Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 390: No Disadvantages Except Expensive

For newly emerging smart electric vehicle companies like HaiLian Automobile that are full of high-tech features, technology is their core competitive advantage.

Among the many technical fields, there are only two technologies that Hailan Automobile values ​​most. One is energy technology, or battery technology.

The other is intelligent driving technology.

This second intelligent driving technology is also the starting point technology of HaiLan Automobile. Although the technology originated from the driverless car project of Zhiyun Group at the beginning, HaiLan Automobile was initially just a partner and equipped their electric vehicles with the intelligent driving technology developed by Zhiyun Group.

But later, as the cooperation between the two parties deepened and became highly integrated, Zhiyun Group and HaiLian Automobile Company reached a new cooperation agreement. Zhiyun Group invested in HaiLian Automobile with the technology and personnel in the driverless car project, plus a certain amount of funds.

This led to the formation of the new HaiLan Automobile Co., Ltd., which completely acquired the driverless car project under Zhiyun Group.

In this way, Hailan Automobile will have the most advanced intelligent driving technology in the world.

This is also HaiLan Automobile's current core competitive advantage, and it is far ahead of other automobile manufacturers.

Among other automobile manufacturers, even the best Tesla cannot even match the taillights of Hailan Automobile in the field of smart driving.

However, in other areas of electric vehicles, although HaiLan Automobile has advantages, they are not great.

Some simple electronic controls, some seemingly high-tech large screens, voice interaction and other functions can actually be produced by other manufacturers.

Tesla and many new car manufacturers are working on various auxiliary functions inside their vehicles.

In the more critical field of batteries, Hailan Automobile relies on its self-developed power battery platform, which has some advantages but they are not great.

After all, before this, the batteries everyone used were actually similar. The energy density was higher or lower, but the overall difference was not big. What everyone was competing for was not the battery itself, but the battery management technology, energy management and recycling technology.

But it is difficult to make huge breakthroughs in these areas.

At the same time, for better safety, Hailan Automobile has always insisted on using lithium iron phosphate batteries with relatively low energy density. As a result, Hailan Automobile has no advantage over its main competitor Tesla, which uses ternary lithium batteries, in terms of battery management technology and battery life.

Although the safety of ternary lithium batteries is slightly worse than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries, their energy density is higher. Under the technical conditions of the same period, the energy density gap between the two is about 30%.

A very good comparison can be made between the energy density of the batteries used by Hailan Automobile and Tesla.

The lithium iron phosphate battery used by Hailan Automobile has an energy density of only 160 watt-hours per kilogram in the first generation, while the ternary lithium battery used by Tesla at the same time has an energy density of 200 watt-hours per kilogram.

Hailan Automobile, which uses lithium iron phosphate batteries, has also adopted a very simple and crude method to offset the energy density disadvantage of lithium iron phosphate batteries and improve battery life, which is to cram in more batteries...

Therefore, the weight of the Hailan car is often heavier than other electric cars of the same era... This is also the reason why the price of the Hailan car is relatively high. Too many batteries are crammed in, and the battery cost is also higher.

In addition, Hailan Automobile is ahead of many competitors in terms of battery management, vehicle power management, energy recovery and other technologies. This means that Hailan Automobile can rely on the technology and design advantages of the overall energy part to narrow the gap in battery life.

In the end, Hailan Automobile still achieved the same overall endurance as Tesla while using lithium iron phosphate batteries.

At the same time, lithium iron phosphate batteries are safer, and Hailan Automobile's battery safety technology is also very excellent. Therefore, when other electric vehicles often explode, Hailan Automobile has never had such an explosion...

In 2016, foreign organizations tested a number of electric vehicles, and Hailan Automobile undoubtedly won the title of the safest electric vehicle.

It's not that Hailan electric vehicles won't catch fire. Electric vehicles that use lithium batteries will catch fire if they are involved in a car accident or a severe collision. The batteries will be squeezed and will still catch fire... This is the characteristic of lithium batteries. If you don't handle it properly, not to mention the electric vehicles, even your mobile phone will catch fire.

However, Hailan Automobile has never experienced a battery explosion, because although lithium iron phosphate batteries have various disadvantages, they are safe... Safety is its biggest, or even its only advantage.

At the same time, Hailan Automobile's active battery protection technology can also control small-scale fires. If the fire is too large, it can also try to control the spread of the fire, thereby giving the people in the car enough time to evacuate.

If ternary lithium batteries are used, there are many other advantages, but the battery safety is not so good. If the battery safety technology of the automobile manufacturer has not reached the top level, it will explode in minutes.

Due to the violent explosion of the battery, the time left for the people in the car to escape is relatively short.

Safety is the only reason why Hailan Automobile insists on choosing lithium iron phosphate batteries. As for the difference in energy density, Hailan Automobile solves the problem through battery management technology, energy recovery technology, vehicle power management technology, and then simply installing more batteries.

This is also the reason why, although Hailan Automobile's battery energy density is weaker than Tesla's in recent years, there has not been much gap in battery life.

Subsequently, Hailan Automobile released its second-generation battery technology in 15, which is still a lithium iron phosphate battery with an energy density of watt-hours per kilogram. This energy density has almost reached the current technological limit and far exceeds the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries of other power battery manufacturers.

During this period, BYD's lithium iron phosphate battery had an energy density of only about 120 to 130 watt-hours per kilogram, while the energy density of other manufacturers' lithium iron phosphate batteries was even worse.

However, the development of ternary lithium batteries is also very rapid. Tesla also adopted more advanced ternary lithium batteries in 15, directly increasing the energy density to watt-hours per kilogram.

It can be said that in terms of battery energy density, Hailan Automobile has always been inferior to Tesla due to the limitations of lithium iron phosphate batteries.

At the same time, due to the limitations of lithium iron phosphate batteries, although Hailan Automobile has strong R&D technology and has even achieved an energy density of 200 watt-hours per kilogram, it is too difficult to continue to increase the energy density.

Based on this situation, Hailan Automobile started to develop other new batteries a long time ago, and semi-solid-state batteries and solid-state batteries are the research and development focus of Hailan Automobile.

Needless to say, solid-state batteries are a black technology that can easily achieve several times the energy density, but the technical difficulty is also very high...mainly because mass production is difficult and the cost is too high.

To this end, Hailan Automobile has chosen semi-solid-state batteries as a transitional solution in the short term.

Strictly speaking, semi-solid-state batteries still belong to the category of liquid batteries, but they also have some characteristics of solid-state batteries.

Its characteristic is that the energy density can be more than twice that of existing liquid batteries. In theory, it can even achieve an energy density of 700 watt-hours per kilogram... Of course, this is only in theory and cannot be achieved in reality for the time being.

Then there is safety. Semi-solid batteries are safer than liquid batteries, with lower risk of fire and explosion.

Then in terms of service life, the battery has a longer cycle life.

In addition, semi-solid-state batteries have a volume advantage... Not only are they lighter, they are also smaller, which means that less space is required inside the car to deploy batteries with the same power.

It can be said that the current semi-solid-state batteries have no disadvantages except that they are expensive.

This is the third-generation battery that Hailan Automobile is about to release to the market and will be installed on many new models this year.

Bao Yongyan expressed great confidence in his own battery: "Our semi-solid-state battery this year will give us the overall advantages in energy density and battery life for the first time in the market competition, and will also further enhance the advantages in battery safety, service life and other fields!"

"More importantly, the use of new semi-solid batteries will enable our electric vehicles to have a competitive advantage in the northern market for the first time!"

"The lithium iron phosphate batteries we used in the past had a significantly reduced overall range when used in the northern region in winter, making it difficult to meet the winter travel needs of people in the northern region. This is also the reason why the sales of our various models in the northern region are generally low, and the main markets are concentrated in the central and southern regions!"

"This feature also appears in foreign markets. Our models sell well in ASEAN, Southern Europe, South America, and the southern United States, where the temperature is relatively hot or mild, but sales in Northern Europe, Canada, northern United States, Russia and other regions are much worse!"

"However, our semi-solid batteries now have a greatly expanded operating temperature range, and can work stably between -20 and 60 degrees Celsius. In addition, the energy density of our semi-solid batteries is as high as 350 watt-hours per kilogram. After being installed on a vehicle, it can easily reach a range of 600 kilometers, or even 650 kilometers in the summer. On this basis, in the northern winter, the range can still reach more than 400 kilometers with a 30% discount."

"This data even exceeds the winter endurance of Tesla's ternary lithium battery!"
"Based on this, we plan to carry out extensive publicity and marketing in the northern region of the world this year, and strive to gain market share in this part of the region!"

At this time, Xu Shenxue also had an introduction to Hailan Automobile's semi-solid-state battery in his hand. Among the many technical parameters introduced above, Xu Shenxue did not pay much attention to the others, but only paid attention to the operating temperature range and energy density.

Another is cost.

He pointed to the introduction material and said, "The cost of this new type of battery is 15% higher than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries. How do you solve the cost increase?"

Bao Yongyan said: "The price of new batteries will definitely be higher when they are first put into mass production, after all, they include R&D costs and production line costs. However, as production capacity increases, the average R&D costs and production line costs will continue to decline. According to our annual car sales of more than one million vehicles, we will be able to control the average cost to the same level as existing batteries in about half a year, that is, by the end of the year!"

"After next year, as production further increases, the average unit price will continue to drop. By this time next year, the cost of our semi-solid-state batteries will even be about 10% lower than the existing liquid battery cost!"

"If this cycle is taken into account, the overall cost of our semi-solid-state battery will not be higher than that of existing liquid batteries!"

"At the same time, our various models continue to be produced, and in order to control costs, new models also largely use spare parts from mature models. The costs of other spare parts, such as motors, lighting units, bodies, tires, chassis and other parts are also continuing to decline. Our vehicle costs, except for battery costs, are also continuing to decline. We expect that by next year, manufacturing costs will be able to drop by about 20%!"

"So after adopting semi-solid batteries, although the battery cost will increase in the short term, if we look at it over a one-year period, our vehicle cost is still decreasing, and this figure is about 15%."

"This is also the main reason why we will launch price-reduced models this year and increase the quantity of existing models without raising prices!"

"After all, our cost control has always been top-notch in the industry, not only because our technology is more advanced, but also because we have a huge production advantage!" "With one million cars sold per year, this is our biggest confidence in controlling costs!"

Xu Shenxue said: "If that's the case, then I'm relieved!"

The cost of industrial products is often directly linked to output.

The lower the output, the higher the average cost. Conversely, the higher the output, the lower the average cost.

This is even more evident in the smart terminal industry... Why is it that in recent years, the giants in the smart terminal industry have become increasingly powerful, while second- and third-rate mobile phone manufacturers have become increasingly miserable?

This is an important manifestation of scale advantages.

Let me put it this way, the cost of an S16 mobile phone priced at yuan from Zhiyun Group is actually lower than that of some yuan products from other domestic manufacturers.

Moreover, the hardware level of the S16 mobile phone is far higher than that of these yuan mobile phones!

This is an important advantage brought by huge production volume. The various R&D costs of the S series mobile phones are spread over more than 200 million mobile phones each year, which is actually very low... In addition to the huge production volume, the procurement volume of various components is also very large, and large volume often means lower prices.

For the same third-party spare parts product, Zhiyun directly places an order for 100 million sets, and the supplier quotes 10 yuan... while other manufacturers place an order for 10 million sets, and the supplier often quotes 12 or 13 yuan. If the quantity is only 1 million sets, the price may be 15 yuan or more.

Because for suppliers, there are also cost and profit considerations... Even if the other party's order volume is too small, the supplier needs to consider various factors such as risk and payment period.

For example, if a second-rate mobile phone manufacturer purchases only one million sets of the same product and has limited funds, it will require a longer payment period. The supplier will worry that your mobile phones will not be sold and the manufacturer will default on the payment. Even if the manufacturer does not default on the payment, an excessively long payment period will increase the financial pressure on the supplier.

In this case, suppliers often choose to raise prices to hedge potential losses and risks.

This is also an important reason why many second- and third-rate mobile phone manufacturers are having a harder time and have begun to gradually disappear from the market.

We can’t compete in technology, cost, or price-performance ratio…we lag behind in all aspects.

Consumers are not stupid. They can be fooled for a while, but they won’t let you fool them forever.

Therefore, a giant effect has emerged in the mobile phone industry... The few leading manufacturers in the market continue to expand, with production and sales volumes increasing year by year, but second- and third-tier mobile phone manufacturers are gradually disappearing.

Cars are also products with huge economies of scale!

The R&D cost of a smart electric vehicle is fixed, while the cost of spare parts and assembly costs are also lower as the output increases.

This gives the leading automobile manufacturers a natural greater cost advantage.

HaiLian Automobile is currently the largest smart electric vehicle manufacturer, with annual sales of one million vehicles... This allows their average cost to be very low.

This is also an important reason why HaiLan Automobile can continue to push down vehicle prices and expand the market size... If costs can't be reduced, there's no point in lowering prices!
----

After Xu Shenxue inspected HaiLian Automobile, he held another meeting at Zhiyun Group’s headquarters a few days later, still discussing the robotics business.

At this robot business discussion meeting, a new measure was also finalized, that is, the power battery part of the new robots released this year will use semi-solid-state batteries.

Xu Shenxue personally took the lead in reaching a new cooperation in the battery field between Zhiyun Group and Hailan Automobile!
Before this, the power batteries installed on Zhiyun Group's robots also used the iron phosphate batteries from Hailan Automobile. Now that Hailan Automobile's semi-solid batteries have been produced, Zhiyun Group, as a sister company, will naturally choose to go further.

Then use semi-solid-state batteries with higher energy density, better safety and longer life.

The next generation of artificial intelligence robots using new batteries will be released in July.

In July, Zhiyun Group will hold a special robot launch conference, mainly to launch low-priced entry-level robots, explore the price range of about 150,000 yuan and expand the market capacity. Of course, this model will continue to use the old iron phosphate battery.

However, the company is also preparing to launch an upgraded version of the existing high-end models with semi-solid-state batteries to improve battery life.

The real large-scale installation of semi-solid-state batteries will mainly be in the second-generation robots in January next year. By then, all Zhiyun robots will use semi-solid-state lithium batteries.

Xu Shenxue attaches great importance to the robotics business, which is one of the main businesses supporting the new generation of rapid growth of Zhiyun Group...and the market strategy for the robotics business has already been determined, which is to continue to reduce prices and lower the entry-level price to 150,000 or even below 100,000.

Use these low-priced entry-level models to significantly expand the market capacity, increase the sales of the entire robot product, and then significantly reduce costs, and then use low costs to reduce selling prices, further expanding the market capacity... thus forming a virtuous circle, and ultimately increasing the annual sales of robots from the current hundreds of thousands of units to millions or even more.

Xu Shenxue and the executives of Zhiyun Group are very ambitious... They want a market of hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars, not just tens of billions of dollars.

After the robot business meeting, Xu Shenxue paid attention to the preparation of the latest model of the S series mobile phone, the S17, the next day.

Now the research and development of the S17 mobile phone has reached its end. The prototype has been made and is undergoing various tests. At the same time, Weiku Industrial has also planned the production line based on the design parameters of the S17 mobile phone.

If nothing unexpected happens, by June, the S17 series of mobile phones will enter mass production and stocking mode, start to increase production capacity, and finally prepare for the launch conference and listing in August.

This year's S17 mobile phone has actually changed quite a lot!

Zhiyun Group abandoned the notch screen mode that has been used for two years and instead adopted the auxiliary screen mode of Smart Island... In fact, strictly speaking, this is not the first screen mode in the industry.

When LG released the V15 phone in 10, it tried to use the main-auxiliary screen mode. A part of the top left side of the screen was hollowed out to place the camera and sensor, and the other part was used to display the battery level, answer calls, etc. Of course, this is still a very primitive auxiliary screen mode.

At the same time, Weiku Electronics adopted the water drop screen mode in many mobile phones released last year, that is, a piece was dug out in the middle of the top of the screen to place the camera... It is regarded as an extremely reduced version of the notch screen.

Later, other mobile phone manufacturers followed suit this year.

Zhiyun Group adopted a hole-punch screen in the A16 mobile phone released at the beginning of this year. This is a step further than the waterdrop screen. A small hole is directly dug on the screen to place the camera. It is also a step further than the waterdrop hole-punch screen of Weiku Electronics.

After successfully trying to use a hole-punch screen in the A16 phone, Zhiyun Group began to use the hole-punch screen technology on the S17 phone. One hole was not enough, so two holes were made, one of which was relatively long.

The reason for using dual holes is mainly because the Zhiyun S17 phone has too many front-end sensors, including 3D face recognition sensors, front cameras and a bunch of other sensors, and a small hole cannot hold them all... The reason why the notch screen was used before was because the area occupied by the sensors was too large, there was no other way.

As technology continues to advance, the area of ​​sensors continues to shrink, especially as the size of 3D face recognition sensors continues to shrink. The technical staff of Zhiyun Group discovered that if they made two holes, one long and one short, they could also be stuffed in.

Then, the only problem is... the double cutouts look too ugly when viewed directly, and are not as beautiful as the previous notch screen.

If you have bangs, the whole hair will be black, so although it looks a bit weird, it’s actually okay once you get used to it.

Anyway, many Zhiyun mobile phone users have already gotten used to the notch screen!
Many mobile phone manufacturers are even trying to imitate this kind of notch screen to gain popularity.

But if it is replaced with the current two holes, without additional design and beautification, this one large and one small hole will look very unsightly.

To solve this problem, engineers from Zhiyun Group's S series mobile phone project team initially tried to use a single large hole, but found that the strength was not good enough. During the drop test, the screen was easily broken.

Later, they had no choice but to continue using the large and small hollow-out mode, and then referred to the auxiliary screen mode of LG's V10 mobile phone two years ago... Of course, the engineers of Zhiyun Group could not really make a separate auxiliary screen, that would be too LOW.

So, they simply used software to implement this idea.

A smart island mode is designed...to display specific content, and it can be expanded by pressing and holding!
In fact, to put it bluntly, it is just to display some content here to cover up two very embarrassing holes.

When this method was finally developed, it became the Lingdong Island mode in later mobile phones that Xu Shenxue was very familiar with.

This mode is much better in appearance than a simple notch screen. Xu Shenxue personally thinks it looks good. After it goes on sale in the future, it should gain considerable market response and continue to maintain the high-end status of the Zhiyun S series of mobile phones.

But in the long run, this alone is not enough... Small innovations are good, but they are not enough.

Xu Shenxue must ensure that Zhiyun Group's mobile phones obtain more future black technology innovations, continue to consolidate the leading position of its own mobile phones, and make sure that when everyone talks about Zhiyun mobile phones, they are the most advanced and top-notch ones.

Other mobile phone manufacturers must be left with no chance of catching up!

In the past two years, a large number of mobile phone manufacturers have been shouting about catching up with Zhiyun phones, especially four-star and fruit phones, which is very annoying to hear... Even many domestic mobile phone manufacturers have also targeted Zhiyun phones and shouted slogans of catching up!

Therefore, his next step is to set his sights on foldable screen mobile phones... He is ready to come up with another wave of black technology to shock the world!
Let our competitors catch up with us!

(End of this chapter)