Chapter 362: 'New Energy', Clearing the King's Side
"Over the weekend, Lu Liang visited Li Xiang.
In recent years, among the newly emerged brands of new energy vehicles, Li Xiang and Weima have been the best sellers.
Although two Weima EX5s can only buy one top-equipped Li Xiang ONE, due to different market audiences, both have broken through the ten thousand unit sales mark.
If Weima is snatching food from BYD's mouth, then Li Xiang ONE, with its ridiculed range extender, as well as features like a refrigerator, colorful TV, and large sofa, has carved a path to success.
"Mr. Lu, the styling of the car isn't particularly important, the key is the driving experience and comfort."
Li Xiang wore a full smile, in a very good mood, knowing that Lu Liang was still focused on developing a brand-new car shell and chassis, he couldn't stand it and shared some of his successful experience.
The success of ONE represents among the four Weiwei and Li Xiang brands, they have achieved a phased victory.
According to Li Xiang's user profile, 90% of ONE owners are around 30 years old with a family.
These people, not too old yet open to new things, also have to consider family needs.
So, they also concluded that being handsome doesn't matter; what's important is being useful and comfortable.
For their next mass production vehicle, they also plan not to waste time on styling, and directly use Lifan's models.
The focus is on upgrading the interior, configuration, and intelligence to firmly follow the family-oriented car use path.
"Perhaps, you're right."
Lu Liang smiled, though not completely agreeing, he did not object. The future market is going to be huge, enough to accommodate a diversity of thriving developers.
Li Xiang ONE has achieved a phased victory, but it doesn't represent the only answer.
However, at the time of its initial launch, the ridiculed range extender actually had its merits.
Short trips charge, long trips fuel up, perfectly solving the lack of widespread charging stations and range anxiety problems.
As for being criticized for not being environmentally friendly, an oddity among electric vehicles, it didn't even count as a problem.
'New energy' explains it all.
Environmental protection is just a slogan, like the proclamations of a doomed sky, a rising new power, not worth mentioning just like saying a stone statue sparked a major rebellion.
The essence is energy security and industrial upgrading.
The range extender worked without solely depending on gasoline, and Li Xiang ONE made some who would buy imported luxury cars choose it instead.
Then it is a vehicle that officially qualifies as a legitimate new energy vehicle by official standards.
"Mr. Lu, how is the Tianxing Car Machine system's development?"
"In two more months, L2 level assisted driving will be ready for use."
After a long silence, Li Xiang awkwardly smiled, "Then please make sure to authorize us to use it first."
With Li Xiang ONE's sales breaking ten thousand, he got a bit carried away, so he had secretly decided to allocate some funds in the next financing round for in-house system development.
Lu Liang's words hit him hard, realizing that with L2 assisted driving nearly ready, investors would definitely not agree to spend money on developing their own systems.
Technological research is a bottomless pit, all investment is considered wasted until results are produced.
With that money, it would be better to invest in factories, increase capacity, improve nominal strength, and thereby boost market valuation.
"Of course."
At night, a masked couple wandered around the mall near Sanyuan Bridge Phoenix City.
Lu Liang bought several bags for Zhang Tian'ai, and as they strolled, he suddenly received a call from Little Wang, "Where are you?"
"Just walking around outside, find a place and send me the address."
"Then how about the bar street in Sanlitun? I'm not familiar with other places."
"Alright."
After ending the call with Little Wang, Lu Liang phoned Fang Shiyu to prepare the car.
Zhang Tian'ai cautiously asked, "Are you busy again?"
"There's something I need to handle, just go back by yourself."
Seeing Lu Liang nod, he touched her little head, and before she could even say goodbye, Lu Liang was gone.
"Busy, always busy, being busy is good."
Zhang Tian'ai's gaze turned forlorn as she deeply sighed.
Elsewhere,
Lu Liang arrived at a bar in Sanlitun and from a distance saw Little Wang putting his legs up while playing with his phone.
At the entrance, a few young and beautiful girls whispered to each other, seemingly discussing whether to approach him.
Clearly, these were ambitious girls, knowing Mr. Wang had a sterling reputation, hoping to get his approval to become internet-famous.
"Changed your habits? You have a disco and yet you're soaking in a bar?" Lu Liang smirked as he passed by the girls and approached Little Wang's table.
"I swore that, before Panda goes public, I absolutely won't go to bars."
Hearing the voice, Little Wang knew who it was.
He looked up with disdain, "What mischief have you been up to now? Still wearing a mask?"
"I forgot to take it off."
Lu Liang smiled and removed the mask, his face filled with satisfaction, "Cong, it's really reassuring that you're so sensible."
The moment Lu Liang took off the mask, the few hesitant and ambitious girls immediately stopped hesitating.
They walked over elegantly with lovely smiles, "Hello, can we sit here?"
If Little Wang is the Jack of poker, then Lu Liang is the ace of spades, a top-tier eligible bachelor recognized worldwide.
The legendary story of Milk Tea Girl hooking up with Daqiangzi and becoming the lady boss of JD, is worth every girl's study.
"It's not convenient, please find somewhere else to sit."
Little Wang waved his hand with a full face of disdain.
Although he also became a national outstanding young entrepreneur this year, he was originally supposed to come to Beijing tomorrow.
But yesterday, Lu Liang, like a soul reaper, hurried him to come over quickly—if it wasn't something serious, then it must be a ghostly issue.
"Sorry, we have something to discuss."
Lu Liang nodded slightly with a smile, polite, which was different from Little Wang's rudeness.
"Sorry for disturbing you."
The girls barely held back their excitement and maintained their composure.
They walked aside slowly and, once Lu Liang was no longer paying attention, quickly took out their cell phones to snap pictures and upload on Xiaohongshu: "Casually bumped into Lu Liang tonight in Sanlitun, he's really polite and gentle..."
"What's the rush calling me over?"
Little Wang looked unhappy, cursing Lu Liang ten thousand times in his heart, that bastard, using him as a backdrop again.
"How soon can Panda go public?" asked Lu Liang.
Little Wang was puzzled, "Why ask that? Why are you suddenly interested in this?"
"How soon can it be?"
Little Wang frowned and reluctantly put aside his confusion temporarily, quickly making a call to Long Fei to inquire about the latest progress.
After a while, he said, "Long Fei said, even if we start preparing for the IPO now, it'll take at least three months."
"Three months?"
Lu Liang appeared thoughtful. He had already decided to assist Cheng Wei with Clearing the King's Side, but DiDi's scale was huge, and the situation was complicated.
If they back down and list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, it definitely wouldn't appease neutral foreign investors like Temasek and Saudi Sovereign.
Although Xiangjiang was East Country's financial port to the outside world, its influence was quite limited—it could only radiate across Asia, nowhere near the global reach of the New York Stock Exchange.
A 30% chance of success, to increase it to 50%, Lu Liang should also suggest listing on the New York Stock Exchange like Liu Qing.
If they all set their sights on the New York Stock Exchange, given Lu Liang's cooperation with Sergey, he could at least pull him over.
After all, the premise of friendship fostering cooperation is that both parties' interests remain unharmed, so friendships are considered.
This way, the faction of Lu Liang and Cheng Wei would be on par with the Liu Family and Liu Qing's faction at fifty-fifty strength.
But a 50% success rate isn't secure enough; they need to increase it slightly more.
The Liu Family, father and daughter, had decades of close relationships with foreign capital.
In contrast, Lu Liang's ability to seize opportunities was obvious to all, but whether he could replace Liu Qing and assist DiDi in listing in the US was still a question mark.
He thought of Panda—if using Panda as a model, successfully listing in the US and achieving good results,
Clearing the King's Side's plan could at least improve the success rate by 10%, even above 20%.
The balance of victory would start to tilt.
"Are you in a hurry?" Little Wang couldn't help but ask.
"The sooner Panda goes public, the better. If you need help, just let me know."
"Why?" Little Wang frowned, unable to understand what Lu Liang was scheming.
"Don't worry about what I'm plotting. When have you ever seen me harm you?" Lu Liang looked displeased.
"Come to think of it, never."
Since knowing Lu Liang, Old Wang has found him more pleasing to the eye, and he stopped bothering about his daily changing girlfriends.
"There you go."
Lu Liang appeared righteous, a flicker of guilt flashing in his eyes.
If Little Wang knew he was using his Panda as a model, if it worked, great; if not, Little Wang might very well want to kill him.
Rushing out a prototype was like a preemie; it might grow healthy or might suffer from lingering health issues later.