Although the meeting lasts for three days, the actual time is only two and a half days. In the remaining half day, a plenary meeting will be held, and the leaders of major companies will also be given time to rush back.
So on the first day, Zhao Yi held a very efficient meeting. In just one day, he basically completed half of the tasks. At the same time, this high-intensity meeting was also a test for his physical and mental strength.
In order to avoid drinking too much and rest early, a buffet was prepared for dinner. After Zhao Yi arrived to meet with the heads of major companies, he finished the dinner as quickly as possible.
As for tonight's activity schedule, it is a free activity. All facilities in his home, except the laboratory, are all open. The heads of major companies can relax as they want.
The next day, like yesterday, Zhao Yi started the meeting early. The first group was Cornerstone Materials Company and Shenlong Automobile Company. He had his own reasons for putting these two companies together.
First, Cornerstone Materials Company reported their plans, and other arrangements are being carried out in an orderly manner. Whether it is research and development or production expansion, they are all based on market demand.
The only difference is that the photovoltaic coating they jointly developed with Zhao Yi was originally intended to be used in building exterior wall coatings. Therefore, they developed various color coatings matching the photovoltaic coating according to actual needs.
In order to improve the power generation efficiency, photovoltaic coatings are colored gray. If the exterior walls of buildings in the entire city were painted in this color, the overall aesthetics would be much worse.
Therefore, in order to change this single color tone, it is necessary to provide coatings of other colors that match it, and it cannot significantly reduce the power generation efficiency, which is relatively difficult.
Fortunately, when Zhao Yi was developing photovoltaic coatings at Cornerstone Materials, he not only developed a product, but also summarized the key theoretical basis of this research and development to provide theoretical support for Cornerstone Materials' subsequent research.
Although photovoltaic coatings in a full range of colors have not yet been developed, the current progress is quite smooth. Photovoltaic coating products in several colors have been developed, and the power generation rate has basically reached 50%, and the effect is very good.
As for mass production, Cornerstone Materials Company has not had such plans before, because the urbanization construction of China Housing Corporation has just begun, and the completion of the first batch of buildings will have to wait until a year later, or even longer.
However, Zhao Yi decided to ask Xinhui Energy Company to reduce the construction of thermal power stations, basically maintaining the current scale of thermal power generation, and will completely switch to photovoltaic power generation in the future.
Nowadays, the relevant technologies for photovoltaic power generation are basically available. The most important thing for photovoltaic power generation is photovoltaic coating, followed by inverter and finally electric energy storage equipment.
As for other brackets and glass covers, they are all small parts. Even if they are constructed according to high standards and high-grade glass products, Cornerstone Materials can supply them on a large scale, and the products are basically ready-made.
Of course, since the photovoltaic power plant is planned to be built in the desert, other supporting technologies are also indispensable, such as how to avoid large-scale sandstorms and how to conduct large-scale construction and management in the desert.
More importantly, the scale of this kind of power plant is very large. How to carry out daily management of these power generation equipment is a problem that cannot be ignored.
Although the previous plan to build all the remaining 400,000 square kilometers of desert into photovoltaic power plants was a bit exaggerated, the overall plan will not be too different.
Therefore, with such a large area and large number of power generation equipment, management problems must be solved. Currently, Xinhui Energy Company is conducting research in this area to reduce manual management and improve the level of automated management.
Because labor costs will only get higher in the future, and power generation itself is a low-profit industry. If the degree of labor participation is too high, it will be very difficult to reduce costs.
As for the fear of generating too much electricity and not being able to sell it, again, although it seems that we can’t use that much electric energy at the moment, this illusion is actually because the electric energy itself is scarce and expensive, and everyone is considering using it.
Moreover, the price of electric energy is high, which also limits the use scenarios of electric energy by more industrial, agricultural and businessmen. The most typical example is that if electric energy is cheap, Tianji Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company does not need to use large-scale land to produce crops.
Because electric energy is used to generate the required light sources, various crops can be produced in large buildings, all day and night, and the demand for land will be greatly reduced.
Of course, when land costs are not that expensive, it is not necessary to build special agricultural buildings to produce agricultural products. On the contrary, it will increase production costs.
However, in the future, it is almost inevitable to use artificial light sources on a large scale in their farm sheds for production, because this artificial light source is much more adjustable than sunlight and can more accurately control the growth process of plants.
At the same time, it also reduces agriculture's dependence on sunlight, and the impact of climate and weather factors on agricultural production will be further reduced. More importantly, crops can grow day and night, and yields will naturally increase significantly.
Not to mention other things, the large-scale construction of photovoltaic power generation bases is bound to greatly improve our country's power supply capacity, which will naturally increase the price and cost of power supply.
Electric energy is the basis for industrial development. When the price of electric energy drops significantly, the cost of industrial products will naturally drop significantly, and the competitiveness of our country's products will increase.
Xinhui Energy Company's new energy plan naturally forces Cornerstone Materials to build a large-scale photovoltaic coating production plant in advance. They are currently building production bases specifically to supply Xinhui Energy Company in Lanzhou, Gansu and Xining, Qinghai.
Photovoltaic coatings are molecular materials with special traps. Not only are they difficult to develop, but they are also very difficult to produce according to ordinary production technology, and the cost will be very high.
However, if biotechnology is used for production, the difficulty will be greatly reduced, and the production bottleneck will be broken. This is why Cornerstone Materials is not afraid that other companies will imitate the photovoltaic coatings.
Because of large-scale production, the cost is simply unbearable with current production technology, but if biotechnology is used for production, the cost will become very low.
Of course, this is based on relevant biotechnology. In order to achieve the purpose of large-scale production and reduce the cost of use, the biotechnology and special microorganisms used in it were all developed by Zhao Yi himself.
Although Cornerstone Materials has mastered some microbial cultivation technologies and has used them in the production of many of their materials, it is still very difficult to rely on their own existing biotechnology.
Because this kind of biotechnology needs to devour the relevant raw materials, what is discharged is the photovoltaic coating that meets the requirements. This involves genetic customization technology, which is currently not mastered by Cornerstone Materials.
Currently, in the field of genetics, the most powerful one is Qingnong Biological Laboratory, while Cornerstone Materials Company masters microbial cultivation technology. Based on existing microorganisms in nature, it can produce products that meet its own requirements through step-by-step cultivation.
Therefore, although both are biotechnologies, the differences are not at the same level. This special microorganism does not exist in nature, and the current natural microorganisms cannot obtain this microorganism through cultivation.
Currently, Cornerstone Materials has preserved the mother plant. They have not mastered this microbial cultivation technology themselves, and Zhao Yi has no intention of providing these technologies to Cornerstone Materials.
Again, when it comes to gene-related technologies, Zhao Yi is more cautious. Even the genetic technology of Qingnong Biological Laboratory has many restrictions in the work regulations when it is actually applied, but it is relatively free during research.
In addition to production, if you want photovoltaic coatings to have photovoltaic effects, you also need high-tech spraying technology to apply the photovoltaic coatings into a three-layer single-molecule structure in sequence.
To this end, Zhao Yi personally developed a set of special equipment that can work very quickly while meeting the requirements, so as to further reduce the production cost of photovoltaic equipment.
After spraying, a layer of special transparent coating needs to be sprayed on the sprayed photovoltaic material. The light transmittance of this transparent coating reaches almost 100%, and it is antifouling, waterproof, fireproof, scratchproof and other properties. .
The purpose of this transparent coating is to protect the photovoltaic coating below. Otherwise, if it is sprayed on the building, it will be damaged by wind and sun.
In fact, this kind of transparent coating itself has very broad application prospects. When used in buildings, it can extend the service life of the building and reduce building maintenance costs.
There are many other uses. Any products that require anti-fouling, waterproof, fire-proof and scratch-proof properties can actually use this paint, and this paint is a colorless, odorless and healthy material.
Therefore, combined with Zhao Yi's technical support, the application cost of photovoltaic coatings has been greatly reduced. However, for companies that have not mastered the core manufacturing technology, the production cost alone is prohibitive.
Zhao Yiyi himself is increasingly leaning towards the use of biotechnology in the manufacturing of high-end materials, because if biotechnology is used well, it can not only significantly reduce production costs, but also produce products that cannot be produced by current ordinary chemical and mechanical technologies. High-tech products.
In addition, through the production of microbial technology, the pollution produced by the process is very small, at least much cleaner than chemical methods, and the utilization rate of raw materials is very high, which will further reduce costs.
However, the research and development process of microorganisms itself is actually very dangerous, and a little carelessness can cause huge losses. This is why Zhao Yi is unwilling to use microbial technology to solve everything.
Unless he personally takes part, it is difficult to ensure that other people will not have problems during the research and development process. Therefore, the biotechnology he provides to Cornerstone Materials Company is mainly based on transformation, which is much less dangerous.
However, using genetic technology to directly create microorganisms out of nothing is several levels more difficult and dangerous. If an unexpected situation occurs and microorganisms that are devastating to humans are developed, it will cause a catastrophe.
It is precisely because of the awareness of the dangers of microorganisms that Qingnong Biological Laboratory only uses genetic technology to cultivate new plant varieties. The research on microorganisms is much more rigorous, so the results are relatively few.
This is one of the reasons why Qingnong Biological Laboratory wants to establish various gene banks, because creating gene fragments out of thin air has great uncertainty.
But if we look for genes from nature and study these gene fragments, the safety will be much higher, the predictability will be much higher, and the harm caused will be relatively less.
At the meeting, Zhao Yi asked Cornerstone Materials to be highly cooperative with Xinhui Energy Company’s plans, and also asked them to speed up research on other photovoltaic coatings to meet the needs of Chinese housing companies.
Then Zhao Yi began to ask about the situation of Shenlong Automobile Company, mainly about electric vehicles and fuel vehicle technology. Shenlong Automobile Company has reached a point where he does not need to worry too much.
According to Sun Zhaoxi's report, after receiving the task, Shenlong Automobile Company arranged a large number of R&D engineers to participate in the research and development of electric vehicles.
In the past, the breakthrough of high-performance motors was a bit slow, which slowed down the overall progress. Now that this area has been handed over to Star Power Company, the research and development progress in other aspects has been accelerated a lot.
According to Sun Zhaoxi, Shenlong Automobile Company will be able to launch various vehicle designs in April this year, but when it will be finalized and mass-produced depends on when Star Power Company's electric power system will be mass-produced.
Based on Star Power Company's technical strength and their current research progress, Zhao Yi gave Sun Zhaoxi a guarantee that Star Power Company would be able to start mass production of the electric power system no later than June.
The electric power system also needs to be divided into several levels. There are still big parameter differences between sports cars and ordinary cars. However, the current domestic demand for high-end models is not large, and it does not matter if there is no mass production for the time being.
In addition to being concerned about the development of their electric vehicles, Zhao Yi also asked Shenlong Motors to significantly reduce the price of electric vehicles to about 20,000 yuan.
Previously, the price of Shenlong Automobile Company's cheapest car brand started at 50,000 yuan. The reason why Shenlong Automobile Company was asked to further lower the price was to further lower the threshold for ordinary people to own their first car.
By the end of last year, the national average monthly salary was about 500 yuan. Since there are no specific statistics yet, this is Zhao Yi's own assessment, but the difference should not be very big.
In other words, the national average annual income is about 6,000 yuan, which is about 3,000 US dollars. According to the configuration of a dual-income family, plus deducting the cost of living, based on half calculation, a family will have a surplus of about 6,000 yuan.
An ordinary two-income family can buy an electric car with good configuration in about three years. This is considered a relatively suitable price in Zhao Yi’s opinion. If the family has more employees, they can use their first car more quickly. a car.
But if you want to lower the selling price, you must reduce the overall cost. This is not the decision of Shenlong Automobile Company, so he called Cornerstone Materials Company together for a meeting.
In terms of automobile costs, in addition to technical costs, there are material costs. In terms of technology, except for the power system, Shenlong Automobile Company basically controls all of them. It is very easy to reduce costs.
But for material costs and power system costs, we need to look at Cornerstone Materials Company and Star Power Company. Star Power Company Zhao Yi has already told them not to sell the basic model of electric power system too expensive and to moderately reduce profit margins.
As for Cornerstone Materials, it is even easier. There is basically no difference between the materials used in electric vehicles and those used in fuel vehicles. This part of the research and development expenses has already been earned back.
So now that the Cornerstone Materials Company is asked to reduce the supply of raw materials, Wen Sheng agrees without hesitation. Their profit margins were actually very high before. In addition, they have been producing for so many years, and there is a good profit margin for lowering the selling price.
However, after the price of automotive materials at Cornerstone Materials Company is reduced, the price sold to other companies must also be reduced. Otherwise, the reputation of doing business will be destroyed.
In order to maintain their previous profit margins, they need to subsequently develop higher-end automotive materials, and current automotive materials are sold as low-end materials.
When Sun Zhaoxi heard Wen Sheng agreed, he felt even more confident. Although the profit from producing this kind of car was very low, the domestic market was very large and it was also a new market, which was still beneficial to Shenlong Automobile Company. of.
If the price of Shenlong Motors' electric vehicles is really reduced to a starting price of 20,000 yuan, and the cost of using electric vehicles is very low, domestic annual sales can be conservatively estimated to reach about 5 million vehicles.
This will instantly expand the domestic automobile market demand to 10 times, and automobile-related industries can also develop, such as automobile finance, automobile parts, automobile decoration and other service industries, which will also prosper.
Although there are so many benefits, Sun Zhaoxi still expressed his concerns, since Shenlong Automobile Company has reduced the price of cars, and the prices of new energy vehicles to such a low level.
So how can other automobile companies survive? The reason why Shenlong Motors set the starting price at 50,000 yuan was to give other automobile companies room to survive and avoid intensification of conflicts.
Upon hearing his concerns, Zhao thought for a moment and said: "You are negotiating with major automobile companies across the country for acquisitions. If you agree, you will use their brands to produce such low-priced electric vehicles.
If you don't agree, then don't worry about it. Just tell them clearly that we can't take care of their interests for the rest of our lives. There's no reason for that. "
"Then what if we are required to continue to license technology to them?" Sun Zhaoxi asked.
Sun Zhaoxi asked this not because he wanted to do this, but because he cared about Zhao Yi's feelings, because Zhao Yi had done this before, licensing low-price technology to domestic automobile manufacturers so that they could continue to survive.
Facing Sun Zhaoxi's question, Zhao Yi thought for a moment and said: "Technical licensing is also possible, but you can't license it at a low price. Just follow the market price. If they can't survive, there is no need to exist.
However, I estimate that if they license technology according to market prices, their costs will be higher than yours. By then, they will basically be unprofitable, and the final outcome will not be much better. "
Hearing what Zhao Yi said, Sun Zhaoxi felt reassured. In any case, everything would follow market rules from now on, and there was no need to give in to competition in the automobile market.
As for the unemployment problem caused by the collapse of these automobile companies, there is actually no need to worry too much. There are now many job opportunities in the country.
Moreover, due to the expansion of the domestic automobile market, the demand for workers in the automobile industry will also expand. When the time comes, it will be enough for Shenlong Automobile Company to attract these workers to work, and they will also be skilled workers.
"By the way, your electric vehicles are only sold domestically for the time being. Foreign countries can still follow the previous strategy, at least until there is strong demand for new energy vehicles abroad." Zhao Yi said.
Sun Zhaoxi has no objection to this. Even if he wants to sell his electric vehicle company abroad, there are no relevant supporting facilities. It is more troublesome to use than a fuel vehicle, so naturally there will not be many buyers.
What Shenlong Automobile Company has to do now is to maintain its high-end car market abroad, while continuing to develop more technologies and patents in the field of electric vehicles, and just establish a patent moat in advance. (End of chapter)