Chapter 1439

On the plane, Li Mu planned the overall path of the electric vehicle project for Elon Musk.

Step 1: Li Mu and he jointly invested 50 million US dollars in the proportion of 7:3 to set up a new energy automobile company. A part of 50 million US dollars is used to acquire the R & D team he is following up. The rest is used as the R & D fund of the team; the next key public relations direction of the team is lithium The related technologies of battery pack, followed by driving motor technology and peripheral supporting technology;

Second, Elon Musk needs to set up a professional team in charge of automobile research and development, while starting to design the framework, chassis, safety and aerodynamics of new energy vehicles, at the same time, he has a deep understanding of several private automobile enterprises in China for the next acquisition Make preparations;

there are two options for acquisition: one is to directly acquire domestic automobile enterprises, and the other is to acquire production lines of automobile enterprises. The former requires a large amount of capital. If the capital is abundant then it will be OK. If the capital is not so generous, then it is necessary to choose the acquisition production line. Many domestic automobile enterprises are not living well now, and the production capacity cannot be fully opened Under the circumstances, it's not impossible to squeeze several production lines and free up a production line to cash in. For Li Mu, a low-end production line is better than all the previous ones;

thirdly, Li Mu specifically requires Elon Musk to give up his blind pursuit of forcing when running the new energy vehicle project If you want to build a new energy vehicle with a unit price of US $100000 and make such expensive things, who else can you sell it to in the first two or three years besides the forced criminals in the Internet industry?

Elon Musk couldn't understand the concept of "road to simplicity" that car building is four wheels plus sofa. He thought that cars, like launch vehicles, are the crystallization of modern industrial achievements. To build a good car, there are too many places to work hard. So he said to Li Mu, "President Li, I hope our new energy car in the future is an excellent, outstanding and very To be an epoch-making product, it may even accelerate from 0 to 60 miles in 3.5 seconds, with strong power, quiet driving, intelligent control, full of a sense of future... "

Li Mu asked him, "do you know which car company is the most profitable in the world?"

"I know." "Toyota," Elon Musk said

Li Mu nodded and asked him, "why does Toyota make the most money? In this year's ranking, his operating income is lower than that of GM and Ford, but his net profit is dozens of times that of GM. Ford's net profit is even negative. Although Volkswagen makes a lot of money, its profit margin and net profit are lower than that of Toyota. Why do you think this is? "

"Mr. Li, the whole Toyota Group operates more flexibly and smoothly than other auto companies, and it is highly efficient. It also captures the market demand very accurately. For consumers, the product fit is high," said Elon Musk with a smile

Li Mu asked him, "do you think you want to build an electric vehicle of 100000 US dollars and capture the market demand accurately? Does it fit the consumer well? "

"This..."

Elon Musk has a few words, but he is still reluctant to adopt Li Mu's words in his heart. He understands Li Mu's meaning, which is just to lower his stature, lower the threshold, and then sell the low threshold new energy vehicles to the whole world, which may indeed make the new energy vehicles have more audiences, but it still lacks the sense of shock. If the new energy vehicles are manufactured, they will have more audiences If the product is not good enough, he will lose a lot of power.

Li Mu also saw his mood and said lightly: "I'm not against your idea of building a top new energy sports car. You can make this team move towards this goal in the future. After all, it's always good to have a higher technical accumulation. We can accommodate it at any time, but you can't rely on a product that is not grounded enough for the future of the enterprise Therefore, in the selection of major models, you must reduce the positioning and use more production capacity as a mass production of cheaper goods. "

Elon Musk nodded and said, "OK, Mr. Li, I see what you mean."

Li Mu knows that he understands what he means, but he doesn't know if he agrees with his point of view. However, let him set up the stall first. If he is determined to follow the same path Tesla has gone through in his last life, he will never allow it.

Later, Li Mu turned the subject aside and reminded him, "since you have decided to do new energy, you have to catch up with many things in advance now, otherwise you will be easily strangled by others in the future."

Elon Musk subconsciously asked, "what do you mean?"

"Battery." Li Mu said, "I don't know how powerful the team you are talking about is able to develop the battery pack and battery management technology. I only know that the capacity of an 18650 battery is only 2300 ma. If you want to have a range of several hundred kilometers, you need at least thousands of such batteries."

"Yes, Mr. Li," Elon Musk nodded, "under normal circumstances, we need at least 7000 batteries to ensure a 400 kilometer endurance."

Li Mu sighed: "if you sell a car, others will sell 7000 batteries. If they earn $1 for each battery, then you sell a car, which is equivalent to helping battery manufacturers earn $7000. Whether we can earn $7000 by selling a car ourselves is unknown. If they intercept most of the net profits in the future, then We will lose all the initiative. You should be prepared for this problem. Don't be strangled by the upstream raw material suppliers. ""18650 battery technology is available to many enterprises, but there is a slight gap in product performance and quality control. This market can't be monopolized, so I think we still have negotiation advantages in the future in front of battery enterprises," Elon Musk said

Li Mu shakes his head secretly.

Although Elon Musk is known as the real Silicon Valley iron man, this guy is not rigorous enough. Although he has a long-term vision, he is relatively scared by many loopholes and omissions.

The problem of not considering the production capacity in advance is that Tesla suffered a lot in the last life, while the battery cost accounts for too much of the total vehicle cost, which is a fatal hole for Tesla. It's too late to expand the production capacity, research and develop the battery and build the super battery factory after many years. At that time, new energy vehicles were springing up all over the world Enterprises have announced that they will stop producing fuel vehicles in the near future, and governments of all countries have also stated that they will prohibit the sale of fuel vehicles in their own countries in the future. At that time, it has greatly delayed themselves to find ways to expand production capacity and develop and produce batteries, and wasted the advantage of starting earlier in vain.

Li Mu laments that Elon Musk didn't foresee that the battery would become a core pain point of the new energy project, which really disappointed him. After more than ten years, when the new energy vehicles spread all over the world, let alone the rising price of the battery, even the price of lithium and cobalt, the key raw materials of lithium battery, would soar.

In the future, when the new energy era comes, whoever has mastered cobalt will be the one who has mastered it He is the father of the whole new energy industry.

Li Mu thinks that it will take at least a few years for the rapid development of lithium battery. However, the related industries of cobalt and lithium should be in a low or even slow down period. If we can take a few years to lay out the global cobalt, lithium, and supporting production and smelting, then when the new energy era comes, the market value of these industries will be at least ten times or even dozens Times, this is a business with no loss and high profit margin.

What's more, with these core resources, Li Mu can catch the neck of the battery industry from the upstream of the electric vehicle industry. In the future, if these enterprises dare to pretend to force themselves to plunder their profits from the source and force them to comply, they can even lay out the industry of lithium battery production at that time and penetrate the upstream and downstream of the battery industry.

Once I can get through the upstream and downstream and form a closed-loop that will not be affected by the end, when the raw materials of lithium battery soar, I can not only ensure that my new energy vehicle cost has more elastic space, but also directly rely on my control over the upstream resources, I can vigorously roll the wool of other lithium battery manufacturers, to maximize the recovery of the new energy industry The growth of the market and the layout of this area will bring at least tens of times of profits, which is worth both economic and strategic perspectives.

So, after the plane landed and the arranged motorcade sent Li Mu and his party to the hotel in Harvard, Li Mu called Li Ziwei to her room and said to her, "Ziwei, I want to give you an important task. Please do it carefully in this period of time."

Li Ziwei said hurriedly, "Mr. Li, please tell me."

Li Mudao: "through the shell companies that have no direct contact with us, go to the internationally well-known commercial investigation enterprises to help me investigate the current market situation of the lithium battery industry, as well as the mining, production and processing of various key raw materials for the lithium battery. I want to go into the proven reserves and mining difficulties of each element in various countries around the world Yidu, the current mining situation, but also specific to the direction of these minerals after mining, such as which countries to go, by which companies for processing and refining, and sold to which companies. "

Li Ziwei nodded as she made a quick record with a pen. "I've written down Mr. Li. Is there anything else?"

Li Mu thought for a moment and said, "we should pay special attention to lithium and cobalt mines. I want to know the market trend of these two kinds of ores in the world, and whose hands are the main concentration of these two kinds of ore industries. Is it possible to win them? If so, how much money will be needed?"