Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 387 Zhao Xingsheng Returns Home

At a high-speed rail station in a small city in central China, Zhao Xingsheng got off the high-speed rail train with other passengers, carrying a large backpack and a shoulder bag in his hand.

Although this was not his first time taking the high-speed rail station home, he still found it incredible how grand it was.

If it were a few years ago, who would have thought that such an advanced and high-end high-speed railway station would appear in this remote and backward city of my hometown.

It is also more convenient to go home. In the past, you had to take an ordinary train back to the city, and then take a bus back to the county town.

Every year when I go home for the Chinese New Year, it is a nightmare journey.

However, since the large-scale construction of high-speed railways began and a high-speed railway line passed through my hometown, going home has become extremely convenient.

After exiting the train station, Zhao Xingsheng looked at the spacious streets and tall buildings ahead... For a moment, he couldn't tell whether this was the big city where he had worked hard for many years, or the small county town where he was born, with a population of just over 200,000.

After leaving the high-speed rail station, Zhao Xingsheng opened the Kuaipao APP and ordered a Kuaipao. Although he is a local, he is not willing to take those illegal taxis and motorcycles that pick up passengers outside the high-speed rail station. Instead, he prefers to trust online car-hailing services.

Prices are clearly marked, so you don’t have to worry about detours or troubles!

A few minutes later, Zhao Xingsheng got on a Kuaipao online taxi, and Zhao Xingsheng also noticed that although the car still had a blue license plate, it was a BYD electric car.

If he had seen electric car-hailing taxis in the big city where he used to work, it wouldn’t be a surprise, but his hometown is just a small county town. When did the electric car craze in big cities blow to his hometown?
He remembered that when he went home last year, he didn't see any electric cars on the road.

Sitting in the electric car-hailing vehicle, Zhao Xingsheng couldn't help but sigh that technology is developing too fast nowadays, and the trend of technology has even reached remote small towns like his hometown.

Especially in the fields of various smart terminals and electric vehicles.

The world is changing so fast!
------

The technological development in contemporary China, and even the lifestyles of ordinary people, are actually changing very rapidly.

Needless to say, smart terminals have now begun to use smartphones, even among the illiterate elderly in rural areas. Feature phones are rapidly becoming history, and even the market for senior phones is almost lost.

The rapid popularization of various smart terminals has brought about mobile Internet life...Extended from this are various Internet applications, such as online car-hailing, online payment, online shopping, etc. Various Internet services are comprehensively penetrating into all aspects of people's lives and completely changing people's lifestyles.

If you let a person born in 07 suddenly travel to the year 17, he would have to learn for a long time to adapt to this new era...because in just these ten short years, people's lifestyles have undergone earth-shaking changes.

In the field of electric vehicles, the development is also extremely rapid!
Since Hailan Automobile released the first generation of Hailan pure electric vehicles, it has quickly become global news headlines relying on its black technology function of autonomous driving, and has completely ignited the new energy vehicle market.

Subsequently, the domestic electric vehicle sector developed extremely rapidly. Not only did HaiLian Automobile focus on autonomous driving and the mid-to-high-end field, but there were also domestic smart electric vehicle giants such as HaiLian Automobile that have begun to compete with traditional automobile giants with their products targeting the global market.

There are also a large number of traditional domestic automobile manufacturers such as BYD, GAC, SAIC, and BAIC that are developing and launching various new energy vehicle brands.

Especially after Zhiyun Group acquired the overseas EYEQ computing power platform, and then continued to develop and launched the EYEQ2 series and EYEQ3 series assisted driving platforms to the market.

Even these mid- and low-end new energy vehicles in China have adopted assisted driving. In order to compete with traditional oil vehicles, they have also learned from Zhiyun to make big refrigerators and color TVs, the so-called intelligent driving!
Therefore, these mid- and low-end new energy vehicles in China are selling very well, and their development momentum is extremely rapid.

It is mainly these mid- and low-end electric vehicles that have quickly become the first choice for online car-hailing and taxis because of their low operating costs... and the online car-hailing and taxi market is very large.

For the same online ride-hailing driver, the difference in income can reach several thousand yuan if he uses a gasoline car or an electric car.

For operating vehicles that run on the road every day and travel hundreds of kilometers a year, fuel expenses are their main operating costs.

Electric cars can save costs in this area. As for electricity bills... they are very cheap.

So in recent years, a large number of electric vehicles have appeared in the online car-hailing and taxi markets in major cities...all domestic brands, mainly electric vehicle brands launched by traditional automobile manufacturers, such as BYD, GAC, SAIC, etc.

To some extent, although HaiLian Automobile has made a start, it is these traditional domestic automobile manufacturers that have truly pushed electric vehicles into thousands of households. As for the newly emerging new forces, their strength is not yet strong enough and their sales are too low.

How to say it, anyone who pays a little attention to the automotive industry, or even ordinary people who don’t pay attention to it, knows that HaiLan Automobile is awesome. Whether it’s autonomous driving, safety, or other black technologies, as well as brand and other aspects, HaiLan Automobile is the best choice.

Although its production, sales volume and revenue are not the first in the country, from a brand perspective, it is undoubtedly the first.

This is also the first Chinese automobile company in the industry to successfully expand overseas on a large scale and achieve huge success, profits and brand reputation.

The revenue of HaiLian Automobile is also very exaggerated. Last year, that is, in 16, the global revenue of HaiLian Automobile reached an exaggerated billion US dollars, ranking th among global automobile companies.

What makes a group of traditional automobile manufacturers envious and jealous is that HaiLan Automobile's gross profit margin is very high, far exceeding the level of traditional fuel vehicles, and also exceeding that of a large number of domestic low- and mid-end new energy vehicles.

A third-party analysis agency disassembled and analyzed the main sales model of Hailan Automobile, namely Hailan SLMC, and found that its gross profit margin reached 33%.

This gross profit margin is simply unbelievable for the automotive industry.

This high gross profit margin also means that although HaiLan Auto's revenue is only US$57 billion, its net profit for that year reached US$7.3 billion according to HaiLan Auto's internal financial report statistics.

Ranked third in the world!

From Hailan Automobile's crazy ability to make money, we can actually see that Hailan Automobile is still quite far away from ordinary people... The price is too expensive. Even their cheapest entry-level version of Hailan SLMC has a starting price of 350,000.

With a little more configuration, the price would have reached 400,000.

Although HaiLan Automobile says that its HaiLan SLMC is a mid-size sedan, it has never said that its HaiLan SLMC is a mid-range model... This model is actually positioned against models such as the BMW 4 Series, BMW 6 Series, Audi A, and A.

This has been demonstrated very successfully in China. Over the past year or so, when the Hailan SLMC was selling like crazy, the sales of a large number of luxury models of foreign brands that used to be popular in the domestic market have been halved again and again, which is a terrible situation.

However, the expensive Hailan car has little to do with ordinary families. So even though Hailan cars are selling like crazy around the world and making a lot of money, and their sales in China are not small, people from ordinary families can only look at them.

What is really closer to ordinary people are the new energy vehicle models launched one after another by many first- and second-tier domestic traditional automobile manufacturers, with prices around 100,000 to 200,000 yuan.

Although many ordinary people have not bought this kind of car, they have ridden in it to some extent...after all, there are still quite a lot of new energy online-hailing cars.

This also allows many ordinary people to experience and feel new energy vehicles... Of course, the experience is not much better.

After all, they are all mid- and low-end new energy vehicles, and some core technologies such as electronic control are still in the development stage. Their driving and riding experience is very different from that of Hailan Automobile.

This is also the main reason why the group that purchases new energy vehicles in recent years is relatively special and lacks the general group.

Needless to say, rich people, when they buy new energy vehicles, basically buy Hailan cars to enjoy all kinds of black technology... they don’t even take a look at other domestic new energy vehicle brands.

For these wealthy people, they have only two choices when buying a car: either choose to buy luxury cars from foreign brands, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, etc.; or buy various models of Hailan Automobile from high-tech giant Hailan Automobile.

There is no third option for the time being, at least other domestic car brands will not be their choice at present.

This is also the reason why HaiLan Automobile is so popular in China, but it poses no threat to domestic automobile brands, and is even helpful. There is no competition between the two sides. Even a large number of domestic automobile brands are still counting on HaiLan Automobile, the big brother, to continue to increase the popularity of new energy vehicles, popularize the market, and dispel people's doubts, so that they can follow suit and enter the market.

In addition to the wealthy group, there is another group, namely, online car-hailing and taxi drivers, who make a living from this, so they flock to buy other low- and mid-end domestic electric vehicles.

Then there is another special group of people, that is, high-income residents in a few big cities... who choose to buy new energy vehicles because of license issues.

With the strong rise of Hailan Automobile and then BYD's quick follow-up, new energy vehicles have gradually developed and matured. In order to support the domestic new energy vehicle industry, policies for new energy license plates have been implemented in major cities.

There is no need to draw lots or go through auctions, you can get a new energy license plate directly. This is an irresistible attraction for middle- and high-income residents in large cities with license plate restrictions, such as Shenzhen and Shanghai.

This is also the reason why the main sales volume of Hailan Automobile in China is currently concentrated in these large cities with license plate restrictions. The new energy license plate policy has played a certain role.

Rich people who come for the black technology, online car-hailing drivers who support their families, and residents of large cities with license plate restrictions, these three groups have become the important driving force behind the early domestic new energy vehicle market.

Even Hailan Automobile has benefited greatly from this. This year, it is expected to reduce the proportion of its car sales from overseas from the previous 60% to 50%...

As the largest high-tech automobile giant in China, HaiLian Automobile's products have 60% of their revenue contributed by overseas due to pricing issues.

In this regard, Hailan Automobile has actually been trying to make changes... The overseas market is too complicated and there are too many potential problems. If one problem is not solved properly, the company will be banned from entering the market.

If HaiLian Automobile wants to truly grow into a world-class giant, it still has to rely on the local market as its core.

This is also the core reason why Hailan Automobile spares no effort to promote the development of mid-range models and enter the 200,000-level market...

------

Zhao Xingsheng took a Kuaipao online taxi all the way to his home in the town. Zhao's parents, who had already known in advance from a phone call that their son was coming home, were waiting at home long ago.

After returning home and asking about Zhao Xingsheng's well-being, Zhao's father said to him, "I heard you say on the phone that you want to work in the city and not go to Shenzhen anymore?"

Zhao Xingsheng said, "Well, I have successfully joined Hailan Automobile. In five days, I will go to work at our Hailan Automobile production base in the city. This way, it will be closer to home, so I can go home on weekends, and the salary there is pretty good."

Father Zhao asked, "Hai Lan Automobile? It's the Hai Lan Automobile that's very popular now. I heard it's a very large company?"

Zhao Xingsheng said: "Yes, it is that Hailan Automobile. It has a large-scale production base in our city."

Father Zhao said: "Big companies are good, they are stable!"

After a few seconds of pausing, Zhao's father said, "You worked in Shenzhen before, and we can't help you much. The houses there are too expensive."

"If you work in the city, the housing prices there are much cheaper. I asked before and found out that you can buy a very good apartment in a residential area for about 7,000 to 8,000 yuan per square meter!"

"Your mother and I have saved some money over the years. We also saved the money you sent home in the past few years. We have about 200,000 yuan here. Use this money to buy a house and pay the down payment. Only with a house can you start a family!"

Zhao's mother also said, "Yes, you are not young anymore. You are already 30 years old. It will be too late if you don't get married. Your father and I are not young anymore. If you get married and have children, I can still help you take care of the children. If I am not in good health in a few years, I will not be able to help you take care of the children."

Zhao Xingsheng listened, but he didn't say anything like he didn't want to get married...nor did he say anything to spoil the fun. Instead, he nodded and said, "I understand."

The reason why Zhao Xingsheng decided to return to his hometown to work was because he felt that there was no way he could make a living in a big city like Shenzhen.

Although he could earn a salary of over 10,000 yuan a month, it was a drop in the bucket compared to the exorbitant housing prices in Shenzhen. His parents' main livelihood depended on a small grocery store in the town, which also did not make much money. To settle down in Shenzhen was an unattainable dream for him.

After hanging around in Shenzhen for a few years, when he saw that Hailan Automobile had opened a production base in his hometown and was recruiting relevant mechanical engineers to work at the production base, he submitted his resume and was successfully hired.

There are a lot of mechanical engineers like him in places like Shenzhen, but few are willing to be sent to work in backward cities in central China, and local recruitment is even less reliable.

Such high-level technical talents generally want to move to big cities and rarely stay in backward cities... If they stay in backward cities, they often cannot find suitable high-paying jobs.

The job at Hailan Automobile was just right for him. The salary was very good, around 15,000 yuan a month, and it also included various welfare benefits, social security, and provident fund.

There is even a dispatch subsidy... He applied for a job and joined the company at the Hailan Automobile headquarters in Shenzhen. Being dispatched to a production base in such a backward city will also give him a certain dispatch subsidy... Although he is a local, he will still receive the dispatch subsidy he deserves.

So it is particularly suitable for local people like him.

After resting at home for a few days, Zhao Xingsheng went to the Hailan Automobile Production Base in the city's industrial zone to officially start work.

This production base is still in the preparation stage and has not yet officially started production. It still requires a large number of technical engineers such as Zhao Xingsheng to carry out various preparatory work for the production line.

Many technical personnel like Zhao Xingsheng join the company every day, most of whom are dispatched from the headquarters or bases in Shanghai or Beijing.

There are some local recruits, but not many.

High-level technical talents are not easy to come by, and it is actually very difficult to recruit them on a large scale in such a backward city.

But the signboards for ordinary employees are much simpler!
Zhao Xingsheng, who had just been working for a few days, saw an early recruitment for ordinary employees.

The positions being recruited this time are all ordinary clerical positions. In Zhao Xingsheng's opinion, the remuneration for these ordinary clerical jobs is just so-so, with the overall income generally being only around 5,000 to 6,000 yuan. However, there are huge crowds of people applying for the jobs!
Standing in the office building and looking down, he saw a queue that was hundreds of meters long.

A colleague next to me came over with a cup of coffee and said, "There are so many people here. If you didn't know, you would think Zhiyun was recruiting here!"

Another young engineer said: "These are all people who have been screened for interviews, and there are even more people who have submitted resumes!"

"But this is normal. Our company is a large enterprise after all. Although the basic salary of these ordinary clerical positions is a bit low, the five social insurances and one housing fund are very good, and the various welfare benefits are also good."

"And they are all ordinary civilian positions that don't require much professional skills. Such people are everywhere and worthless, so naturally the competition is fierce!"

“It’s normal to have so many people applying for the job!”

"It's hard to find engineers. I heard from my friend in the human resources department that they have been recruiting for three months and only found more than 20 engineers locally!"

"Just wait and see. Right now we are only recruiting for ordinary civilian positions. When we start recruiting ordinary workers in a while, more people will come."

Zhao Xingsheng sighed as he listened. Even in his hometown in the city, there were not many formal factories, let alone large and formal factories like Hailan Automobile.

It is actually very difficult for people to find a job, especially a job with five insurances and one fund and decent salary and benefits.

He could imagine how many people would apply when they learned that HaiLan Automobile was recruiting.

Even in his hometown town, many people called him to ask if he was going to recruit people, when he would recruit people, and asked him to help say hello.

It can be seen that the work at the Hailan Automobile Production Base is still very attractive.

After a few days, Zhao Xingsheng truly experienced what a huge crowd of people meant!
When the first batch of general worker recruitment started, as many as four to five thousand people came to apply on site, while there were only five hundred ordinary vacancies for the first round of recruitment... Their production base is not an assembly base, but a branch base for the production of auto parts, and the expected number of workers is about three thousand.

The first batch of workers are being recruited now to receive preliminary technical training and serve as the seeds for the production line. Together with the technical backbones dispatched from other bases, the production line will be put into operation.

Then we will gradually expand the recruitment scale, expand production capacity, and finally reach the designed capacity.

The first batch of recruitment was 500 people, but there were actually four to five thousand people who came, and the scene was packed with people!

The human resources department did not dare to relax when seeing this scene, and immediately started the recruitment work. At the same time, they asked the security guards to evacuate the personnel... to avoid any accidents.

After watching Zhao Xingsheng busy all day, he suddenly felt that it would be a good idea to go back to his hometown to work.

On the next day, Saturday, when he had a day off, Zhao Xingsheng wandered around the city looking at properties... What surprised him was that the local city had a small population and not many companies. In such a large so-called industrial zone, there were only a few large-scale enterprises.

However, local housing prices are not cheap. Some good new properties cost seven or eight thousand per square meter, and some high-end properties even cost tens of thousands!
Although he was used to the high housing prices in Shenzhen, the price of 7,000 to 8,000 yuan per square meter seemed very cheap at first glance, but considering the local employment, income and even population, to be honest... he couldn't understand why housing prices in his hometown were so expensive.

Do the local real estate developers think they are a small Shenzhen and want to compete with Shenzhen in terms of housing prices?
crazy!

But no matter how much you complain, you still have to buy a house!
He looked at a lot of real estate projects over the weekend, even some second-hand houses, and then considered what kind of house would be suitable and what the price would be.

Over the years, he has saved about 150,000 yuan by living frugally, and his parents can support him with about 200,000 yuan, so he can probably take out about 350,000 yuan in cash.

As for the money for subsequent decoration, it would have to come slowly. However, he claimed that his salary was pretty good, and if he saved for about a year, the money for simple decoration would be enough.

But he also wanted to buy a car in installments. It didn’t have to be too expensive, about 100,000 yuan would be fine... In the past, buying a car in a place like Shenzhen was not very suitable. For a worker like him, parking was very troublesome, and there were all kinds of restrictions.

But if you work in your hometown, a vehicle is very necessary, so that daily travel will be more convenient, and it will also be easier to go home on weekends or other holidays. You can't take a bus every time you go home, which is very troublesome.

Therefore, Zhao Xingsheng was also calculating the funds he had available and then choosing a suitable house based on the price.

After two days, he had a basic understanding of the housing prices of some local properties, and then he set his eyes on a new property not far from his workplace.

This property is only about twenty minutes' drive from the production base of Hailan Automobile where he works. The house is located in the new urban center of the city. The surrounding environment is very good. He also likes a unit of more than 110 square meters. The high floors offer a view of the river.

The price is relatively expensive locally, at more than 8,000 yuan per square meter, but it is within his affordability, and it also comes with fine decoration, which means he can save a lot of decoration costs later.

The most important thing is that this is a sale of ready-made houses. You can get the house after signing the contract and paying the money. There is no need to worry about encountering an unfinished building.

Although he liked it, Zhao Xingsheng did not act on it immediately. Instead, he looked around the surroundings again and again, inquired about the property management of the community, and even some of the residents.

The information he got was very good and met his expectations.

A few days later, he called his parents over and went to see it together after get off work.

His parents were quite satisfied with the community and the house, but they had some complaints about the price of more than 8,000 yuan... They felt that houses in the city were too expensive. There were people in their town who were renovating houses and selling them, but the price was only over 100,000 yuan per set.

But they just say it. After all, they know that houses in the city are expensive. At the same time, they also think that since they have spent so much money on buying a house, they naturally want their son to buy a better one.

After the viewing, when the family was having dinner at a small restaurant outside, Zhao's father said, "This house is good, you can buy it. Your mother and I can still work for another ten years, and we can also help with the mortgage repayments later. The housing prices have been rising faster and faster recently. It's better to buy it sooner rather than later, so as to avoid worry!"

Zhao's mother said, "Now that you have a house, you can buy a car later, so that good girls will be interested in you!"

In response to this, Zhao Xingsheng just chuckled. After all, he was a graduate of a 211 university and worked for a giant company like HaiLan Automobile. As a mechanical engineer, his income was pretty good, with a monthly salary of yuan and a year-end bonus.

In Shenzhen, they are just ordinary people, but in my hometown, they are definitely considered high-income groups.

Although he is not handsome, he is not short or ugly either, so he is actually quite confident about finding a wife.

But, a few days later, he was hit hard.

A local colleague in the company's finance department heard that he was still single, so he arranged a match for him, saying that a friend of a friend introduced him to someone.

Judging from her conditions, she seems to be pretty good. The girl has a college degree and works as an elementary school teacher in a private school in the city. She is 27 years old, three years younger than him. She looks like a fair, wealthy and beautiful woman in the photos.

When we chatted on WeChat, things were actually going pretty well.

After meeting, I had a good feeling at first... At first glance, she looked fair, wealthy and beautiful, and she was well dressed and looked very pleasing to the eye.

And from time to time I talk with him about work, salary, what kind of house or car he plans to buy.

At first he thought the other person wanted to discuss his future life with him, so he responded very positively, saying that he had found a good house and was going to sign the contract in the next few days.

As for the car, I don’t have much money left after paying the down payment on the house, so I might as well buy a car worth a little over 100,000 yuan for transportation temporarily.

Then the other party said, the car is actually quite important. Although your salary is a bit low, you don’t have to drive a car that costs more than 100,000 yuan. Have you ever thought about buying a better car, such as a Hai Lan or something like that?

The house is okay, and the area is considered to be in the city center, but it is a bit small. Three bedrooms are not enough. Have you considered selling a bigger one?

At first, Zhao Xingsheng thought that the girl might come from a good family, and the private school she attended might even be an aristocratic private school with a high income... After all, she looked well dressed.

It's normal for a beautiful, rich and white girl to dislike her own conditions. There's nothing wrong with that... He doesn't need to feel humiliated or anything like that.

After a quick question, I found out that the other party's monthly salary is 4,500 yuan... and his parents are farmers at home.

This made Zhao Xingsheng silent. Damn, he was just pretending for so long... He thought he had met a beautiful, rich and white girl, and thought that he could accept some grievances in the future.

The result... turned out to be an ugly duckling who couldn't figure things out!
We went our separate ways after dinner, not even bothering to watch the movie we had bought tickets for.

After he got back, just when he was thinking about how to decline politely... his colleague sent him a message saying that the girl had a good impression of him, but thought that he, Zhao Xingsheng, was a little dull and immature, and asked him to be more sensible when dating next time.

Then he forwarded some of the woman's requirements: the house must be named before marriage (note, the woman can pay 15,000), and the betrothal gift is 180,000... because she has a brother who is about to get married and is waiting for this money for his wedding.

I want to travel after marriage. It’s not possible to travel domestically, I have to go abroad, Europe is the best!
Other things like the three golds were also mentioned.

While Zhao Xingsheng was speechless, the colleague who acted as the introducer also apologized after forwarding a bunch of conditions, saying that he did not know the person well and asked him not to blame him.

After silently deleting and blocking the woman, Zhao Xingsheng felt that his goal of getting married and starting a family might be more difficult than he had imagined!
(End of this chapter)