Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 506 Robot Driving

During the May Day holiday, among the many domestic news, apart from the holiday news, the most popular one was the news that Zhiyun Group started its domestic listing.

Journalists from various financial media and a considerable number of financial bloggers have made various analyses and discussions.

The conclusion is often positive, that is, Zhiyun Group's domestic listing plan will provide domestic investors with a very stable investment channel.

Many practitioners in the securities field are also participating in the active promotion...because Zhiyun Group's plan to go public in China will attract a large amount of funds into the stock market, and this amount is not a few tens of billions, but more than one trillion.

This is several times higher than the annual incremental funds in the domestic stock market in normal years.

With the increase in the total amount of funds, trading in the stock market will be more active, so people working in the securities field will be able to earn more.

Therefore, major securities institutions are actually looking forward to Zhiyun Group’s listing!

This is an action to make the pie bigger overall, so it is natural that it is welcomed by a large number of people.

In addition, many ordinary people who have some money but have no interest in the stock market or do not trust it and are wary of it are also planning to use part of their savings to buy Zhiyun Group's shares after Zhiyun Group goes public in China as a long-term investment.

After all, the return rate of Zhiyun Group’s stocks has been very high over the past years.

In particular, those people or investment institutions that purchased Zhiyun Group's stocks in the early years have achieved considerable returns on capital.

While the outside world was excited about Zhiyun Group's domestic listing plan, Xu Shenxue focused his attention on the launch of several new products in May.

Including Zhiyun Group's flagship robot Yun Robot X4, a number of upgraded models that Hailan Automobile plans to release this year, and the SR3 model in the new generation Hailan SEC series to be launched on the market.

The Hailan SEC is the sports car series of Hailan Automobile, which is classified into entry-level two-door four-seater coupe, two-door convertible sports car in the high-end series, and high-end two-door hardtop sports car. Among them, the entry-level two-door coupe is the volume-selling model, while the sales of the latter two models are very low.

Finally, there is the high-end flagship, a super sports car with a certain concept car nature and a more sci-fi style, the SR model. This car is much more expensive, with a starting price of more than 150 yuan, and a full configuration of more than 2 million yuan...

Since the launch of the SR model, it has quickly become the new favorite of the second generation of rich people in China... because this car looks good, has a sci-fi feel, and has all kinds of high-tech configurations. The most important thing is that this car is very expensive and well-known, and the Hailan brand is also high-end enough!

A flagship robot and a flagship sports car, because both use core black technology solid-state batteries, Zhiyun Group discussed with Hailan Automobile and decided to carry out a joint marketing this year and simply hold a joint press conference.

Now that the joint launch conference is approaching, engineers from Zhiyun Group’s robot R&D department are conducting final tests on the flagship robot.

Although the robot had been successfully developed before, because it used a new solid-state battery, the new battery also needed to be adapted to a certain extent. It was impossible to just replace the battery without caring about anything. This involved a series of battery-related technologies such as battery charging and discharging management.

On the other hand, the SR3 sports car developed by Hailan Automobile is relatively simple. They have their own sports car and their own batteries. They have already taken adaptation issues into consideration during the research and development process, and have even done a lot of testing, because it is quite simple to do.

At the Zhiyun Group headquarters, in the robot testing site under the Intelligent Machinery Division, Xu Shenxue saw the Yun Robot X4 equipped with a new solid-state battery.

This is a bipedal humanoid robot about 1.7 meters tall, with its surface covered with silicone skin and even a wig on its head. This is a robot in the form of a female, and from a distance, it is impossible to tell whether it is a real person or a fake one.

However, at this time, the female robot was performing various complex and high-intensity movements during the test!
I saw it jump with both legs, and it jumped more than one meter high on the spot. After landing steadily, it continued to run forward. With one jump, it jumped several meters away. Then it climbed, turned sharply, and performed various actions that are common to humans but very difficult for robots.

On the other side, there is also a flagship robot with a male appearance undergoing various tests, but these are not violent action tests, but various conventional walking and hand movement tests.

At the other end of the test field, several other robots are also being tested!
At this time, a person in charge of the robot R&D team introduced to Xu Shenxue: "After using solid-state batteries, the endurance of our robots has been greatly improved!"

"This year's X4 robot has the same bipedal body and uses the same test standards. In the previous semi-solid battery version of the X4 robot, in the slow task test, its endurance was only six hours, in the regular motion mode it only had an endurance of two and a half hours, and in the extreme power output mode it only had an endurance of twenty minutes!"

Once this extreme power output mode is turned on, the robot will instantly transform into a super robot with super fast speed. It can make sharp turns at high speed, and its ability to bounce, thrust, and lift heavy objects will be greatly improved...and the battery will be consumed quickly!
However, the robot will only activate the extreme power output mode at extremely special and critical moments and with prior authorization, such as saving people.

After all, after starting the extreme power output mode, not only is the battery life very short, mainly because the power output is too large and the impact force is also great, it will also cause a significant reduction in the service life of many components such as motors and joint connection components.

Zhiyun Group strongly recommends that users send the robot to Zhiyun's official after-sales department for free inspection after the robot automatically starts the extreme power output mode, and replace the vulnerable parts at a relatively preferential price, otherwise problems may occur later...

Of course, users can also manually turn on the extreme power output mode. Some people like to play with this extreme power output mode.

There are a lot of videos online of various robots playing in extreme power output mode, but if users manually turn on the extreme power output mode, they must sign an electronic contract to waive the warranty for damaged parts.

After all, no matter how powerful Zhiyun's robots are, they cannot withstand users' frequent use of this extreme power output mode, so Zhiyun Group cannot provide warranty for the consumable parts of these robots that have manually enabled extreme power permissions.

Instead, with advance general authorization, the robot will automatically start the extreme power output mode in an emergency. Zhiyun Group will provide free inspections and replace vulnerable parts at a half-price discount... Just think of it as advertising.

After all, the robot automatically turns on the extreme power mode basically for the purpose of saving lives... A few years ago, a Zhiyun robot automatically started the extreme power output mode in an emergency situation, rushed out in just two or three seconds, and successfully rescued a child from under a speeding car.

This video caused a global sensation!

Compared with the huge profits brought by this advertising effect, free testing and half-price replacement of wearing parts are just a small amount of money!
Dealing with emergencies and advertising at the same time is the reason why Zhiyun Group still maintains this mode even though the extreme power output mode has many defects and will cause the life of the robot's vulnerable parts to be greatly reduced.

And this model is upgraded in various ways every year.

At this time, the head of the robot R&D team continued: "The overall power consumption of our robot is still relatively large. Even though the semi-solid-state battery we are using is already the world's leading, and its energy density even exceeds that of a car's power battery, the power output of the two legs consumes a lot of power. At the same time, we have integrated a large number of chips, and the power consumption of these chips is also very high. The computing power demand in the motion mode has increased significantly, which has also led to a significant increase in overall power consumption!"

"This is also the reason why even after we adopted semi-solid-state batteries, the battery life in sports mode is still only one and a half hours!"

"This forces us to add a lot of restrictions to the daily use of the robot, and to maintain the comprehensive endurance of daily use as much as possible!"

In daily use of Zhiyun robots, in order to save electricity, they are basically kept still if possible... As long as they are not moving, the motor will not consume too much electricity, and the computing chips that consume a lot of power, mainly the EYQ terminal computing chip and the ZY data processing chip, will not consume too much computing power, so the power usage will naturally be reduced.

"However, after we switched to all-solid-state batteries, we were able to increase the X4 robot's normal mode life to ten hours, and its sports mode life to four and a half hours. Even in extreme power mode, it can last for thirty-five minutes."

"In addition, we have relaxed some of the permissions of the robot's movement mechanism in normal mode and sports mode, allowing the robot to perform more powerfully in these two modes!"

"For example, in normal mode, in order to save energy, our robot's sensors only use about 80% of their performance. For example, the long-distance high-precision scanning mode of the main lidar is turned off in this mode, and data processing only processes about 20% of the data according to priority."

“But now, we have improved the sensor’s performance to 90 percent and turned on the main lidar’s long-range, high-precision scanning mode.”

“This helps the overall performance of the robot in regular mode!”

“However, the application of solid-state batteries has also increased the cost of our robots a lot!”

"According to previous plans, the standard model of our X4 robot with semi-solid state is priced at RMB . However, after adopting solid-state batteries, due to the rising battery costs and in order to reflect the technological advancement and differentiation of solid-state batteries, we plan to increase the price of the high-end model equipped with solid-state batteries to RMB million."

Among the many costs of Zhiyun robots, software costs are actually the largest, and hardware costs are relatively low...except for the core artificial intelligence underlying algorithm development and training costs.

The development costs of various advanced functions are also very high. In the training data factory under Zhiyun's robotics team, there are tens of thousands of people collecting various data all year round. After collecting these data, Zhiyun Group will subsequently use AI computing power arrays to train various advanced functions.

Therefore, the cost of training Zhiyun Robot's various advanced modes of artificial intelligence is actually very high.

But if we only talk about hardware costs, among the many hardware costs, chips, sensors, moving parts and batteries are the main costs.

The battery cost accounts for about 10% of the hardware cost... After all, the Zhiyun robot consumes a lot of power and requires a relatively large battery, and it is a semi-solid battery, so the battery cost is relatively high.

If solid-state batteries are used now, this cost ratio will continue to rise to 20% or even more.

The increase in costs, coupled with the need to cash in on high-end attributes, will naturally lead to an increase in selling prices!

Xu Shenxue said: "One million and two hundred thousand is not expensive. The SR3 sports car of the Hailan Automobile next door is going to be sold at a starting price of one million and a half million!" The current cost of solid-state batteries is twice that of semi-solid-state batteries, and semi-solid-state batteries are more expensive than conventional ternary lithium batteries, and ternary lithium batteries are more expensive than lithium iron phosphate batteries.

This battery is quite expensive.

After seeing this robot X4 robot, Xu Shenxue gained a lot of confidence in it.

Then he went to see the SR3 sports car of Hailan Automobile. Xu Shenxue personally had no great interest in sports cars, especially super sports cars.

However, I am still amazed by this SR3 super smart electric sports car, mainly because it looks great and continues the sci-fi feel that Hailan Automobile has always had.

This car looks like a sports car from the future, it's not real...

Of course, the selling point of Hailan Automobile, in addition to its good looks and sci-fi feel, is its high level of intelligence, especially its L4 level autonomous driving technology.

Autonomous driving technology is what has enabled Hailan Automobile to establish a high-end brand and sell its cars at prices of hundreds of thousands, and the reason why they are so popular.

HaiLian Automobile has never been just a car manufacturer, but has always claimed to be a high-tech enterprise.

In recent years, the marketing department of Hailan Automobile has positioned itself as a high-tech smart travel terminal manufacturer!

He said that what he makes is not just cars, but smart travel terminals.

This left many people speechless... It's just an electric car, why brag about it!

In response to this, many Hailan car owners will subconsciously refute: Ours is not an electric car, but a smart electric car... Smart electric cars, do you understand? They are not the same as those new energy vehicles and electric cars that are everywhere on the streets, and cannot be confused!
If you say a few more words, you will start to mock other electric car brands: If you have the ability, you can also develop an autonomous driving system. You don’t even need to develop an L4 level, just develop an L3 level one.

Unfortunately, so far, except for Hailan Automobile, no other automobile manufacturer in the world can produce L3 level autonomous driving technology, and they are still stuck at the L2 level.

While watching the car performing various lap tests in the test field, including the unmanned driving test, Xu Shenxue suddenly remembered that last month he heard that the research and development team of Zhiyun Robotics had developed an advanced driving mode that allows robots to drive.

When we have a joint press conference, can we also let the X4 robot drive this SR3 sports car to the stage? (Thanks to the suggestion of the guy with the nickname 1916)
This scene is more shocking than having robots and cars go on stage separately!
Thinking of this, Xu Shenxue immediately contacted the robot R&D department and first asked whether the robot's car driving mode was mature. After getting a positive answer, Xu Shenxue directly asked them to send an X4 robot over for actual testing.

It didn't take long before a small box truck carrying an X4 robot for testing arrived at the Hailan Automobile testing site.

Soon, Xu Shenxue saw a very interesting scene.

The X4 robot, which is meters tall and weighs more than kilograms, opened the car door by itself, got in the car and sat in the driver's seat!

Then he drove the car away!

"Our SR3 is not in autonomous driving mode now, but in manual driving mode. All operations are completed by the X4 robot."

The head of the robot R&D team said: "In addition, our robots have a data connection mode for highly intelligent electric vehicles like Hailan Automobile. After Hailan Automobile users open data authorization, they can transmit various data to the robots through wireless transmission mode to help the robots gain better situational awareness!"

"In addition, we can also use the internal power interface of the Hailan car to provide a certain amount of power for the robot."

"After all, the batteries on electric cars are much larger than those on robots!"

Xu Shenxue felt very strange when he saw the robot driving the electric car...it felt a bit unreal.

Afterwards, the X4 robot that was sent to the test site also drove some other models, including several other models of Hailan Automobile, as well as some electric and even fuel vehicles of other brands.

"Our advanced driving function can basically drive most common models on the market, whether electric or fuel-powered, and even some large trucks in addition to ordinary sedans, SUVs and other models."

"However, our advanced driving function is currently facing some legal issues and may not be available in most countries!"

Robot driving involves traffic law issues.

That is, if a robot drives a car and causes a car accident, who is responsible? In addition, the safety of robot driving is also a big question mark for many people.

If you say that robots can help children with their homework, take care of the elderly or children, or do housework, everyone will accept it and even look forward to it.

But if robots drive on the road... there will be many problems.

Even more sensitive than the car's own autonomous driving.

Autonomous driving of cars has not yet obtained formal legal approval. The autonomous driving of Hailan Automobile has always been labeled as "advanced intelligent assisted driving", which is an assisted driving function that requires a human driver to sit in the driver's seat and take over the vehicle at any time... If an accident occurs, the responsibility will be placed on the driver.

Of course, in reality, some owners of Hailan cars equipped with L4-level autonomous driving will ignore this and let the car go by itself while they sleep all the way...

If it is an L3 level configuration, because it cannot achieve full autonomous driving, Hailan Automobile will detect the driver's status by means of regular inspections of the steering wheel, etc., and will not allow the driver to sleep for a long time.

The self-driving technology of cars is still in the legal vacuum stage...If a robot is used to drive a car, it will be even more difficult.

However, Zhiyun Group’s robot R&D team is only responsible for developing this technology. How users will use this technology in the future and how the laws of various countries will regulate it are their problems.

This advanced driving mode is just one of the many advanced modes of Zhiyun robot.

Zhiyun’s robots now have dozens of advanced modes. Users can pay to activate the one they like.

In Xu Shenxue's opinion, regardless of the actual usefulness of this advanced driving mode, the scene is shocking enough.

And that's enough.

This joint press conference in May was essentially a show-off for publicity purposes... No one expected how many X4s with a solid-state battery version that starts at and costs million could be sold!

For most consumers, the X4 that costs more than one million is certainly good, but the C series robot that costs more than one hundred thousand is better and has all the necessary functions.

For some users who care more about the actual functions, such as home users who need to use the robot for a long time, they may even prefer to buy the wheeled platform version, such as the entry-level C7 wheeled robot. The price of RMB 6 plus the more sufficient battery life brought by the wheeled mobile platform have led to very large sales of this robot, which is even greater than the entry-level bipedal version, the C robot.

Among the mid-to-high-end models in the B series, wheeled models also have higher sales than bipedal models.

The high-end flagship models of the X series, on the other hand, are mainly based on a bipedal platform… because Zhiyun Group has not developed a wheeled platform for the X series at all.

The X series is used to promote the brand and advertise... Of course, the battery life will be better if it has a wheeled platform, but it will not look good.

Furthermore, the X series is a high-end model, with a larger and heavier body, and uses a better battery with a larger battery capacity, so the battery life of the two-foot is also good, and it can last about three to four hours in normal use.

In order to improve the overall battery life, Zhiyun's robot also has a charging standby mode... After all, few people will use the robot continuously for several hours. Generally, it is used intermittently. If the user does not give any instructions, the robot will return to the charging position for charging standby.

From the fact that the wheeled platform has a higher sales volume and the flagship version of the bipedal robot has to use the charging standby mode, it can be seen that a major flaw of Zhiyun's robots is insufficient battery life.

Now, the emergence of solid-state batteries has changed this situation!
The X4 robot uses a solid-state battery, which doubles its battery life. In normal mode, the battery life can reach ten hours, which is more than enough to meet the user's daily use!
By next year, as large-scale factories for solid-state batteries are built and mass production begins, Zhiyun Group's robots will also begin to use solid-state batteries on a large scale in various models to completely solve the problem of insufficient robot endurance and dispel potential consumers' purchasing concerns.

In this way, the sales volume of robots may increase substantially in the future, breaking through the annual sales volume of two million and heading towards the annual sales volume of three million or even four million in the future!

Xu Shenxue is looking forward to this!
(End of this chapter)