Investor That Can See The Future

Chapter 259

As the people rose up, the politicians, who had been playing with the eyes of the labor community, began to move.

President Huh Chang-min and the Blue House calmed the labor community and recommended concessions, while the New Political Party adopted the attraction and support of the electric vehicle industrial complex as a party argument and expressed their support for the solidarity wage system.

The Liberal People’s Party, which has always been unconditionally opposed to what the Blue House and the ruling party are doing, has raised one voice this time.

Needless to say, the lawmakers started persuading related companies and proposing bills to capture the industrial complex.

As the union’s withdrawal continued, the power of the two major trade unions sharply decreased, and the Eunseong Tea Union was completely put in a corner.

Protests continued in front of the headquarters of Eunsung Motor Group and OTK Company, but criticism from passing citizens poured in. Some citizens protested against the union in front of the union.

Currently, the Korean automobile industry is in the worst crisis.

Automobile sales continued to decline due to demographic changes, car sharing, ride sharing, and autonomous driving technology. However, even taking that into consideration, the situation in Korea was particularly serious.

Until a few years ago, it firmly maintained the world’s fifth place in terms of production, but it was pushed down to sixth place by India, and now it has fallen to seventh place by Mexico as the airbag recall and strikes overlap. Now that even the Gunsan plant has been closed, production would have been further reduced.

The situation of finished car makers is like this, not to mention subcontractors. Among the first-tier subcontractors, which can be called mid-sized enterprises, half of them were in the red, and the second and third companies were on the verge of bankruptcy. If one secondary supplier fails, dozens of tertiary companies will also fail.

However, in this situation, they went on an all-out strike demanding a wage increase and preferential hiring of union members’ children.

If you think about it, it was an unjustified strike from the beginning. Even among union members, voices calling for the strike to be rescinded grew louder.

The strike was already meaningless when Sungcha signed a business agreement with Karos.

The share price is recovering and shareholders supported the Chan-Young Han regime. We have secured sufficient funds through the issuance of BW. The subcontractors took a breather thanks to Eunsung Motor’s emergency funding and Karos’ order.

Above all, even if the industrial complex is driven overseas, the problem will not be completely solved.

According to the labor-management agreement, Eunsung cars cannot be imported into Korea for vehicles manufactured in foreign factories. However, it is OTK Company that leads the electric vehicle industrial complex. Eunsung Motors only operates factories and invests in equity.

If a vehicle produced in a foreign country is branded other than Eunsung, and another company wants to bring it into Korea, there is no way to prevent it.

When this happens, it will no longer be possible to strike the domestic market as a hostage. This meant that the monopoly that the union had previously enjoyed would be broken.

In the future, it is a plate that will have to compete for productivity with newly built factories. For the union, the worst-case scenario has become a reality.

So, Joo Seong-moo, chairman of the union, shouted that Eun-seong should cancel the agreement and withdraw its investment plan, but it was a meaningless cry.

If the investment plan had been forcibly enforced, there might have been a reason to oppose this until the end. However, Jin-hoo Kang apparently canceled investment in Korea and neutralized the resistance in a way that drew public support.

‘Did you ever know it would be like this from the beginning?’

Joo Seong-moo, chairman of the union, sharpened his teeth, recalling the appearance of a young man in his 20s he met a few days ago.

“After Kangjin, you bastard… … .”

* * *

The Eunseong Tea Union withdrew the strike and returned to work. This was the first time the strike had ended without any results.

Union Chairman Joo Seong-moo and union members resigned from their positions with responsibility.

As they had already lost their fighting spirit, the negotiations with the management did not yield anything.

Wages were frozen, and none of the demands, including priority hiring of union members’ children, were passed. It was just a reconfirmation of employment security.

Kang Jin-hoo announced that he would build an electric vehicle industrial complex in Korea only after he was assured that the two major trade unions did not oppose it.

* * *

We started the site selection for two electric vehicle industrial complexes.

It is the first time Nikola has made such a massive investment in an electric vehicle since he built a gigaplant in Nevada.

This is possible because OTK Company has the best technology in autonomous driving and battery fields and has abundant financial resources.

In Korea, it was tentatively designated as Gunsan.

The reason is, of course, that the factories and industrial bases that GM left are still there. As such, it has the advantage of being able to construct an industrial complex in the fastest time possible.

As we can build more industrial complexes later, we plan to conduct due diligence by other local governments as scheduled.

We plan to guarantee the minimum production of industrial complexes, but allocate additional quantities according to productivity. In other words, it is to compete for productivity among factories in each region.

This is a method commonly used by global companies with production facilities around the world.

The reason Eunsung Motors couldn’t do this was because of a collective agreement that ‘must obtain the union’s consent when importing vehicles or parts produced from overseas factories into Korea’.

In this way, only Eunsung Motors Korea plant was able to spare time even in a situation where auto factories around the world were competing for productivity.

In the case of GM, it relentlessly shut down factories that were losing productivity. Australia’s Holden plant and Korea’s Gunsan plant are typical examples, and the United States is no exception and has a history of shutting down more than a dozen US plants at one time.

Chairman Han Chan-young said that he would sequentially change factories with low utilization rates in Korea and overseas to electric vehicle production lines and relocate manpower. In the meantime, the union has reacted sensitively to the transitional arrangement, but this time, they did not say anything and meekly agreed.

I glanced at the blueprint for the industrial complex that I received from Chairman Im Jin-yong.

Seosung Electronics is responsible for the production of electronic components necessary for autonomous driving, TS Company is responsible for the production of OTK batteries, and Eunsung Motors is responsible for the production of electric vehicles. OTK Company will take a stake and supply the original technology.

It is still the Seoseong group that spends the most money.

Seosung Electronics has been raking in money from all over the world thanks to the boom in semiconductors. Quarterly operating profit now exceeds 15 trillion won and approaches 20 trillion won.

Thanks to this, Korea’s current account continues to hit new highs even though heavy industry and automobiles are struggling.

Chairman Im Jin-yong poured the money he earned into battlefields and batteries.

Expectations were soon reflected in the stock price. Some experts predicted that the market cap of Seosung Electronics would exceed NPL when full-fledged profits in the field of battlefield began.

With the signing of a business agreement with Eunsung Motors, the development of electric vehicles by Karos has also accelerated.

Eunsung Motors has world-class technology in the field of hydrogen cars. Hydrogen cars and electric vehicles are just the difference between secondary cells and fuel cells, and the driving method itself, which uses electricity to run the motor, is almost the same.

Karos decided to purchase some major parts such as motors and inverters from Eunsung Motors.

Daryl is confident of launching two electric vehicles within the year.

What buyers consider the most important thing about electric vehicles is mileage, not various options or performance.

The current maximum driving range for electric vehicles is around 500 km. However, if OTK battery is mounted, it is possible to travel more than 1,000 km.

As the mileage is longer than that of a diesel car, the product is sufficient.

Daryl said in a videoconference.

“The plate-tuning experiment is completely over.”

In hundreds of experiments, Karos succeeded in platooning several trucks without any errors. As it is moving along a national road or highway, not a complicated city center or alleyway, it could be commercialized immediately with the current technology.

However, there are two problems with this. One is that mass unemployment of truck drivers will occur, and the other is that there is no related legislation yet.

As the United States is a federal country, laws vary from state to state. Some states actively allow autonomous driving, while others have banned it.

Logistics trucks travel through multiple states, so they must obtain all state permits.

Taek-gyu muttered next to him.

“President Ronald will do it all. There is hope, there is hope.”

“… … .”

okay. Ronald will do something.

Logistics companies such as Fedex and DHL, as well as other companies, are helping to revise the law. The advent of self-driving trucks can significantly reduce transportation costs and create price competitiveness.

Several states have already made moves to amend the relevant laws.

“Electric trucks are still being developed.”

Even if it is the same electric vehicle, there is inevitably a difference between a car and a commercial vehicle. In this field, Volvo Trucks, Daimler Group, and Nikola have already entered the field and are competing for development.

I thought I was done with something, but I have a lot of work to do.

* * *

Hyun-joo’s older sister and Henry, who were staying at the hotel, moved into a new house. The interior was also pre-decorated for the baby room.

Hyunjoo noona was now completely full. Still, she did not seem to have any intention of taking a break from work until childbirth, despite the opposition of her surroundings.

After having lunch with Taek-gyu and Sang-yeop senior, I sat at the back of the building and drank coffee from the vending machine.

Sangyeop senior said.

“Your praise from the politicians and the media these days is high.”

Taehyung nodded his head.

“right. Until then, I was only swearing at what I had done to Korea.”

I don’t know why I have to do it, but it’s true that I haven’t done anything.

Domestic conglomerates make great contributions to the national economy by their very existence. Paying corporate taxes, earning dollars by exporting hard. As a result, the current account is always in a surplus and foreign exchange reserves are sufficient.

On the other hand, OTK Company is an investment company in a foreign country, so it does not pay taxes to Korea and does not hire a few people.

But this time, it was the right investment and employment.

“There is nothing better than creating jobs for businesses.”

If the purpose of a business is to make money, job creation is a corporate social responsibility. That’s why the government doesn’t spare any support.

Sangyeop said while drinking her coffee.

“It seems that China is very nervous. Although they havetily come up with a plan to supply electric vehicles and expand the subsidy. Not only that, but they also seem to be putting pressure on Suseong Electronics and Eunsung Cha.”(Read more @ wuxiax.com)

China is a typical state-led, government-run economy. If the government gets caught, there is no answer whether it is a large company or something.

In Korea alone, during the military regime in the past, there was a case where an entire chaebol group was disbanded at the words of the president.

“It won’t do you any good if you put pressure on it.”

The sales of Eunsung Motor’s joint venture have already plummeted in China due to the recall. Seosung SB batteries are also excluded from subsidy payments, so they are practically not used in electric vehicles in China.

Although Seosung Electronics’ exports to the public are large, most of its sales come from semiconductors. It is impossible to block semiconductors even if they fall and block the sale of finished products such as smartphones and TVs through certification or customs clearance. This is because if the supply of semiconductors decreases, the Chinese electronics industry will suffer. So, semiconductors were always excluded from the list even when China imposed trade retaliation.

“Anyway, Chairman Im Jin-yong is closely watching China’s movements.”

After finishing his coffee, Sangyeop threw the empty paper cup into the trash.

“It’s Friday, what are you doing after that?”

“Are you a senior?”

“I want to go because there is a new club in Sinsa-dong this time.”

I was a little surprised by that.

“Are you going to the senior club?”

“of course. There is no reason not to go.”

“Well, it is.”

I made a lot of money, but I have to work hard. That will also help the economy.

Taek-gyu patted my shoulder and said.

“You go too.”