The three-day meeting passed by in a blink of an eye. Although such a high-intensity meeting made Zhao Yi and Lin Hexia a little tired, seeing that the development of their companies was still booming, their inner happiness diluted their fatigue a lot.
According to his calculations, the proportion of his industries in the total domestic economy has increased, because the main driving force of economic growth last year still came from his industries.
Therefore, the development of the domestic economy is not amplified in equal proportions. The development speed of its industries is obviously much faster, especially the two enterprises of China Housing Company and Xuantian Technology Company, whose contributions are very obvious.
As for the industrial development of other companies, traditional businesses have improved and their market share has increased. In addition, every company has more or less new businesses.
Although in his opinion, these new businesses are not particularly surprising, they still contribute a lot to their increase in market share. After all, in terms of innovation capabilities, his companies are still much stronger than other companies.
He was previously worried about the lack of innovation in his companies, which is groundbreaking innovation capabilities. His companies are not lacking in small innovations, otherwise they would not be able to develop to where they are today.
After all, the technology he provides is just technology. If you want to bring the technology into full play, the innovation required is also essential. However, compared to the artificial intelligence behind Xuantian Technology Company, it still feels slightly insufficient.
After the meeting, Zhao Yi and Lin Hexia sat on the sofa in the living room and chatted, mainly about their feelings about the three days of meetings. As the person in charge of the overall situation, Zhao Yi was accustomed to this.
But as a bystander, Lin Hexia usually doesn't pay much attention to the operating conditions of these companies. Even if she attends such annual meetings, she has been fully involved since last year. It is inevitable that her ideas will be slightly different from Zhao Yi's.
Therefore, after the meeting, Lin Hexia will sort out her feelings after experiencing the three-day meeting as another opinion for Zhao Yi to refer to, and maybe there will be different findings.
This time, we focused on the construction of domestic urban railways. Because Hong Kong Umbrella Holdings owns the Hong Kong MTR Corporation, she still has a certain say in this aspect.
This time he mainly talked about the cost of building urban railways in China. Lin Hexia was very worried about China Housing Corporation bearing the operational risks brought about by the construction of urban railways. She was not as optimistic about this as Zhao Yi.
First of all, she provided the operating status of subways in major cities around the world. Basically, they are all in a state of loss, but only a few are profitable. Many subways rely on city financial subsidies to survive.
Hong Kong MTR is one of the few companies that has made a profit, but this profit is not the income from the subway fare itself, but the ground property income attached to the Hong Kong MTR, which makes up for the losses caused by the subway fare, and is generally profitable.
Compared with Hong Kong, although domestic big cities have relatively larger populations, their urban areas are much larger than Hong Kong. This means that the population density is very low, and the revenue generated per unit mile of the subway will be much lower.
Therefore, she is more worried that China Housing Corporation will suffer huge losses in urban rail operations in the future. If it is a city, it will not matter. With the size of China Housing Corporation, this loss can still be afforded.
However, there are more than 150 cities in my country that are equipped to build urban railways in the future. If each city loses an average of 1 billion yuan a year, the total loss in that year will be as high as more than 150 billion yuan.
The overall strength of China Housing Corporation will be able to bear this operating cost in the future, but the main responsibilities must be clearly clarified. This itself is part of the public service product and is not a completely commercial product.
So what Lin Hexia means is that China Housing Corporation must clarify the relevant compensation agreement when negotiating with the government, otherwise there will definitely be problems later.
In business matters, one must treat villains first before gentlemen. If this aspect is not discussed in advance, it is best not to rashly agree to invest in the urban railway. This was the advice Lin Hexia gave Zhao Yi.
In addition, Lin Hexia also provided many ways to commercialize the subway, such as making the internal space of the subway station larger, and commercial shops can be built inside to develop financial resources for the subway company.
In addition to developing more financial resources, you also need to save costs as much as possible. Saving money is a very effective way to reduce losses without reducing service quality.
In fact, Zhao Yi also has this idea. For example, they equipped low-speed maglev trains with automatic driving technology in order to reduce the need for relevant personnel.
Moreover, the reason why Star Power Company came up with a satisfactory power system so late is to save energy consumption and reduce the operating costs of the subway.
Even the necessary staff on the subway in the future will use robots to replace real people. Anyway, any solution that can save costs is a very necessary attempt.
In fact, if we look at the overall situation, even if the China Housing Corporation has suffered a loss, it is not a big loss. The reason is that they have already taken the properties on the urban railway line into their own hands.
Although the urban railway operation is loss-making, the properties along these urban railway lines are rising, which will bring huge profits to China Housing Company. Coupled with the use of China's cost-saving technology, it should be profitable overall.
But that cannot be said. Negotiations with the local government still need to be done, because the interest losses caused by such a huge capital investment need to be calculated, and we cannot just look at the superficial losses.
If the average investment scale of these 150 cities is 50 billion yuan, the total investment scale in subways alone will be as high as 7.5 trillion yuan. If calculated based on an interest rate of 5% per year, the interest loss alone will be as high as 375 billion yuan per year.
Therefore, the local government must make up for the losses in urban rail operations, and the related property income will be counted as interest income from China Housing Company's investment. Only in this way can the accounting be considered normal.
To be honest, the construction cost of maglev trains is indeed much higher than that of ordinary subways. If the construction cost can be controlled at about 100 million yuan per kilometer, it is relatively appropriate.
With a cost of 300 million yuan per kilometer, future operating pressure will definitely be great, but he believes that low-speed maglev is the most suitable type of urban rail transportation.
However, the reason why the cost is so high is not entirely because the construction cost is so high, but because my country's maglev industrial chain is currently immature.
This large-scale use of maglev on urban railways requires my country to establish a complete maglev industry chain, and the cost of building a new industry chain is itself high.
Therefore, this cost refers to the initial cost. It remains to be seen what the future construction cost will be. This depends on the maturity of the industry chain and the cost reduction brought about by subsequent technological improvements.
It was precisely because he wanted to promote the maglevization of domestic urban railways that he asked China Housing Corporation to undertake the construction and operation, because he was afraid that others would not agree.
After all, compared with the cost of maglev, ordinary subway technology is actually very mature. Even if our country has not mastered this technology before, many technologies for our country's ultra-high-speed railway are readily available.
Even if we now develop our own ordinary subway, the cost per kilometer is about 100 million yuan, which is much lower than that of maglev, because our country is already quite mature in the industrial chain of ordinary subway, and there is no need to build a new industrial chain at all.
Zhao Yi sat there and thought for a moment, wondering whether he should come up with more advanced technology to reduce the construction and operating costs of maglev.
The biggest cost of maglev trains is not the train technology, but the cost of their tracks. The tracks need to have strong repulsive force against the magnetic field so that the train can be levitated.
But it is definitely impossible to achieve this with ordinary materials. The most ideal state is a superconductor, which can completely repel the magnetic field generated by the train.
At present, they are using so-called high-temperature superconductors, which actually require a lot of cost to maintain the superconducting effect, which virtually increases costs, including the cost of the superconductor material itself.
As for the maglev train, many technologies can be directly transplanted from the high-speed rail. However, a magnetic field generator needs to be configured below to generate a strong magnetic field and create a repulsive force with the superconducting rails.
So he only needs to solve two problems. The first is room-temperature superconducting materials, which can reduce the cost of realizing superconductivity and reduce the operating costs of the maglev subway.
The second is to reduce the production cost of room-temperature superconducting materials. This is the most effective way to reduce the cost of laying maglev lines, and this cost is the bulk of maglev line construction.
If these two problems are solved, the construction cost of low-speed maglev may be reduced to about 100 million yuan per kilometer, which will be no different from ordinary subways.
And because the power cost of maglev is much lower than that of ordinary railways, it reduces subsequent operating costs and is generally more cost-effective than ordinary subways.
Moreover, bringing out these two advanced technologies is of great significance to the research and development of ultra-high-speed maglev. Perhaps in the future, ultra-high-speed maglev will really replace the existing ultra-high-speed railway. After all, the construction costs of the two will be similar at that time. .
Moreover, room-temperature superconducting materials have a wide range of uses. They are not only used on maglev trains, but can be used anywhere as long as they are cheap enough.
The reason why he has not come up with room-temperature superconducting materials before is mainly because he hopes that the outside scientific community can develop them on their own, and cannot always do everything by themselves.
Now it seems that if I don't do it myself, it is estimated that it will be unlikely to be developed until the Year of the Monkey, because Cornerstone Materials, which has advanced material technology, has not touched the edge of room temperature superconducting materials yet.
They have developed carbon nanometer ultra-low resistance materials, which are now widely used in high-voltage power transmission and daily life, gradually replacing the status of metal wires and becoming the best wire product.
The metal with the lowest resistance in nature is silver, but silver is very expensive. The ultra-low resistance nanomaterials they developed have even lower resistance than silver, but the price is much lower.
Anyway, this material is widely used in all buildings built by China Housing Corporation, because it saves a lot of energy and generates very little heat, reducing the risk of disasters.
The only troublesome thing is that the splicing of carbon nanomaterials is more difficult than that of metal wires and requires special equipment. However, compared with their excellent characteristics, this shortcoming can be ignored.
This material alone can bring 700 billion yuan in revenue to Cornerstone Materials every year. This is still only supplied to the domestic market. If it is supplied to the global market, the revenue will expand a lot, and it is estimated to reach a scale of trillions of yuan.
The reason why the domestic market is so large is mainly because the country is undergoing large-scale infrastructure construction, and the demand for conductor materials is very large. After the peak period of infrastructure construction passes, the demand will fall back, and the domestic market may shrink to about 500 billion yuan.
It is precisely because they expect a significant shrinkage in the future that they are unwilling to expand production capacity to provide exports, giving priority to satisfying the domestic market. When the domestic market shrinks, they will use excess production capacity for exports.
Anyway, good things are generally easy to sell, and it belongs to a complete seller's market. They do not need to rush to expand the market, because the associated costs will also increase, and the profit margin will be reduced a lot.
If superconducting materials with suitable costs are produced, the market size will also be large. Although the specific market size cannot be estimated at the moment, this material can be used in almost all high-precision technical fields.
The superconducting materials currently on the market are all low-temperature superconducting materials. It was only in 1987 that the liquid nitrogen temperature zone was broken through, making large-scale application of low-temperature superconducting possible.
It can be said that research in the field of superconductivity has just begun. The high-temperature superconducting materials he has produced before are absolutely leading in the world.
He originally thought that with such advanced superconducting materials, he could finally cope with it for a while, but now the real problem is before him, and there is a strong demand for room temperature superconducting materials.
If he continues to be pretentious at this time, there is no need to hide it, so what he needs to consider now is how to run this business.
According to past practice, it must be left to Cornerstone Materials Company to operate, but Cornerstone Materials Company is now the only one, and he is considering whether to put some competitive pressure on them.
At present, Cornerstone Materials is doing well and has not seen any obvious big company problems, but this does not mean that it will be the same in the future, so it is very necessary to find a comparable competitor for them.
So he thought about it and decided to set up a materials subsidiary under Xuantian Technology Company to specialize in the research, development, production and sales of materials.
However, in view of the characteristics of Xuantian Technology Company, he does not plan to recruit a large number of employees, because the more employees there are, the more troubles and management efforts will be required, so this business needs to wait until the robots are mass-produced.
Fortunately, this matter is not particularly urgent. The construction of the subway is very time-consuming, and it is completely within the time limit. Moreover, replacing materials is not particularly difficult for CRRC Group.
However, given the advanced nature of superconducting materials, even if the cost is very low, the selling price will still not be low, so the initial subway construction cost may still remain at 200 million yuan per kilometer.
In fact, no matter how much the cost is, as long as the meat is rotten in a pot, the actual cost is not that high. If Xuantian Technology Company earns high profits, and China Housing Company is under huge cost pressure.
But from his point of view, the two companies can completely hedge, but the impression given to the outside world is that the cost is high, and the pressure on outsiders to make similar purchases is very high.
Therefore, in his opinion, there is no big problem whether the selling price is high or low. The reason why the selling price is high is that it will be of great benefit to the business outside his corporate system.
This strategy is very common within his companies. For example, Cornerstone Materials' carbon nanowires can be sold at a lower price, but they insist on maintaining a higher price.
The purpose is to make economies outside the internal system bear higher costs. Among internal enterprises, no matter how much Cornerstone Materials Company makes, it will not need to support the Chinese Housing Company with the excess profits in the end.
Urban transportation is one of the most important issues in urban management. The construction of urban railways is only said to relieve traffic pressure, but it cannot completely eliminate traffic congestion.
In the previous life, the subway lines in the capital were so long, but the ground transportation lines would still be congested. Even if the current population would probably not be as large as in the previous life, after all, the distribution of social resources now is much more balanced than in the previous life.
However, there is no guarantee that large-scale congestion will not occur in the future. Therefore, in addition to building urban railways, other measures are needed to further reduce urban traffic congestion.
With the improvement of people's living standards, public transportation such as buses will become less and less favored by the people because of many shortcomings. In his previous life, he didn't like taking buses and would only take them if he had no other choice.
Therefore, the only solution is to increase the supply of taxis and cooperate with taxi-hailing software so that urban residents can take a taxi anytime and anywhere with very little waiting time.
In fact, Shangtong Trading Company already has such a taxi-hailing software, but it has not launched a private car service business. It is not because they cannot do it, but to ensure the stability of the current taxi system.
Moreover, domestic employment is currently quite sufficient and tight. Even if private car services are launched, there will not be many people engaged in this industry.
At present, the human resources of the whole society are tight. Even if private car services are launched, their income will not be much higher than the average income, and they can only basically maintain a balance.
Because if the income is very high and a large number of people are absorbed by this industry, then there will be fewer human resources in other industries, which is detrimental to the current social and economic development.
At least it is inappropriate to launch such a service at the moment. We need to wait until domestic human resources are relatively sufficient before launching such a business to solve the employment problem.
Fortunately, no one has launched similar services yet. If a competitor launches private car services, Shangtong Trading Company will passively launch related businesses.
What he is considering now is whether to launch driverless taxis. Even if the current driverless technology is combined with the smart city brain, it is difficult to ensure safety.
After all, the complexity of urban roads is much higher, and there are also 3D road networks in some cities. Not to mention autonomous driving, even drivers sometimes become confused. The most typical city is Chongqing.
It is said that the city will cause navigation failure, the city is completely 3D, even if it is not such a special city, with the current autonomous driving technology, it is impossible to completely separate from the presence of the driver.
The driverless taxi he wants is truly driverless. Its driving skills are much higher than those of experienced drivers, and it can handle all urban road driving conditions.
At present, the most widely used domestic self-driving technology is in highway driving. The combination of self-driving technology and global satellite communication technology can make it possible to almost eliminate the need for a driver.
However, at present, all transportation companies still arrange drivers. On the one hand, they are to deal with emergencies of the transportation vehicles themselves, and on the other hand, personnel are needed to drive when they get off the highway.
However, in the past, it was necessary to configure two drivers to alternate driving with each other to avoid fatigue driving. Now it is basically necessary to configure one driver, which reduces the operating costs of transportation companies.
Therefore, the driverless taxi he envisioned must not be the current artificial intelligence technology, but artificial technology at the same level as robots, which can solve the problem.
But he has no plans to spread this level of artificial intelligence technology, so this business should also be operated by Xuantian Technology Company.
He told Lin Hexia about his idea and wanted to hear her opinion. After all, launching driverless taxis was not difficult, at least for him.
But we need to think carefully about whether it will bring about other problems, such as whether existing taxi drivers will resist, because after the launch of this business, it will seriously damage the interests of existing taxi drivers and enterprises.
If there is too much opposition, the government is likely to intervene. This cannot be solved with advanced technology, so we need to find a way to deal with it properly.
Lin Hexia listened to his words and said directly: "If there is no proper way to deal with it, your business will definitely be boycotted on a large scale after it is launched, and the possibility of government intervention cannot be ruled out.
Even if the government does not intervene, your self-driving car will be destroyed by others when it drives on the road. Although the vandals can be held legally responsible, sometimes the law does not hold everyone accountable.
When all the taxi drivers come to cause damage, then you don't have much to do. You can only bear the losses yourself. Presumably such driverless taxis are not cheap. "
The main reason is that after the launch of this kind of driverless taxi, the only beneficiaries will be Xuantian Technology Company and ordinary citizens. Taxi drivers and companies will lose their jobs and go bankrupt because of this.
The main reason why those special cars, express trains, etc. in the previous life existed was that they did not eliminate jobs. Instead, the reduction in overall fares expanded the market size, created more employees, and increased the number of jobs.
Therefore, even if the taxi drivers object, they will only impose some restrictions. It is impossible to completely resist. After all, from a government perspective, if it can increase jobs, they will not object.
What the government needs to take care of is the interests of the vast majority of people. Even though there are many taxi drivers, their interests are much smaller than the larger number of private car drivers and express drivers.
But his driverless taxi will directly eliminate taxi drivers and reduce the number of jobs in this industry. This is something the government cannot tolerate. If there is no good solution, it is estimated that it will be difficult to obtain operating qualifications.
"Then we can only negotiate. All current taxi drivers will be laid off, and the unmanned taxi company of Xuantian Technology Company will provide monthly subsidies. In this way, there will be no objection." Zhao Yi said.
"This is a way. Although maintaining taxi drivers will definitely increase the cost, the number of driverless taxis will definitely be very large, and the cost per kilometer will definitely be lower than now, which will invisibly expand the market size.
So even if we keep these taxi drivers, we will get a lot of benefits. Generally speaking, it is a relatively cost-effective business, and other companies cannot compete.
However, this also involves the taxi company behind it. Taxi companies generally have complex backgrounds and are quite troublesome to deal with. How do you plan to deal with this? Lin Hexia asked.
"This is very simple. Those who accept the acquisition will be acquired. Those who do not accept the acquisition will be ignored and directly let them go bankrupt. Business operation itself has risks. Isn't bankruptcy a normal thing?" Zhao Yi said.
The composition of taxi companies is very complex, including private, collective and state-owned. However, apart from the valuable business license, taxi companies do not have many valuable things left.
Therefore, even if it is to acquire taxi companies across the country, it will not cost much. As for high-premium acquisitions, he has no interest. His acquisitions are just to allow these companies to exit in a dignified manner, rather than normal commercial acquisitions. (End of chapter)