My Age of Investment

The middle-aged white man with curly hair said: "Users who can afford a Roadster will not care about this small amount of money. At worst, they will buy a Model S."

Franz chuckled and said, "That's true. For them, changing a car is as easy as changing to a new mobile phone."

"Users will inevitably be dissatisfied. Who wants to have a car that has just been purchased not long ago be crushed by both performance and price."

Straubel smiled, "But Peter, you are right. Tesla cannot disappoint users. Each of our cars needs to innovate to bring more surprises to users. This is also the way to build a brand." A way!"

Straubel changed quickly. Just now, he felt a little uncomfortable because of Peter's words and felt that the other party was a bit disappointing, but he quickly adjusted his mentality.

As a CEO, he needs to learn to see problems from a higher perspective.

If there are any problems, don’t avoid them, just solve them one by one.

It has been almost six years since Tesla was founded, and it has been difficult step by step.

As a pioneer of electric vehicles, if we lose our enterprising spirit because we are afraid of trouble, then there is no point in talking about subverting the automobile industry!

The subtle change in mentality made Straubel feel like he had grown up again.

Xia Jingxing watched the three people arguing with a smile, focusing mainly on Peter Rawlinson, a middle-aged white man with curly hair.

This person joined Tesla last year and had previously worked at Jaguar and Lotus.

Because of Tesla's cooperation with Lotus, he learned what a grand plan Tesla was carrying out.

After the Roadster started being delivered last year, Peter Rawlinson resolutely left Lotus and joined Tesla as vice president of vehicle engineering and chief engineer of Model S.

In his previous life, this technical expert who has been immersed in the traditional automobile industry for nearly two decades worked closely with Franz. One was responsible for design and the other was responsible for vehicle engineering. Together, they completed the Model S from prototype to reservation to mass production. The entire delivery process has helped Tesla reach a new level.

If Roadster is Tesla's pioneering work, then Model S can be called a small success. It is precisely because of this car that the automobile industry finally accepted Tesla as a car company, and more ordinary people also adopted this car. Learn about Tesla.

However, in his previous life, Peter Rawlinson left just after the mass production and delivery of Model S. Some media said it was due to disagreements with Musk, but his own explanation was that he wanted to return to the UK to take care of his sick mother.

Xia Jingxing guessed that the other party might not be willing to speak ill of his former employer. After all, Musk had a bad temper. According to the development trajectory of his previous life, half of the executives present today have already resigned.

In his previous life, Peter Rawlinson joined Atieva a year after leaving Tesla, a company invested by Xia Jingxing and founded by former Tesla executive Xie Jiapeng that exports three-electric system technology.

After Peter Rawlinson joined the company as CTO, he immediately adjusted the company's business thinking and began to build complete vehicles. He successively received investment from BAIC Group and Boss Jia, but neither achieved anything.

On the eve of Xia Jingxing's rebirth, the other party had successfully been promoted to the company's CEO. With the heavy investment from the oil tycoons, he created Lucid Air, a luxury new energy vehicle brand with a range of 837 kilometers and an acceleration of 0 to 0-60 seconds in 2.5 seconds. The price is US$169,000. Known as the Tesla killer.

This endurance result is based on the U.S. EPA test standard, which is more stringent than commonly used domestic working conditions such as NEDC, WLTC, and CLTC.

If converted according to domestic testing standards, the Lucid Air's cruising range has reached 985 kilometers, close to the 1,000 kilometers mark.

In terms of interior design language, Lucid Air does not follow Tesla's minimalist style, but uses interior materials that are more complex with traditional luxury aesthetics. The goal is to defeat competitors such as Mercedes-Benz S and BMW 7 Series.

Obviously, Peter Rawlinson is definitely a talent. In his previous life, it was just because of his slow start that he wasted too much time in financing, mass production, and iterating products, so he did not pose a greater threat to Tesla.

After taking a look at Peter Rawlinson who was talking eloquently, Xia Jingxing suddenly had a bold idea. Should he poach this guy to Atieva Company (201id)?

Fuxing Motor is currently building a team in China and beginning to explore the research and development of electric vehicles.

In the future, Xia Jingxing's plan is to wholly acquire or control Atieva, merge it with Fuxing Automobile, or retain the brand to focus on overseas markets.

If Atieva has Peter Rawlinson joining the company, and with the continuous funding provided by Fuxing Industrial Holding Group, it should not be too difficult to overcome the difficulties of mass production and ramp-up of production capacity.

Because in the previous life, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund PIF invested a total of more than a billion dollars in Lucid, which is much less than the billions of dollars that Boss Jia gave to FF.

If Boss Jia had insisted on Allin Lucid, he might have become a new legend in the Chinese business world and staged a comeback even more legendary than Shi Dazhu!

Because PIF holds more than 60% of the company's shares, this investment of more than one billion US dollars has earned at least 30 to 40 billion US dollars in book profits, one-tenth of which is enough to pay off all the debts of Boss Jia.

Xia Jingxing suddenly interrupted: "There is no need to argue about this issue. I believe that with the rapid development of electric vehicle technology, the price-performance ratio of new models will be better than the previous generation.

In the early days, there may be users who were dissatisfied, saying that we were price butchers, and clamoring to return their cars and demand compensation. But once they get used to the changes brought about by electric vehicles, they should not be psychologically unbalanced, because the entire industry is like this. , nothing to complain about. "

After Xia Jingxing made the final decision, the three of them stopped arguing on this topic.

Peter Rawlinson continued to elaborate on his point of view: "Compared with the Roadster, the Model S uses a dual motor and four-wheel drive architecture, and its battery life has not been significantly improved.

In my opinion, this car must have a range of at least 500 kilometers before it can be considered successful. This is a range that is relatively close to the range of a C-class luxury sedan.

The Roadster road test has a cruising range of 400 kilometers, but users reported during use that it can only run 300 kilometers.

Taking into account each user's driving habits and complex road conditions, even if Model S can reach 500 kilometers of driving range in road conditions tests, users may only be able to run 400 kilometers in actual use.

Anything less than that would be quite inconvenient.

Our four-door, five-seater coupe aims to enter the lower-tier market, and the users we face are no longer wealthy people and technology enthusiasts who are looking for novels, but real car consumers, who value cost-effectiveness more. "

Xia Jingxing nodded lightly, "Yes, the acceleration performance and cruising range must be improved. In addition to finding ways to make breakthroughs in the motor, what about the battery and electronic control system?"

Peter Rawlinson smiled and said: "This is exactly what I want to say next. In addition to the motor solution that still needs technical verification and breakthroughs, the other two of the three electricity systems also have many problems.

For example, for batteries, we are still using the 18650 model cylindrical lithium battery provided by Panasonic, and plan to build cars with three mass energy density specifications of 60, 70, and 85KWh.

From the formula, we can see that the determining factors of the battery's impact on the vehicle's cruising range are the energy density of the battery system and the overall weight of the battery system.

In addition, the structural arrangement of the battery system will also affect the energy density.

However, because we have redesigned the car chassis, the battery pack can be laid flat on it, enlarging the volume. At this stage, it has reached the optimal level.

The battery system weighs 0.6 tons, accounting for more than a quarter of the vehicle's 2.1-ton weight. For the time being, there is no way to reduce it.

The only place where we can think of ways to increase energy density is in the positive and negative electrode materials of the battery core. For example, increasing the proportion of nickel in the positive electrode material and using silicon carbon in the negative electrode material are all directions that the industry is exploring.

Panasonic cylindrical batteries use NCA materials, that is, nickel cobalt aluminum, and there are also nickel cobalt manganese NCM material batteries. Both belong to different research routes in the direction of ternary lithium batteries, but the cathode materials are different.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries are safer, do not use the precious metal cobalt, and have lower costs, but the energy density is also lower. Therefore, they are more widely used in buses with larger volume and mass. China's BYD is more accomplished in this field. deep.

Because the energy density of ternary lithium batteries is higher, they are the best choice for cars with limited space. The disadvantage is that in the event of an extreme collision, a short circuit of the battery can easily cause a fire.

The material of lithium iron phosphate will not burn when encountering a short circuit, and its high temperature resistance is much superior to that of ternary lithium batteries.

We don’t need to consider lithium iron phosphate. My suggestion is to find a power battery supplier other than Panasonic and try batteries made of NCM materials. "

Xia Jingxing smiled and nodded, "Good suggestion. I invested in a power battery supplier in China called CATL. Their battery research direction is the direction of NCM materials under ternary lithium batteries.

But I think that after the battery life reaches or even surpasses that of fuel vehicles, the pursuit of battery energy density will be placed second, and the safety and controllability of the battery will be brought to the first place. Lithium iron phosphate batteries may achieve greater development. Not only for passenger cars, but also for cars and SUVs. "

Peter Rawlinson smiled and said nothing. He reserved his opinion. The boss thought too far. At this stage, electric car companies have only one goal, which is to do everything possible to increase battery energy density and thus increase cruising range.

As for battery safety, fire and other issues, companies can only survive first and then find ways to improve.

Xia Jingxing was indeed thinking long-term. He still remembered that in the previous life, BYD conducted a live broadcast in a very fashionable manner in order to demonstrate the safety of its new product "Blade Battery" and demonstrated a "needle prick test" in the process.

That is, a steel needle is used to pierce the battery cell to simulate a short circuit inside the battery, and the battery cell using ternary material will catch fire on site.

This test put CATL, whose main product is ternary batteries, into passive public opinion.

In addition, the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries achieved a major technological breakthrough at that time. Later, CATL also picked up the lithium iron phosphate batteries that it had looked down on, and used this battery to enter the domestic Model 3 supply chain.

Zeng Fuqun also said: In the power battery market, the market share of lithium iron phosphate will gradually increase, and the proportion of ternary batteries will decrease. However, there will still be many high-end models that have demand for battery life and high energy density. Therefore, ternary batteries will There will still be market space for batteries.

In this generation, under the control of Xia Jingxing, the Ningde era still dares not buy Allin lithium iron phosphate batteries, because in the next ten years, the country will subsidize new energy vehicle companies based on cruising range. That is the era of ternary lithium batteries. After that, iron phosphate Lithium will bottom out and rebound.

Therefore, the two major power battery genres of lithium iron phosphate and ternary batteries will experience two iterations of market share "one rises and one falls" in the next ten years, with each leading the way for several years.