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Chapter 223: The Obvious Strategy of the Cube Battery Swap Alliance!

A Royal Flush!

A complete and utter royal flush!

After listening to Chen Jue's entire planned layout for the 'Cube Battery Swap Alliance,' everyone at the dinner table was shocked!

A cumulative investment of 150,000 battery swap stations over three phases is one thing.

But offering discounted steel components to car companies that join the alliance?

You have to know that steel accounts for 65% to 85% of the materials that make up an entire car.

Don't be fooled by the popularity of lightweight aluminum alloy materials in the automotive industry in recent years, with new technologies such as integrated die-cast aluminum alloy body frames and all-aluminum engines emerging one after another.

However, aluminum alloys are expensive, and only high-end luxury cars typically use them extensively.

Like carbon fiber on supercars, only the wealthy are willing to spend the money.

In the automotive market, the largest volume of mid- to low-end civilian vehicles use steel for most parts of the body where cheaper materials can be used, considering economic costs.

Four beams and eight columns, swing arm chassis parts, bearings, engines, transmissions, and so on.

If the prices of these component materials are cut in half, the manufacturing cost of the entire car will decrease by at least 30% compared to the original cost.

What is the concept of a 30% reduction in the manufacturing cost of a vehicle?

Here's a simple analogy: Two competing car companies, A and B, with similar positioning, simultaneously launch entry-level economy cars priced at 100,000.

If the manufacturing cost of car A is 70,000, then selling it for 100,000 yields a profit of 30,000.

If car company B saves 30% on costs compared to car company A, then selling the same car can generate a profit of 51,000.

Moreover, to seize the retail market from car company A, car company B, which has joined the 'Cube Battery Swap Alliance,' can effortlessly launch a price war against A.

Cutting the original retail price of 100,000 to 69,800 in one fell swoop.

Leaving competitor A with no room to lower prices.

Because any further price reduction would mean that car company A's retail price would not cover the manufacturing cost of the entire vehicle, basically losing money on every car sold.

With such aggressive tactics, the entire market would be divided up by car company B, leaving car company A with a dismal business or being acquired by B.

Faced with such a huge cost advantage, any car company would choose to join the Cube Battery Swap Alliance with their eyes closed.

Not joining would mean waiting for bankruptcy, with no other option.

"An Obvious Strategy!"

"An absolutely obvious strategy!"

"Brother, your move is too ruthless, even more ruthless than BYD's price war. If this battery swap plan can be implemented, I'm afraid the domestic auto market will undergo a tremendous change," Xiang Qingshan said, rubbing his hands excitedly.

At this moment, he finally understood why Chen Jue wanted to invite him, who works with stainless steel, to join this dinner party full of new car company bosses.

This is rushing to send big orders to their Qingshan Holdings!

Not to mention how much stainless steel is needed for the 150,000 battery swap stations, the total annual sales of NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto, and Xiaomi alone have already reached one million vehicles.

This does not include the upcoming Cube Motors.

Once production is fully rolled out, the stainless steel materials required will be enormous.

Even Lei Bu, who has always been calm, felt his heart pounding wildly after listening to Chen Jue's ambitious battery swap alliance proposal.

There is a very famous saying in the business world: Third-rate companies sell products, second-rate companies sell services, and only truly first-rate companies choose to sell standards.

The emergence of the Cube Battery Swap Station project is equivalent to setting a new standard for the entire new energy vehicle industry!

That is, electric cars made by various car companies, whether pure electric, extended-range, plug-in hybrid, or any other weird model.

As long as it is an electric car that wants to enjoy battery swap services, it must be equipped with a battery pack that meets the size specifications of the 'Cube Battery Swap Station' on the chassis in the future.

Moreover, once the number of battery swap stations reaches the 150,000 described by Chen Jue, exceeding the number of gas stations nationwide.

Then the range anxiety problem that has plagued new energy vehicles for more than a decade will be solved!

Imagine driving a pure electric car and running out of power.

Open AutoNavi and search, and there are several battery swap stations within 2 or 3 kilometers nearby where you can swap batteries at any time.

Each battery swap takes less than 3 minutes (NIO's fourth-generation battery swap station speed), which is faster than queuing up for gas.

Say goodbye to the previous plug-in charging that takes 30 minutes or even longer.

In addition, the electricity cost for a pure electric car to run one kilometer is only 10 cents, and home charging can even be as low as a few cents.

Who would buy a gasoline car at that time?

"If it were a few years ago, before the rise of domestic new energy vehicles, Brother Jue's battery swap plan would definitely have been a complete loss."

"But this year, the penetration rate of new energy has already exceeded 50% (one out of every two new cars sold is a new energy vehicle)... This battery swap plan does have a high probability of success!" Lei Bu said after pondering for a moment.

Seeing that the leading big brother, President Lei, also felt that this plan was promising.

He Peng, Li Xiang, and Li Bin also began to have active thoughts, and were just short of directly agreeing to join the so-called Cube Battery Swap Alliance on the spot, acting as the initial advocates of industry standards.

After all, after listening to the pie described by Chen Jue, everyone found that the earlier they joined the battery swap alliance, the more dividends they could enjoy.

It only benefits the development of their own car companies, without any disadvantages.

It's just adding a battery pack replacement module, which doesn't cost much money.

Moreover, after standard battery swap, the original plug-in interface is not canceled, which is more easily accepted by consumers.

However, after praising Chen Jue's bold and aggressive plan, Lei Bu still put forward several personal opinions and concerns in person.

For example, the deployment of 150,000 battery swap stations will inevitably affect the customer traffic of gas stations.

If malicious competition is triggered at that time, then the 'Cube Battery Swap Alliance' will have to face not only the pressure from friendly car companies.

There is also pressure from domestic energy giants such as Sinopec and PetroChina.

In addition, to attract new car companies to join, Cube Group also needs to cover the consumption of some steel components for manufacturing the entire vehicle.

Including the investment in battery swap stations, the funds involved are not just 225 billion.

In the short term, it will cost at least 500 billion, or even a trillion!

With such an exaggerated amount of funds, even selling Xiaomi Group would not be able to raise it.

After listening to Lei Bu's concerns, Chen Jue also patiently explained: "First of all, even if our battery swap alliance does not appear. When the ban on the sale of gasoline vehicles is implemented in 2030, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles continues to climb from 50%, Sinopec and PetroChina's gas stations will also be affected sooner or later."

"As for the investment funds for the battery swap stations, everyone doesn't need to worry. I think everyone has witnessed the profitability of Cube Group in the past two days. It is more than enough to bear the 150,000 battery swap stations in three phases. I will lead the entire project with sole investment. If you are interested and have spare money, you can also invest a little bit. I will leave you each a share of 10 billion."

"The most worrying thing for everyone is the supply of steel components. I will contact my cousin's Hongxing International Trading Company to provide Qingshan Holdings with high-grade iron ore raw materials at a cost lower than the market price."

"After that, regarding the precision processing of various components of the entire vehicle, I believe that with the mechanical manufacturing level of our Cube Group, the products made will not be worse than suppliers such as Magna and Bosch."

With the mining speed of MC [Pickaxe] and familiarity with various mineral layouts in the Far East, Chen Jue lacks nothing but raw materials.

It's just how to reasonably transport large quantities of [iron ore] raw materials to China for realization that was previously his biggest difficulty.

Now, with this 'Cube Battery Swap Project' as the lead.

It not only solves the input channel of MC [iron ore], but also integrates domestic new energy vehicle companies, and improves the cost performance of domestic new energy vehicles to a new level.

It can be said that it is killing many birds with one stone!

As for whether Lei Bu and others are willing to follow up, that is not a problem Chen Jue considers.

Even if they don't follow, Chen Jue is not worried.

Because Chen Jue has now obtained the car manufacturing qualification of Zotye Auto, he can just close the door and play by himself, relying on the cost advantage produced by MC to roll the price of the entire car to a level that even BYD's Chuanfu Ge would be afraid of.