My Age of Investment

The bearded man took Xia Jingxing and Straubel to a conference room on the second floor, then carefully locked the door and drew the curtains.

Xia Jingxing managed to make Xia Jingxing laugh with his sneaky appearance, "Dude, what are you doing, this is nothing shameful."

Straubel couldn't help laughing, "Daren, life needs a sense of ritual!"

The bearded man was sure that the doors and windows had been locked, so he turned his head and said with a smile, "This work of mine is epoch-making. It will redefine cars. It's better to be cautious. If it is exposed and copied by your opponent, it will be troublesome."

Xia Jingxing smiled lightly. Although more than half a month had passed since the launch of the Fuxing mobile phone, the slogan of redefining the mobile phone has resounded throughout the United States, becoming a well-known phrase on the Internet, and derived the "redefinition" body.

"Don't hold your breath, show it, hurry up!" Xia Jingxing scolded with a smile.

Franz von Holzhausen walked aside with a smile and started to turn on the computer and projector on the table.

Xia Jingxing quietly watched this guy fiddle with various equipment.

Franz joined Tesla a few months ago as chief designer.

Prior to this, this guy had served as the assistant chief designer of Volkswagen, the design director of General Motors, and the design director of Mazda North America Design Center. He was well-known in the industry and led the design of Mazda RX-8, Tribute, Opel GT Waiting for many classic models.

According to common sense, Franz despises small companies like Tesla.

But this guy is a serious car enthusiast who loves to collect and drive cars as well as design, build and fashion.

Franz admired Tesla's R\u0026D and design concepts very much. When Tesla sent a headhunter to contact him, the guy agreed to join Tesla without hesitation, and was even willing to lower part of his salary.

Xia Jingxing valued Franz very much, because this guy was the chief designer of Tesla in his previous life, leading the design of Model S/X/3/Y, Cybertruck, Semi and other models.

The gull-wing doors of the Model X, the cyberpunk style of the electric pickup Cybertruck, the minimalist interiors of all Tesla cars...all of these were created by Franz.

The shape of the first-generation Roadster is very different from the familiar Tesla shape.

This is because Franz joined Tesla late and did not catch up with the design of the original Roadster.

Moreover, the first-generation Roadster was an assembled car. 2,500 sets of chassis and shells were ordered from Lotus Sports Car. In addition to the 2,450 sold, another 50 were used for various experiments and tests.

After tinkering for two minutes, Franz suddenly clapped his hands, "It's done!"

Xia Jingxing and Straubel raised their heads, the projection screen hanging on the wall lit up, and the cover of Model S appeared.

Then, the screen flashed, and a detailed structural diagram of the car that did not appear at the press conference appeared. The entire car was disassembled into different parts such as the body, chassis, and motor.

"Look, Dylan, the Model S will have a monocoque body, which is designed to provide excellent occupant protection and vehicle handling...

For electric vehicles, the battery is the core component.

Model S creatively lays the battery on the bottom, which not only lowers the center of gravity of the vehicle, but also makes the handling performance more powerful.

At the same time, the battery pack is protected by three layers of armor, which makes the vehicle chassis safer through this structure..."

Xia Jingxing looked at the design drawings on the curtain, and listened to Franz's detailed introduction, nodding his head from time to time.

For the Model S, he and Tesla have placed high hopes on this car, hoping that this car can be like a sharp knife cutting through the monopoly of fuel vehicles on transportation.

As long as the first Model S is successfully delivered, Tesla's development will be on the right track, and it can be regarded as a real car company. Now it can only be called an assembly car company, just like a conscience computer.

After the introduction, Franz shifted his gaze from the curtain to Xia Jingxing, and said with a smile: "Daren, the time I went to revive the mobile phone and Android communication gave me a deep feeling, and I also realized that technological changes may have a great impact on the automobile industry. cause shock.

So, I injected these insights into the interior design of Model S. "

After speaking, Franz clicked the mouse, and a photo of the interior of the car appeared on the screen.

"My God, did you move the revival phone to the car?"

Straubel's eyes were wide open, and his expression was very similar to that of Xiao Yueyue. He was really shocked by this picture.

On the left side of the picture is a steering wheel, which is unremarkable, but on the right side of the central control is a large vertical display screen, like a small TV.

Straubel also noticed that there are several icons on the vertical display screen, such as calls, maps, music, etc., which are exactly the same as the ZTE mobile phone, which is why he said to move the ZTE mobile phone to the car.

Xia Jingxing glanced at Straubel, at least he is a CEO, don't act like a country bumpkin who has never seen the world all day long.

He was not surprised by the advanced design of Model S, because it was he who instructed Franz to design the large central control screen.

Franz said with a smile: “It’s not wrong to say that the ZTE mobile phone is moved to the car. The ZTE mobile phone is 3.5 inches, and this large screen is nearly five times that, 17 inches, and it can also be touched by fingers.” capacitive screen.

The cockpit of a traditional car is complex, full of buttons and switches.

The interior of the Model S car is like a small living room, with a plasma TV hanging on the wall, and the rest is the supporting part, very urban and minimal.

This is a very big change, just as people transitioned from touch-screen phones to touch-screen phones, the same thing should happen in the automotive industry.

Before the Model S, no car has dared to use the touch screen so boldly to integrate so many functions.

Through this large screen, car owners can control various information such as Internet browsing, air conditioning, navigation, media, lighting, telephone, seat heating, sunroof switch, charging, suspension, and vehicle status. The operation is extremely convenient and easy to grasp.

As a technology-driven car company, Tesla believes that it should integrate Internet elements and smart concepts into vehicles to make it unique.

Brand-new interior, brand-new central control, brand-new human-vehicle interaction, these should all become the hallmarks of Tesla!

Good design works can speak and tell users: Tesla is different from those bad street fuel cars. "

Xia Jingxing smiled and nodded, "Frantz, you did a good job, this is exactly the dream car I want, maybe it can also be called a smart car."

Straubel also came back to his senses at this time, and asked: "This advanced design will add a lot of difficulty to the manufacture of our prototype car?"

Franz smiled, "It will indeed increase the difficulty of manufacturing, but it can also make Model S cooler and continue to surprise users. This is what Tesla should do as a disruptive company."

"I'm for innovation, but will users embrace it?" Straubel said.

"Why can't it be accepted? If you can accept smartphones, you can naturally accept smart cars."

Xia Jingxing smiled faintly, they had gone farther and farther on the road of catching up with Tesla in their previous life.

In the previous life, due to lack of financial resources and several major mistakes in the direction, Musk was forced to slow down the pace of development. He did not start to release the Model S until 2009. At that time, the coverage of smart phones was not low, and the touch screen proved to be a The development trend can be applied to the car body.

They are currently applying touch screens to Tesla, which is not too advanced, and the objective conditions such as technology and user adaptability are all met.

Straubel smiled, "Okay, then we really have to create an industry with ZTE Mobile."

Franz chuckled, "To define an industry, these innovations alone are not enough. We also consider adding software "over-the-air upgrades" to Model S, that is, OTA services. Users can upgrade the functions of the car at home without going to the store. Let the car have the ability to continuously evolve itself."

Straubel's eyes lit up. The OTA service has only been applied to cars in recent years. It is also an innovation. The full name is Over the Air online upgrade.

It refers to the technology of updating the data stored in the terminal through the network connection of the server, mobile communication network and terminal, and then improving the function and service of the terminal.

This technology was first applied on PCs, and in recent years it has gradually been applied to the mobile phone industry, and it is less used in the automotive industry.

This is because traditional car companies mainly adopt distributed electronic and electrical architectures. Car companies integrate systems from different suppliers, which also brings problems such as a large number of ECUs (driving computers) and low unified update efficiency. The most complex cars have Nearly a hundred ECUs.

"You mean, let Tesla enter the software field?" Straubel looked at Franz.

"It's not what he meant, but what I meant." Xia Jingxing answered with a smile.

Under Straubel's puzzled gaze, Xia Jingxing explained: "Traditional car companies have a century-old history, and at the same time, because of this long history, they have burdened themselves, or restricted themselves.

Tesla is different, we have no historical baggage, clean like a blank sheet of paper, we can write and draw on it at will. "

Straubel somewhat understood some of Xia Jingxing's thoughts, and wanted to overtake traditional car companies in the software field.

"The major car companies are now only scratching the surface of OTAs, and no one dares to go too deep." Straubel said.

Xia Jingxing replied: "That's because traditional cars use a distributed electronic and electrical architecture, and we plan to adopt a centralized electronic and electrical architecture to reduce the number of ECUs as much as possible."