What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 582 Technological Progress

Silicon Carbon Group only sold cars for four and a half months, but it received high praise within Huawei.

For Xu Zhijun, he and some of his colleagues understand this to mean that Carbon Silicon Kyushu is likely to obtain the right to define high-end new energy products, which is consistent with Huawei's approach to making mobile phone products.

Huawei released the Mate 7 last year, and its sales exceeded 2 million units in just 3 months. The price of 3299 yuan broke the ceiling for domestic mobile phones. As of July, it has achieved a cumulative global shipment of over 6.5 million units, making it its first high-end phone to sell more than 5 million units.

伴随着这样的突破，它今年4月发布的P8又在两个月的时间拿到100万台的销量，现在的7月月初全球累计销量超过300万台。

It can be said that Huawei's breakthrough in the high-end smartphone field enabled it to successfully transform from a contract phone manufacturer into a high-end brand operator, achieving a systemic strategic success.

Therefore, despite the policy support factors, the fact that Carbon Silicon Kyushu has achieved its current sales volume of around 30 units indicates that its future is limitless.

Just as Wall Street views Tesla as the Apple of the automotive industry, believing it has the potential to achieve disruptive results, Huawei internally assesses its silicon carbon group as having the potential to become a leader in China's new energy vehicle industry.

Therefore, based on its own strategic plan in the automotive industry, Xu Zhijun reached a consensus within the company that if silicon carbide can truly open up its system ecosystem, the two parties can cooperate more in this field.

The prospects for the new energy sector are indeed promising, but Huawei places greater emphasis on smartphones and has already made breakthroughs in this area. Therefore, Huawei positions itself as a Tier 1 supplier in this regard.

Of course, there are differences between the T1 models. Huawei hopes to create a more significant T1 model, and the development of new energy will be an unprecedented strategic opportunity.

Yu Xing also had some knowledge of smartphones and Huawei, and exchanged many opinions with Xu Zhijun.

Regarding the plans of the silicon carbon group, or the goals of the new energy vehicle company, they can be simply summarized into three points. In addition to the right to define high-end products mentioned by Xu Zhijun, he added two other points.

First, the dominant position in the system ecosystem; second, the cost control capabilities brought about by vertical integration and economies of scale.

The silicon carbon group has gained an initial advantage in the development of new energy in China. How to maintain and even expand this advantage in the future depends on these factors.

Yu Xing is trying to push the silicon carbon group in these directions. As for what it will actually achieve, we'll have to wait and see. But in any case, with the steady growth of Kyushu's sales, the company will receive a lot of support once it goes public.

As is customary, inspection teams visiting Lingang will tour the silicon carbon plant, and Huawei is no exception.

However, compared to the previous participants, Huawei also showed curiosity about the collaborative research and development of LiDAR between Silicon Carbon and Linggang.

Xu Zhijun was more tactful, while Cai Jianyong was quite blunt.

He asked President Yu, "President Yu, when we were communicating with Linggang Company, we heard that they are also developing lidar products for the passenger car market, and it is said that they have even tested them on Jiuzhou vehicles. How are the results?"

The lidar that Huawei purchased from Linggang is for research on autonomous driving, which is also the mainstream direction of the Robotaxi market globally, and the implementation project is driverless taxis.

The passenger car market is different. On the one hand, the products are different. The mainstream mechanical rotating radar in the Robotaxi market is not an automotive-grade design. It has many moving parts, low integration, large size and high cost, while the needs of passenger cars are exactly the opposite.

"What Jiuzhou got on the train wasn't actually a collaborative R&D product, but the mechanical radar you received," Yu Xing explained with a smile. "They were just testing some of the auxiliary functions of the lidar. In terms of effectiveness, it does provide a significant improvement in specific situations, but there's still a long way to go before we can make a suitable product."

“What we are hoping for now is that Linggang’s lidar can improve the effectiveness of automatic emergency braking (AEB), such as earlier detection of pedestrians appearing unexpectedly and faster braking.” “Even with Linggang’s current mechanical radar, we can see the potential for this improvement. It is a tool that can help OEMs improve this capability relatively easily, but it is still a long way from being able to be installed in passenger cars.”

Yu Xing gave an objective evaluation.

For example, the global AEB City test, which focuses on low-speed pedestrian collisions and stop-and-go collision risks, currently has the best performance record for sedans, with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class able to come to a complete stop at 50 km/h, and for SUVs, the Volvo XC90 able to come to a complete stop at 50 km/h without collision.

As of July 2015, this was the best performance of mature technology globally.

However, according to internal tests conducted by Silicon Carbon Group and Linggang Company, the current mechanical rotating radar alone can easily improve this result to 65km/h.

That's an improvement of up to 30%!

Most importantly, this level of progress was achieved without significant investment from either company. Of course, this specific test under such limited conditions is purely to verify potential, and a huge effort is still needed to truly bring it to market.

How to promote the maturity of LiDAR products and how to use this tool effectively will be a task that Lingang needs to continuously research and verify.

Xu Zhijun and Cai Jianyong were quite surprised by President Yu's description, while the Huawei engineers who had come to Hong Kong with the leaders finally perked up and, with a spirit of seeing is believing, demanded to see for themselves.

Yu Xing didn't hesitate at all and directly asked Ling Gang to schedule the time for the following afternoon.

Soon, at 3 p.m. the next day, the Huawei delegation witnessed the AEB City test of the Kyushu engineering vehicle equipped with Linggang radar, and the result was indeed the speed of 65 km/h mentioned by General Manager Yu.

Despite the closed roads and the fact that it was daytime, the best testing conditions, the potential shown was truly astonishing.

"President Yu, this is truly a technological advancement!" Xu Zhijun couldn't help but exclaim, "Your ambitions for silicon carbide are indeed quite grand!"

Seeing the astonishment of Huawei's rotating CEO, Yu Xing asked, "Mr. Xu, LiDAR has potential. We wanted to ask Baidu to invest in it before, but Baidu was unwilling because there was no such test at that time. Now that you've seen it, is Huawei interested in investing in another round?"

Xu Zhijun pondered for a moment and said, "President Yu, I am not in charge of this aspect, but we can have an internal strategy come up first. Linggang has potential, and carbon silicon also has a greater prospect."

He had a preference for the incubation model that closely involves Linggang and silicon carbon, believing it could play a significant role in the early stages. He also believed that once a passenger vehicle surprised the market by adopting LiDAR, the sales of related products would increase rapidly.

Yu Xing smiled at Li Yifan, the CEO of Linggang, who was accompanying him on the test, and felt that there was a good chance of securing this investment.

When Cai Jianyong from Huawei saw this scene and looked at the constantly rotating mechanical radar on the Kyushu engineering vehicle, he said sincerely, "President Yu, the carbon silicon group has laid out more technological research and development than I imagined, which will inevitably bring additional pressure."

Yu Xing laughed and said, "Fortunately, Linggang Company operates independently. Pressure is money, so it can be relieved. We are relieving pressure right now. President Cai, Baidu may not know its value, but you do."

If all else fails, and the project is too stressful, then submit a report to Guoshanfeng; that should at least provide some relief.

　I got home late, I'll post another chapter tomorrow at noon.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)