan Automobile. It is said to be the same car as Xu Shenxue's. The starting price is five million yuan, and the price of high-end models can even reach tens of millions.

Given that the Hailan SLC is priced so high and is a newly launched smart electric car, the sales volume it can achieve is actually very good.

This kind of ultra-high-end luxury car that promotes the brand and builds its reputation was not expected to sell in large quantities.

Hailan Automobile sold a total of 630,000 vehicles last year, with sales in more than 50 countries around the world.

The main sales areas are China, the United States, Europe and Central Asia.

External analysis agencies estimate that in the past 14 years, Hailan Automobile has raked in at least billion US dollars from all over the world, with a net profit of at least billion US dollars.

In terms of revenue, the outside world estimates that Hailan Automobile can at least rank around 230 among the top 500 companies in the world.

Among global automobile companies, HaiLian Automobile ranks 24th in sales and 18th in revenue.

The companies that rank ahead of HaiLan Automobile in terms of revenue are all well-known car companies from various countries, such as France's Renault, Peugeot, Hyundai, Dongfeng, etc.

Following Hailan Automobile in terms of revenue are Kia, BAIC, Volvo, GAC, Mazda, Geely and so on.

If we count profits, even if the profit is the estimated 5 billion US dollars, it can still be among the top ten in the world. Except for Toyota, which is too far behind and has no comparison, it is almost the same as General Motors and Honda, and a little less than Ford, Hyundai, etc.
But it surpasses a large number of car companies including SAIC, Nissan, FAW, Dongfeng, Tata, GAC, etc.

The above is only based on some revenue and profit analysis by the outside world!
In fact, according to the financial report that Xu Shenxue had seen, Hailan Automobile's revenue had reached 50 billion US dollars, and its net operating profit had reached 8 billion US dollars... both exceeded outside expectations.

This is mainly because the outside world underestimated the average selling price of Hailan Automobile, and overestimated some of Hailan Automobile's production costs and R&D costs.

And then there was this deviation!
Hailan Automobile's net profit margin is higher than the outside world imagines!

Smart electric vehicles, at least at this stage, are more profitable than the outside world imagines. Hailan Automobile makes its own power batteries, motors, and electronic controls, as well as its own automatic assisted driving. It does not need to purchase various expensive components or subsystems from the outside at a high premium. Cost control is very good, which ultimately leads to Hailan Automobile's very high gross profit margin, and the final net profit is also higher.

HaiLan Auto's high gross profit and high net profit are unmatched by its main competitor Tesla.

The main reason is that Tesla is now mainly engaged in assembly, and the power batteries need to be purchased from outside, and the assisted driving part also needs to be purchased from outside, and the products purchased are still from Zhiyun.

All of these require Tesla to pay extra costs, which in turn reduces their gross profit... Of course, despite this, their gross profit is far higher than that of the traditional fuel vehicle industry. Coupled with the bright future market prospects of smart electric vehicles, they are highly regarded by the capital market, especially some of the consortiums behind them.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that HaiLan Automobile is not listed and the capital market is unable to invest in it, so it can only settle for second best.

A new track has emerged, and we have to invest in one of them... If we can’t invest in HaiLan, then we can invest in Tesla, and then invest a little in BYD to see how it goes.

Then we started looking around the world for various emerging new energy vehicle companies for venture capital!

If HaiLan Automobile were to go public, it would have been sought after by capital by now, and its market value would have reached 200 billion. Unfortunately, HaiLan did not go public.

HaiLan Automobile is not short of money now. Although expanding production capacity is costly, it does not actually require the use of a large amount of HaiLan Automobile's own working capital.

The expansion of various production bases of Hailan Automobile is often solved by bank loans, and low-interest loans at that. A large number of places have offered various preferential conditions to invite Hailan Automobile to build factories, and providing preferential loans is a basic condition.

The total investment of the Hailan Shanghai factory reached 4 billion US dollars, but Hailan Automobile Company only took out about 1 billion US dollars, and the rest of the money was ultra-low-interest loans provided by local banks...

Not only do they provide loans, but they also sell or give away large tracts of industrial land at very low prices, and provide various other types of support.

Therefore, all things considered, HaiLan Automobile's Shanghai factory does not require HaiLan Automobile to spend much money in the early stages.

This is not only the case for large-scale assembly production bases, but also for the construction of other spare parts factories, such as power battery factories, motor factories, engines (required for extended-range models), and other factories, which mostly use bank loans!
The hard expenses that companies really need to pay for themselves are corporate administration, marketing and advertising, channel construction, and charging pile construction is also an important expense.

However, these expenses are nothing compared to the investment in research and development.

HaiLian Automobile has many R&D projects on a large scale, and its R&D expenditures are extremely exaggerated. Last year, it burned more than 3 billion US dollars in R&D funds.

Its huge investment in research and development has made many investors who were originally confident in entering the field of smart electric vehicles feel numb!
If you raise three billion US dollars in funds from an ordinary industry, you can create a large enterprise.

But in the field of smart electric vehicles, three billion US dollars is equivalent to Hailan Automobile's annual R&D expenses...

The field of smart electric vehicles is a very money-burning industry, especially at the moment when various supply chains are not mature and everything needs to be done by yourself. If you don’t have billions of dollars in your pocket, don’t expect to be able to enter the market... Even if you enter, you can only get started, and then you will face huge losses that will continue for several years. You must have a steady stream of capital investment.

Especially when the threshold of the entire industry was first opened by pioneers such as Hailan Automobile and Tesla, and then a large number of patent walls were created to block latecomers, it actually became more difficult for latecomers to enter again.

Of course, those who cheat on subsidies don’t count!
At Hailan Automobile, there are now more than 10,000 R&D personnel of various types, and huge R&D funds have been invested...

The huge R&D expenditure has also brought many technological achievements to Hailan Automobile. The various new technological achievements have been combined to produce this year's model upgrades and new models: the new luxury sedan Hailan SLMC.

After the press conference officially started, Xu Shenxue came on stage as usual, without any extra nonsense, and began to host today's press conference for the guests.

"We at Hailan Auto have always attached great importance to technology research and development, and the huge investment in research and development has also brought us rewards."

"This year, we adopted a new second-generation battery management system, which has a built-in neural network chip, making the entire battery system more intelligent. The system can continuously learn and improve charging and discharging based on the user's daily use and operating habits."

"With the support of our second-generation battery management system, our power battery modules can charge faster and more reasonably, while the charging process is smoother, and the power supply can be adjusted intelligently according to the user's operation."

“And the battery cycle life is longer.”

"For the same battery pack, using our second-generation battery management module can increase the battery pack's service life by 8 percent compared to the first-generation battery management module."

"Our second-generation intelligent battery management system is paired with our newly developed new-generation power battery module. We use newly developed lithium iron phosphate batteries in the new-generation battery modules, re-optimize the internal structure of the battery, and use a new generation of negative electrode materials!"

"The energy density of our redesigned and optimized new generation battery is 15% higher than the previous generation battery, and the cycle life is increased by 10%."

"When our new battery is combined with the new intelligent battery management system, it forms our new generation of 'HLS power battery module', which can increase the vehicle's range by 15% to 30% and its service life by 20%!"

"That means our cars have a longer range and their batteries last longer!"

"This year, we upgraded the Hailan SEC, and the pure electric range can reach 480 kilometers. Compared with the 400-kilometer range of the first-generation Hailan SEC, the pure electric range has been increased by 80 kilometers!"

“While improving the battery life and increasing the service life, we have further broken through the limits of battery safety, making safety even safer!”

"Safety has always been the core factor in our Hailan car manufacturing. Nothing is more important than safety."

While Xu Shenxue was speaking on the stage, he remotely directed the PPT on the big screen behind him, including some short clips interspersed between them.

The focus was to introduce to the audience and many netizens the great breakthroughs that Hailan Auto has made in the field of power batteries. "Next, you can see some of our tests on the second-generation HLS battery module in the short film!"

"We used various methods such as collision, extrusion, puncture, and heating to test, and the data proved that our second-generation battery has been greatly improved in safety."

"At the same time, we have continued to upgrade our intelligent safety management system, adding a large number of temperature and pressure sensors, and applying new fire extinguishing materials, so that we can actively protect the battery and ensure that when any accident occurs, the battery compartment is protected immediately to avoid accidents!"

"Combined with a new generation of battery compartment frame made of stronger and more solid materials!"

"I can confidently say that our battery safety is not just ahead of our peers, but that no competitor will be able to keep up with us in the next five years. To be optimistic, they may not be able to catch up with us in the next ten years!"

After talking about batteries, Xu Shenxue introduced some minor technical upgrades and gradually introduced three new upgraded models, including the Hailan coupe, Hailan SUV and Hailan luxury sedan.

When introducing the Hailan SUV, Xu Shenxue focused on the new generation of advanced automatic assisted driving.

"What is the most important thing about assisted driving? It is its eyes and brain, that is, various sensors and chips that process data!"

"The more data collected by various sensors, the more precise the data; and the faster the data is processed, the more accurate and responsive the assisted driving system will be!"

"So, we equipped the new generation of advanced automatic assisted driving system with twelve top-level automotive-grade high-resolution cameras, twelve ultrasonic radars and one automotive-grade millimeter-wave radar with world-leading performance."

"And then, it is also equipped with our self-developed second-generation speed map laser radar!"

Xu Shenxue walked gently on the stage and said slowly: "Lidar is crucial to advanced automatic assisted driving functions, and it can even be said to be indispensable!"

"Since we launched the first generation of Hailan cars, some people have been suggesting that we remove LiDAR from the advanced automatic assisted driving system, saying that LiDAR is too expensive. One LiDAR costs tens of thousands of dollars, which takes up too much of our costs."

“And we say that our pure vision technology is mature enough and continues to improve at a huge rate, and can fully meet the needs of high-priced automatic assisted driving!”

"But I rejected such proposals every time!"

"LiDAR plays an irreplaceable role. It and the visual solution do not replace each other, but integrate with each other, achieving the effect of one plus one being greater than two!"

"Especially when driving on urban roads and other complex environments, lidar can build a real-time 3D dynamic model of the surrounding environment for our assisted driving system, with high-precision ranging and positioning capabilities, providing our system with 3D perception capabilities that are different from visual solutions, and providing decision-making data for accurate assisted driving."

"We need not only eyes, but also millimeter-wave radar, ultrasonic radar, and even lidar!"

"So, this year, we have equipped our self-developed second-generation speed map lidar in the new generation of advanced automatic assisted driving system. It can emit 128 parallel lasers at the same time to scan the space ahead with ultra-high precision."

As Xu Shenxue spoke, a laser radar demonstration animation appeared on the big screen behind him, simulating the scene where the laser radar on the top front of the vehicle emits a laser beam for scanning.

"It has higher resolution and detection capabilities. It can even identify small and irregular obstacles that the human eye cannot recognize, avoid any visual obstacles, and provide the auxiliary system with real and ultra-high-precision three-dimensional spatial information!"

"Moreover, this three-dimensional spatial information changes in real time!"

"Because our lidar is always watching the road ahead and will never let up until it reaches its destination and completes its mission."

During Xu Shenxue's commentary, a laser radar demonstration image appeared on the large screen behind him, showing 3D image information constructed after the laser radar scan, which looked full of science fiction.

At this time, Xu Shenxue said: "When we equipped the new generation of advanced automatic assisted driving with twelve automotive-grade ultra-high precision cameras, twelve ultrasonic radars, and one millimeter-wave radar."

"There is also a second-generation speed-image lidar that is extremely expensive, costing $20,000 alone."

"The gathering of so many sensors will inevitably bring a huge amount of data that needs to be processed, and it needs to be processed in real time every moment!"

"This, this requires us to equip the entire system with a very smart brain!"

"Now, please allow me to introduce to you the latest joint research and development results of Hailan Automobile's semiconductor department and Zhiyun Semiconductor Department, the world's most professional and only intelligent driving chip 'YEQ2'."

As Xu Shenxue finished speaking, a motherboard appeared on the large screen behind him, and the picture continued to zoom in, revealing four huge chips, and then the picture continued to zoom in on one of the chips.

Finally, the chip's logo appeared on the screen:
"YEQ2"

Below the chip model mark, there is also the chip mark of Zhiyun Semiconductor: YUN and the abbreviation of Hailan Automobile: HL.

Further down is some miniature manufacturing information.

Xu Shenxue said: "This is the brain we prepared for the new generation of advanced automatic assisted driving system, the YEQ2 chip!"

"We have integrated the CPU core, GPU core and many other integrated modules into this chip!"

“We even integrated an AI core into it, providing the system with convolutional neural network applications!”

"Of course, the most important thing is that it has incredible computing power that even exceeds your imagination!"

"Our first-generation vehicle-mounted computing power YEQ1 had a computing power of 2.5TOPS, which was an excellent result at the time. Compared with the 3TOPS of another mainstream EYEQ0.256, the difference was more than ten times."

"But this year, our YEQ2 has a single chip performance of 40TOPS, which is 1 times higher than the previous generation YEQ!"

"My friends, that's a 16-fold difference. Can you imagine how crazy that is?"

"This is data that is enough to drive any intelligent driving engineer crazy. It means that with it, you can realize many fantastic ideas that only existed in imagination before!"

"It's like a goddess that only existed in your imagination before, but now... she has walked out of your brain and become reality!"

“When I first heard this data, I thought the world was going crazy… This performance improvement far exceeded my expectations.”

"And my friends, we previously used the YEQ2.5 chip with only 1TOPS computing power to create an incredible advanced automatic assisted driving that shocked countless people. Now... we have the YEQ40 with 2TOPS computing power!"

"And our new generation of advanced automatic assisted driving will integrate four YEQ2 chips, providing TOPS of computing power!"

"A full 160 TOPS of computing power will provide us with countless crazy possibilities!"

"Now, can you imagine how those smart driving engineers feel when they see this chip?"

"This means that a lot of things that were impossible in the past will become possible from now on!"

"Our entire system will become smarter, more responsive, and more precise in driving!"

“This will bring a revolutionary smart driving experience!”

"My friends, welcome to the new era of intelligent driving!"

Listening to Xu Shenxue bragging about the YEQ2 chip on the stage, a group of fellow auto manufacturers looked at each other in surprise... Damn, am I attending a car launch conference or a chip launch conference?

The press conference has been going on for more than half an hour, but we haven’t seen any new models yet. We only saw some so-called upgrades of old models.

Then I listened to Xu Shenxue bragging about batteries, electronic controls, and assisted driving.

Especially this chip, Xu Shenxue has praised it to the sky.

This made a group of CEOs in the automotive industry silent. Although we are all in the automotive industry, why do I feel that we are in a different industry?

Are you, Xu Shenxue, sure you didn't go to the wrong set?
And the most important thing is, I can't understand... These people who come here are not technical personnel, but some CEOs, especially those who are engaged in public relations and marketing. They come here to find out what new car models Hailan is going to launch, and by the way, find a few reporters to advertise their new cars.

Xu Shenxue's press conferences have always been the focus of major media attention. Many peer companies like to come and take advantage of Xu Shenxue's popularity to advertise.

Praising Xu Shenxue and his high-tech products, and then talking about their own new products in passing, this is an old routine of major manufacturers!

As a result, Xu Shenxue is now bragging about some chips and TOPS computing power, who knows what they are...

However, although they could not understand much, ordinary people could still understand what Xu Shenxue said about the various computing power improvement multiples.

The computing power has increased by sixteen times. Just by hearing this number, you can tell that Hailan Automobile's advanced automatic assisted driving system has performed better.

At the same time, it also makes their competitors who want to engage in smart driving even more desperate.

Because, until today, major automobile manufacturers that have entered the field of intelligent driving cannot even compare with the advanced automatic assisted driving system installed on the original Hailan SEC, and they are still unable to understand it.

Not only can ordinary competitors not compare with it, but even Tesla can't compare with it. Tesla's current pure vision solution is still not very good. It can only achieve limited assisted driving, but it can't achieve true autonomous driving like Hailan Automobile.

Today, everyone is still racking their brains to find ways to catch up with the autonomous driving technology of the first generation of models released by Hailan Automobile three years ago.

As a result... your HaiLan Automobile has come up with a second-generation autonomous driving technology, and this autonomous driving plan has increased the chip computing power by sixteen times. What the hell is this?

After three years of hard work, the gap between us and Hailan Automobile has not narrowed but has become even bigger!

The CEOs of these car manufacturers all had gloomy faces and were in a bad mood, but the media reporters were extremely excited. Even though they didn't quite understand what automatic assisted driving was, they just needed news!

Xu Shenxue said that the new generation of chips is sixteen times better than the old generation of chips, which means that the autonomous driving technology has been improved sixteen times. Well, just write a title and post it out.

So, it didn’t take long before online media reported: At the HaiLan press conference, Xu Shenxue said: Autonomous driving technology has improved sixteen times.

"HaiLan's autonomous driving technology has reached new heights, with performance improved by sixteen times!"

"Xu Shenxue announced the arrival of the era of true autonomous driving!"

"At the Hailan press conference, Xu Shenxue's skills amazed everyone!"

"Shocked, the president of a certain car company seemed to faint at the Hailan press conference!"

"Crazy Chip, crazy Hailan!"

Then, on a certain online video platform, the host of the live webcast of the press conference said, after hearing Xu Shenxue's introduction to the advanced automatic assisted driving system:
"The smart electric car of Hailan Automobile, is it still a car? I feel like it's actually a robot with four wheels!"

If Xu Shenxue heard what the host said, he would give him a big thumbs up, because Hailan Automobile has never aimed at traditional cars, but at intelligent cars. Its assisted driving function is actually AI driving function, but the degree of perfection is still very low and the AI ​​model is not very good.

The ultimate evolution goal of Hailan Automobile is: driverless vehicles under AI control!

This type of self-driving vehicle actually falls into the category of robots in a broad sense... Not only those with legs are considered robots, but also those with wheels.

Xu Shenxue boasted wildly on the stage about the YEQ2 chip and the new generation of advanced automatic assisted driving system L2++ which consists of this chip and numerous sensors.

After talking about this for a long time, the topic finally turned to the new models released this year.

"This year, we launched a large number of new technologies, including the second-generation battery management system, the second-generation power battery module, our newly upgraded L2++ advanced automatic assisted driving system, and the motor has also been upgraded!"

"The upgrades to many core subsystems are not only applied to the upgrade and improvement of our existing models, but we have also brought these new technologies together and designed a new epoch-making luxury sedan!"

“Now, please allow me to introduce the newest member of the Hailan family: Hailan SLMC!”

“An advanced, sci-fi-like sedan with lots of high-tech features!”

“I hope you guys like it as much as I do!”

As Xu Shenxue finished speaking, a black sea-blue SLMC sedan slowly and automatically drove onto the stage from the aisle behind him, and began a very cool on-the-spot turn, showing everyone its exterior details!
(End of this chapter)