Rebirth 99 to become a car giant

"With the CEOs of various car companies coming out one after another, the various configurations on cars will probably be varied in the future, and cars will increasingly develop in the direction of consumer electronics."

"This may not necessarily be a good thing for us."

"After all, Xingchen Automobile and Jaguar Land Rover are both traditional car companies, and their main products are products with large-displacement engines."

Zeng Tingting mentioned a concern of hers.

It has to be said that this risk needs to be taken seriously and is entirely possible in the future.

Once the market trend changes, even if the competitiveness of your product does not change, the sales volume will decline significantly.

"What you said does need attention, but from a global perspective, the demand for luxury cars with large-displacement engines has always been there."

"The impact of electric vehicles will first affect the products of car companies such as Volkswagen and Toyota."

"Our luxury cars have a minimum displacement of 2.0T, and the main models are large-displacement models such as W8, W12 and W16."

"For some wealthy people, large displacement is a symbol of status. Even if it is not favored by the policy, it will not disappear so quickly."

Cao Yang did not plan to withdraw fuel vehicles from the sales system of Nanshan Automobile Group so quickly.

Even in the next ten years, his support for large-displacement engine models will not change.

Of course, this is not inconsistent with his support for the development of electric vehicles.

Using electric vehicles to impact the sales of car companies such as Volkswagen and Toyota, and using large-displacement engines to stabilize the sales of Xingchen Automobile and Jaguar Land Rover, walking on two legs, neither of which is relaxed.

To some extent, Cao Yang can be regarded as betting on both ends.

After all, whether it is the industrial chain of electric vehicles or the industrial chain of large-displacement engine models, a large part of it is in the hands of Nanshan companies.

Nanshan Battery is the world's largest battery company, and Nanshan Engine is China's largest engine company.

Nanshan Auto Parts supplies a large number of parts for both electric vehicles and fuel vehicles.

"We have also launched some hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions of Xingchen Automobile before. At present, the market response is indeed not particularly good."

"On the contrary, the sales of pure fuel vehicles with larger fuel tanks have always been quite good."

"Although the annual growth rate is not as good as in the past, it is also increasing steadily."

"According to the current trend, Xingchen Automobile's global sales are expected to exceed 1 million vehicles in the next three years."

Zeng Tingting knew that Cao Yang's expectation for Xingchen Automobile was a global sales volume of 1 million vehicles.

It would be very difficult to go higher.

After all, it is a luxury car with an average sales price of 1 million yuan, and it is not so easy to increase sales.

Unless, like Mercedes-Benz and BMW, they continue to launch various entry-level models.

But this plan was rejected by Cao Yang before.

So far, Xingchen Automobile has given consumers the impression that it is a brand that is more luxurious than Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

This kind of invisible and intangible influence is actually very important.

After all, as long as consumers drive a Xingchen car out, no matter whether everyone knows what model this car is, everyone knows that its price is not cheap.

Even when driving on the road, some cars around will consciously stay away from Xingchen Automobile to avoid not being able to pay compensation after a collision.

For many people, this kind of uniqueness is what they want.

"The development speed of new energy vehicles in China is much higher than that of the world. In many places, even after another ten years, the new energy vehicle market is still relatively small. In addition to continuing to expand the market in China, Xingchen Automobile cannot give up the foreign market."

"Especially in the Middle East and Africa, South America and around the polar bears, these are places with great potential for large-displacement engines."

Xingchen Automobile's overseas development is the best among all domestic companies.

However, Cao Yang obviously still wants to continue to increase the stakes.

For example, Africa, although it gives people the overall impression that it is very poor, there are actually many rich people there.

With such a large population base, even a few million local tyrants can contribute a lot of sales.

The gap between the rich and the poor is huge, which is not a bad thing for the promotion of Xingchen Automobile.

Especially those models that take the hard-core off-road vehicle route are still very promising in these places.

"Indeed, we have further divided the various regions abroad since last year and began to increase the way of arranging sales personnel from China to expand abroad."

"In some markets, we also cooperate with Huawei to jointly develop the local telecommunications and automobile markets. The current progress is relatively smooth."

When Zeng Tingting said this, her face was full of confidence.

The number of employees working overseas within Nanshan Automobile Group has now exceeded 5,000.

According to Zeng Tingting's plan, the number of overseas staff will exceed 10,000 in a few years.

The key is that half of these staff are dispatched by Huaxia.

The income of these people is actually very high.

Originally, the treatment of Nanshan Automobile Group is the best in the domestic automobile industry, and there are various subsidies for those who go abroad.

If you go to some African countries, the monthly subsidy alone is higher than the salary of employees of most domestic companies.

Coupled with various sales incentives, if a person with three to five years of work experience works overseas in Nanshan Automobile Group, the minimum annual salary will start at 500,000, and it is normal for it to exceed one million.

For many college graduates with average family conditions, it is definitely a very good path to enter Nanshan Automobile Group and work overseas.

In China, you are exhausted and working hard with that salary. Once you pay off your mortgage and car loan, you will have no money.

But if you are in Africa, let alone one hundred or eighty thousand a month, even if you only have four or five thousand, you will still live a very comfortable life.

Just spend a few hundred dollars to hire a young and beautiful local college student to be your nanny. She will do laundry and cooking during the day and warm your bed at night.

I can't say much about this kind of treatment.

While Zeng Tingting and Cao Yang were chatting about Nanshan Automobile Group, Zeng Jianying from Nanshan Carbon Fiber came over.

"Mr. Cao, I just saw that Toyota displayed a hydrogen fuel cell new energy vehicle, and Honda also has a similar product."

"During this period, China also intends to encourage the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles."

"I'm going to arrange for someone to study the carbon fiber air tank and make it a brand new application field of carbon fiber."

Nanshan Carbon Fiber is now the carbon fiber company with the strongest technical strength in the world. Together with Guangwei Group, it almost monopolizes 80% of the domestic carbon fiber market.

Although the sales of carbon fiber are increasing every year, Zeng Jianying certainly cannot passively wait for customers to increase their sales to increase carbon fiber sales.

He is ready to take the initiative, just like he did when he produced carbon fiber wind turbine blades, to find more application scenarios for carbon fiber.

The hydrogen gas storage tank of hydrogen fuel cells is an area that he decided to focus on after researching it for a year.

Taking advantage of this Yangcheng Auto Show, he planned to formally propose it to Cao Yang.

"Carbon fiber air tank?"

For a long time, Nanshan Automobile Group has not regarded hydrogen fuel cells as its main development direction.

Although there is an internal team studying this technology and preparing to use it on Nangoat City commercial vehicles, there is no way to compare it with electric vehicles.

Now that Zeng Jianying suddenly mentioned the carbon fiber gas tank, Cao Yang naturally had to think carefully about the future layout.

"Yes, as a container for hydrogen storage, hydrogen storage bottles have four main development paths according to the earliest classification proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2002."

"Chrome-molybdenum steel hydrogen storage bottles, which are type I; steel-lined fiber-wrapped circumferentially wound bottles, which are type II; high-pressure gaseous hydrogen storage, mainly using aluminum-lined fiber-wrapped bottles, which are type III; and finally, Plastic liner fiber wrapped bottle, this one is type IV.”

"Type I and II are mainly used for stationary hydrogen storage applications such as hydrogen refueling stations. This is not the focus of our research."

"Type III and IV are used in domestic and international vehicle-mounted hydrogen storage."

"Except for the different liner materials, Type III and Type IV cylinders both use carbon fiber full winding technology. The weight of carbon fiber can reach up to 57%. Due to the high working pressure, the specifications for carbon fiber are also high."

“This is a great place to leverage our technological strengths.”

Although Cao Yang does not care about many specific matters of each company, when it comes to some more important product developments, he must report to Cao Yang.

As a product that Nanshan Carbon Fiber will focus on in the next few years, how much resources will be invested in carbon fiber gas cylinders is also inseparable from Cao Yang's support.

"The most promising development direction of carbon fiber in the field of pressure vessels is the use of hydrogen storage bottles. This should be recognized by everyone."

"However, the development speed of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is not expected to be as fast as everyone imagines."

Cao Yang would definitely not directly refute Zeng Jianying's reputation, so he also wanted to have a good chat with him.

He definitely has no objection to the development of carbon fiber gas storage bottles.

But how much energy should be put into this project needs to be discussed carefully.

"With the rapid development of new energy vehicles, hydrogen energy, as a clean and efficient form of energy, has received more and more attention."

“As a key piece of equipment for hydrogen energy storage and transportation, hydrogen storage bottles’ performance and safety are crucial.”

"Carbon fiber hydrogen storage bottles have the advantages of light weight, high strength, and corrosion resistance. They can effectively improve the hydrogen storage density and safety of hydrogen storage bottles, providing strong support for the large-scale application of hydrogen energy."

"According to some existing hydrogen energy development plans, global fuel cell vehicle sales are expected to be 1 million units in 2025; by 2030, there will be approximately 3-4 million fuel cell vehicles globally, with a corresponding carbon fiber demand of 180,000 tons. Future composite The growth rate is worth looking forward to.”

Zeng Jianying has been researching for a year, and even Nanshan Carbon Fiber has produced several samples internally.

Therefore, he is very clear about the development of the industry.

"Hydrogen has the characteristics of small molecular formula and easy dissipation at normal temperatures and pressures. Therefore, during the process of production, storage, transportation, processing and use, there are high requirements for technology and equipment support."

"Compared with traditional energy sources, hydrogen production, storage and transportation require a large investment to ensure efficiency and safety. The overall cost is still high at this stage, and the hydrogen storage and transportation link alone accounts for 30%-40% of the total cost of hydrogen."

"If this problem cannot be solved well, there will be no good future."

Cao Yang is not completely ignorant of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

After all, this new energy development route is still very popular in Japan, and Korea also has relatively strong support.

China also has relevant policy support. Even from the perspective of supporting a single vehicle, the amount of support for each vehicle is much higher than that for electric vehicles.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is much higher than that of electric vehicles.

"Indeed, domestic hydrogen storage and transportation mainly takes the form of relatively low-cost high-pressure gas. As an important storage container, hydrogen storage bottles are gradually evolving from Type I, II, and III to Type IV carbon fiber bottles with higher mass density and lower cost."

"According to estimates, at the same 35MPa pressure level, the cost of Type IV hydrogen storage bottles is about 20,000 yuan, which is 30% lower than that of Type III hydrogen storage bottles. The main reason is that Type III bottle storage tanks use a large amount of metal aluminum materials, while Type IV bottles use lower-priced polymers and use less, generally plastic liners."

"In addition, the carbon fiber wrapped around the outside of the liner to increase strength accounts for the main cost of Type IV bottles, which is our advantage."

Zeng Jianying followed Cao Yang's question and continued to explain the relevant situation.

From this process, Cao Yang could also feel his persistence.

"Has the technical route of this gas storage bottle been determined at present?"

Since Zeng Jianying wanted to do this project so much, Cao Yang felt that there was no need to stop him.

After all, this is also a blue ocean market. As long as it is done well, the future is still very good.

"Regarding the forming process of the carbon fiber composite layer of the hydrogen storage bottle, most of the current processes are that the carbon fiber is impregnated through the resin tank in the winding process and then wound, and the carbon fiber and resin are used as two independent raw materials for winding. The industry usually calls it the wet winding process."

"We have been trying the dry winding process, producing the carbon fiber and resin into prepreg tapes through the prepreg process in advance, and then using the prepreg tapes as the raw materials for winding to wind the gas cylinder. The dry winding process can achieve higher winding efficiency and better product stability."

"The technical bottleneck of the sealing of the bottle mouth is relatively large, especially for high-pressure gas cylinders, which are the key areas for safety and hydrogen leakage. How to achieve the safe sealing of the bottle mouth valve, gas cylinder valve seat, and plastic liner has become an extremely critical technology for hydrogen storage bottles."

"With the increase of pressure, the hydrogen storage density is gradually increased, and the transportation cost is gradually reduced."

"After developing to a certain extent, there will be a critical point, and that is when our gas storage bottle business will officially explode."

After hearing Zeng Jianying's words, Cao Yang knew that Nanshan Carbon Fiber had made great efforts in this regard.

In this case, let's continue.

"You should communicate with Nanshan Auto Parts and Nanshan Battery to see if the gas tank project and the hydrogen fuel cell project can be combined."

"This way, we can save a lot of time in commercial applications in the future."

Cao Yang said this, basically agreeing with Zeng Jianying's idea.

...

Just as Zeng Jianying and Cao Yang were discussing the future development of carbon fiber gas tanks, Toyota, which is betting on hydrogen energy vehicles, was not so satisfied with the reactions of various media.

"President, the media in China seem to focus on various electric vehicles, and few people are interested in our hydrogen fuel cell technology."

Kobayashi Tetsuaki and Toyoda Akio flew from Japan today to participate in the Guangzhou Auto Show.

In the field of electric vehicles, Toyota has very few products that can be shown off. In China, except for hybrid models, there is no electric vehicle.

This Guangzhou Auto Show, Toyota also attaches great importance to it.

They brought Guangzhou Toyota and Spring City Toyota together to form a large Toyota booth, in order to further enhance Toyota's influence in China.

2014 was a difficult year for Toyota.

In the American market, they were suppressed by General Motors and Ford, and their sales were declining.

Although the current situation has stabilized, it will definitely be very difficult to restore the sales to the peak period.

In the Chinese market, the sales of Japanese car companies have been a bit sluggish in the past two years.

Toyota has tried its best, but there has not been much change.

However, as the world's largest auto market, Toyota will never give up the Chinese auto market.

Even within Toyota, a decision has been made to launch more new products in China, so that Toyota can gain a market share in China that is worthy of its global status.

At present, the sales of the two Toyotas combined are less than 1 million vehicles, which is definitely not satisfactory to Akio Toyoda.

Toyota also knows that new energy vehicles in China are very popular, so they also want to promote their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles through this auto show.

They are even prepared to sell hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China in the form of imports.

However, the performance of the media gave them a blow.

"Electric vehicles are ultimately just a transitional technology, and their large-scale promotion and popularization face various problems."

"And its energy saving is not real energy saving. Except for China, the development speed in other markets may not be so fast."

Akio Toyoda is a relatively firm believer that the prospects of electric vehicles are not that good.

In other words, he is a naysayer of electric vehicles.

Even Toyota has a dedicated team working on electric vehicles, but the intensity is definitely different from the team working on hydrogen fuel cell technology.

"For us, the advantages of electric vehicles are indeed not as great as those of hybrid vehicles, and they will not have much impact on the existing industrial chain."

"But the situation here in China is different. I think the company may need to reconsider its future development direction."

"At least in the Chinese market, we still need to launch some electric vehicles."

Based on his own analysis and judgment, Xiaolin Zhemin made a proposal.

He knew that Akio Toyoda would not be happy after hearing this proposal, but he couldn't do it without saying it.

Today's traditional fuel vehicles have little traffic at auto shows, which will definitely affect sales in the end.

"We have increased local research and development efforts in China, allowing them to try to develop one or two electric vehicles to see how the market responds."

Akio Toyoda was silent for a moment, and then gave his opinion.

He knew that what Xiaolin Zheming said was not unreasonable.

If you want to compete in the Chinese market, it seems that you really can’t do it without electric vehicles.

However, Toyota's accumulation of electric vehicle technology is mediocre, and he is actually not confident whether it will eventually be able to catch up with China's independent brands.

"Then should we consider cooperating with Nanshan Battery for our batteries, or should we find other manufacturers to cooperate?"

Kobayashi Zheming asked a very sensitive topic.

In recent years, the relationship between Nanshan Automobile Group and Toyota Motor has definitely not been good.

The two sides have conflicts in China and many overseas markets.

The sales of Lexus' LS570, except in the United States, have been basically beaten by Xingchen Automobile in other markets.

Similarly, the sales of the Toyota Land Cruiser have also been greatly affected.

As for the various tricks Nanshan Hongqi used, it goes without saying.

Not to mention the impact that Nanshan Transmission and Nanshan Auto Parts have had on companies such as Aisin and Denso.

Anyway, the relationship between Toyota Motor and Nanshan Automobile Group has nothing to do with harmony.

“Can’t find Nanshan Battery!”

Akio Toyoda was silent for a moment and replied firmly.

He knew that even if Toyota brand electric vehicles were supplied by Nanshan batteries, it is estimated that the relationship between the two parties would not change much in the end.

There may even be another Toyota weakness in the opponent's hands.

"If we don't look for Chinese battery companies, we won't have many choices."

"Or let Panasonic build a special battery factory in China to supply us?"

Kobayashi Zheming did not refute his boss's decision.

He is completely able to understand the other person's thoughts.

"If Panasonic supplies products to us, there will be no guarantee of the number of units, and their investment risk will be very high."

"We are not considering this route in the short term either."

"There are many battery companies in China. Just because we don't want to cooperate with Nanshan Battery doesn't mean we can't find other manufacturers to cooperate."

"Whether it is Guoxuan Hi-Tech, BYD, or various battery companies such as CATL and Sunwanda, they are all beginning to make efforts in the Chinese electric vehicle market."

"I think we can contact all these companies first and see how enthusiastic they are about cooperation."

It would obviously be a bit hasty to directly identify a partner without any contact or communication.

So even if Akio Toyoda already has some thoughts in his heart, he has no intention of speaking out immediately.

It would be embarrassing if these ideas were just his own unilateral ideas and the other party had no intention of cooperating with Toyota Motor.

"Well, I'll start arranging this later."

"China's own brands are developing faster and faster in the field of electric vehicles, and we have to speed up the process."

"The best thing is to launch our electric vehicle solution at the Imperial Auto Show next year."

Xiao Lin Zheming continued to mention his own ideas.

It is important to clarify the general direction as early as possible.

Following these exchanges, Toyota quickly took action internally.