ABT Chapter 162
Chapter 162: Setting Out Again
This news directly impacted the course of events. Many of those who had previously criticized Li Fanyu seemed to have been silenced, as if someone had taped their mouths shut, and they all disappeared without a trace.
With these negative voices gone, some discerning individuals suddenly realized: Zhengxin had firmly established itself in the automotive industry and couldn't be ousted.
At least in the domestic automotive industry, it had found fertile ground to thrive.
Why say so? Because the success of an automotive company depends on two main factors.
Firstly, your own capability. In other words, the strength of the company and its ability to produce satisfactory products for the market.
On this point, X-Power had already provided Zhengxin with a perfect answer. As a supercar with a price tag of over a million, achieving the current sales volume domestically at its launch was commendable for any automaker. Although there were suspicions of excessive marketing, the delivery of over 300 units, including the GT version, spoke volumes.
As for the V12 of Riesfast... well, let's not go there with the old jokes.
Secondly, whether the government believes in you or not. Often, it's not just about having a great product; it's also about aligning with the country's development trends. For instance, if the country aims for green energy, can you really build a large coal-fired power plant and expect to prosper?
Therefore, aligning with the national agenda is crucial, and in this regard, the conclusion had already been provided on the national news.
Apart from these, there's one more thing. But it's more of an extra credit, nice-to-have for domestic automotive companies, and that's reputation and recognition internationally.
After the dust settled on this matter, Li Fanyu upgraded the super production line. It was necessary; with the current production rate of one car every five days, the backlog of orders would stretch out for five years. So he directly used ten thousand points to upgrade the production line. Even at its full level five upgrade, it only increased the output to three cars per day.
But this solved many problems. For example, the export supply issue of X-PowerGT.
At the auto show, Li Fanyu signed contracts with seven distributors. Each distributor had their own region. As expected, the European distributors had a mediocre response because established supercar manufacturers were concentrated in that region. However, in the US and the Middle East, X-PowerGT received high praise.
Especially in the Middle East.
After clarifying his position, Li Fanyu focused all his energy on the production line. Since the orders signed overseas had delivery deadlines, after upgrading the production line, he delivered the first batch of 21 cars. Unexpectedly, three cars were sold out on the first day in the Middle East market. One of them was even sent by a Dubai owner to a modification workshop for a full gold plating treatment, showing off in social media.
Dubai, the city of extravagance, couldn't resist such show-off moves.
So the distributors went crazy. There were too many orders. The most extravagant customer bought a dozen cars directly. As a racing enthusiast, after test driving the X-PowerGT, he was thrilled. He prepaid three million dollars and ordered ten cars. He said he wanted to hold a race on his private track, and the performance of X-PowerGT was superior to his current F3 customized race car.
This was awkward, so the distributors called twice a day, across the ocean, with one purpose — to order more cars.
Although the US market trended well, customers there were more rational. The reason for purchase was simply the love for the driving experience of X-PowerGT. While some supercars might be faster than F3 level race cars in terms of speed, when it came to that feeling of flying close to the ground, one turn feeling like orbiting the earth, X-Power was superior.
With good reputation and exposure, the documentary "A Century of Cars" received positive feedback both domestically and internationally upon release.
In China, it was because Li Fanyu made an appearance, and the content of the interviews confirmed his character and values.
Internationally, the unique viewpoints and creative editing of the documentary received widespread praise, with expectations of competing for the Best Documentary Award in Hollywood this year.
Being in the spotlight wasn't beneficial for Li Fanyu. Fame didn't serve him well. For instance, this time, there were many people who wanted to see him make a fool of himself. Some were motivated by self-interest, while others simply disliked him.
In the end, he was moving too fast, and "the bigger the tree, the more wind it attracts" held true. He wasn't a celebrity; there was no need to maintain such a high level of exposure. He had made up his mind to minimize his public appearances in the future, preferring to represent the company, fading from people's view.
After being busy for over half a month, he finally temporarily satisfied the distributors. Only then did he leave and return to the company.
Zhengxin's used car platform had been fully promoted. With huge discounts and policy incentives, it quickly captured the market. Thanks to sufficient funds, the platform added some interactive content. In order to increase user stickiness, the platform cooperated with Pinche.com for embedded resource exchange.
In simple terms, the platform utilized some content resources from Pinche.com. Pinche.com embedded Zhengxin's used cars, benefiting from the platform's huge traffic dividends.
Both sides had their needs met, and it could be considered a win-win cooperation.
For this, Wang Dazui even joked that previously calling Pinche.com "Zhengxin's lackey" was inaccurate. Because Pinche.com didn't directly make money from Zhengxin, but now it couldn't be refuted, as the two companies were bound together by interests.
If they talked about Li Fanyu's rise to fame and any mergers and acquisitions in the future, he might end up being an employee of Boss Li.
With such a fierce offensive, just over a week after its launch, Zhengxin's used car platform quickly rose to the position of leader in the niche market.
During the testing phase, Li Fanyu had made comprehensive contingency plans for various aspects, so he was relieved to find that logistics and payment issues he had been concerned about did not arise. At present, things were looking quite successful.
Moreover, the Zhengxin used car platform had largely freed itself from reliance on the X workshop. The company had hired a team of appraisers who could professionally assess the condition of used cars. Because all the cars were sourced by Zhengxin without intermediaries, the profit margin from buying and selling alone was already quite substantial.
Li Fanyu was pleased with this situation; Xapp merely provided a feasible path for him, but the iron still needed to be strong. To grow stronger, he still needed to solidify the foundation step by step.
As for the Bai'ge Second-hand Car, after following the trend for over a month and spending the last round of Series B financing, it closed down after exhausting its resources.
The integration of Zhengxin Power had also been completed. Pan Qiang and Sun Guoyi cooperated seamlessly, with one managing production and the other exploring new opportunities. They had already laid the framework in a short time. Now, with just one command from Li Fanyu, they could set up a new factory to expand production capacity at any time.
The situation in the laboratory remained the same, taking on various testing projects from car companies here and there. The income was not much, but it was enough to sustain them. The number of student teams had increased to six, and Lao Zhang and An Ning were already overwhelmed. Even though the three top students had been included in the list of laboratory researchers, they were still busy.
But all these efforts were not in vain. The team from Nanhang Industrial College, who were the first to enter the laboratory for training, had their own research project now — optimization and improvement of pillar-type suspension. Meanwhile, the team led by the three top students was working on the ECU driving computer project.
Though the path of the laboratory was winding, hope could still be seen.
Li Fanyu thought carefully and realized that he had somewhat neglected the laboratory all along. When he really wanted to scale up in the future and compete with world-class brands, the shortage of scientific research talents would be a huge challenge.
So these seeds must be valued.
After checking the profit and loss statement for this period, he found that apart from the over fifty million recently invested in the used car platform, and the portion allocated for procurement reserves and future planning, the company's available funds were close to one hundred million.
So he took out one-tenth of it and allocated it to the laboratory as research funding for the incubator and repurchase funds for excellent projects in the future.
This greatly boosted the morale of the six teams.
After this news spread through the youth, Lao Zhang, responsible for team training, almost didn't dare to go home. Every night, there were one or two waves of people, either a director from this university or a vice president from that university. They stood at Lao Zhang's doorstep with smiles, bringing gifts and trying to build relationships, desperately trying to push people into the laboratory.
An Ning had been ignoring Li Fanyu recently, which made him quite upset. So whenever he had free time, he would go to the laboratory.
One day, while Lao Zhang was complaining endlessly about being harassed, An Ning stood by and smirked.
Seeing her long-lost smile, Li Fanyu felt much better.
But how long would this relaxation last? His mind buzzed — Xapp was about to be upgraded again.
Li Fanyu discreetly slipped away to the quiet data collection room, looking at his dark phone, filled with anticipation.
After the ups and downs of this period, it was time to set out again and face new challenges!
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