"What kind of technology should I focus on?" Huang He rubbed his nose. As a transmigrator, Huang He was quite familiar with future technologies.
First and foremost, the most viable and promising, and the most profitable in the future, would naturally be electric vehicles.
Of course, not the two-wheeled kind, but the four-wheeled kind.
The future world was destined to be the era of electric vehicles; internal combustion engine cars were bound to be phased out by the times. If he started developing related technologies for electric vehicles now, there would be endless financial potential in the future.
"But the problem is, electric vehicles don't need 60 billion yuan. At most, 1 billion yuan would be enough right now!" Huang He mumbled to himself.
Although Huang He had decided to enter the electric vehicle industry in the future, he did not plan to engage in vehicle manufacturing. From the development history of the past 20 years, one could see how fierce the competition in China's electric vehicle industry would be. Any electric vehicle enterprise engaged in vehicle manufacturing would essentially be operating with tens of billions of yuan in debt.
Whether it was Nio, Xpeng, or Li Auto, they were all essentially operating on investors' money, with negative financial reports every year, sustained only by dreams.
The only profitable one was BYD, but BYD had its own complete battery technology, and also had manufacturing experience with internal combustion engine vehicles. Their foundation was solid enough to make money from electric vehicles.
But honestly, the profits were not that substantial.
Although Boss Huang was confident that he could also make money through vehicle manufacturing, the problem was that it was too difficult, too tiring, and the risks were too high, with too much competition.
Therefore, Boss Huang himself did not plan to engage in electric vehicle manufacturing. However, this did not mean that Huang He had given up on the electric vehicle industry. In fact, our Boss Huang had actually set his sights on the truly profitable aspects of the electric vehicle industry.
That would be the batteries for electric vehicles, and the vehicle control systems, which were also the currently hot topic of electric vehicle platforms.
There was no need to elaborate on electric vehicle batteries, as half the weight and cost of an electric vehicle was in the battery. The quality of the battery essentially determined the value of an electric vehicle. Therefore, brands seemed to be more valuable, but the problem was, if you were a top brand like Rolls-Royce, you would have to be equipped with the most advanced electric vehicle batteries, otherwise, it would be embarrassing!
So, Boss Huang had already started developing technologies for electric vehicle batteries. Moreover, he was directly abandoning lithium batteries and lead-acid batteries, the current darlings of the era, and was starting research and development directly from the lithium iron phosphate battery track, which had not yet been widely adopted and was considered impossible to achieve with current technology.
When the lithium iron phosphate batteries of Jiangnan Group were introduced a few years later, they would basically sweep an era. As long as technological advantages were maintained, Jiangnan Group would forever become a top supplier of electric vehicle batteries. If half of the electric vehicles in the world purchased batteries from Jiangnan Group, this would be a vast market exceeding hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
Besides batteries, electric vehicle platforms were also a very valuable market.
An electric vehicle platform did not simply mean creating a chassis; it referred to a complete set of electric vehicle solutions, a complete set of electric vehicle electronic system solutions.
This included the batteries for electric vehicles, the computer chips for electric vehicles, various supporting electronic components required for electric vehicles, and the integrated central control system, vehicle-car interaction system, and human-car interaction system for these various components.
Furthermore, it was not limited to the interior of electric vehicles, but also the communication between electric vehicles and the outside world, including navigation, emergency fault handling systems, central data interconnection systems, computer updates, and so on.
All of these were included in a complete platform solution. With this platform, vehicle manufacturers only needed to design exterior appearances they considered cool, then match them with the desired electric vehicle data, set up an assembly production line, and then obtain licensing for the platform and various supporting parts, to directly become a mature electric vehicle manufacturer.
According to Huang He's plan, this platform system would reduce the threshold for the electric vehicle industry to almost zero.
Back then, when Lei Jun entered the mobile phone industry, it took him a year and a half to release the first mobile phone.
Teacher Luo was even more impressive, releasing the first mobile phone in half a year.
Boss Huang He's goal was even more outrageous: his goal was to enable a new enterprise to produce its first electric vehicle from scratch within a month, provided that the funds were in place and all conditions were met.
This was clearly a larger market than electric vehicle batteries. Once this electric vehicle platform was successful, even if no car with the Jiangnan logo was seen on the road in the future, even if there was no brand called Jiangnan Automobile in the world.
You would find that Jiangnan Group would be at the top of the electric vehicle market rankings. Most importantly, the profitability of Jiangnan Electric Vehicles would be such that the combined profits of the second to tenth ranked companies would not be able to match it.
This was the power of controlling technology and platforms.
All that has been said above sounds incredibly impressive, but in reality, it wouldn't cost much money.
Because the electric vehicle platform itself was a combination of various electronic components, which was the core business of Jiangnan Optoelectronics. Therefore, as long as Jiangnan Optoelectronics developed its own products, it could concurrently develop electric vehicle-related products. This was the advantage of having a solid foundation, and an additional investment of only 1 billion yuan per year would be sufficient.
As for electric vehicle batteries, this was mainly a material problem. Huang He had already decided to specifically invest in establishing a subsidiary called Jiangnan Materials, solely for the research and development of various materials, to be managed by the material genius, Tong He.
This would be more expensive, possibly requiring an initial investment of two to three billion yuan, or even up to five billion yuan.
Even if everything went for the worst, perhaps 10 billion yuan would be enough.
Therefore, Huang He, who held a full 60 billion yuan, with 50 billion yuan that he had no idea how to spend, was truly distressed. Even Hu Jing, who was always around him, did not seem as attractive anymore.
"Chairman, how about you read some interesting news to refresh your brain!" Hu Jing thoughtfully presented many news articles to Huang He.
"Hmm, my Jingjing is still the most considerate!" Huang He praised, then glanced at the interesting news collected by Hu Jing. Well, these news items didn't seem particularly interesting.
"Hmm, this, Bandai in Japan announced that they will be building the world's first life-size Gundam statue!" When Huang He saw this news, his mind trembled.
That's right, he had forgotten about Gundam!
He had made a huge promise more than a year ago to achieve five small goals, one of which was to build a mobile, even a running, Gundam.
How could he have forgotten this?
"How about we use these 60 billion yuan to build a Gundam?" Huang He felt a surge of excitement, slammed the table, and solemnly said to Hu Jing beside him.
Hu Jing's eyebrows twitched, and she retorted, "Boss, are you planning to rebel?"
"Cough, how is that possible? My Gundam would only be mobile, without any weapon systems. And do you think Gundam has any actual combat value? A Gundam costing billions, wouldn't it be destroyed by a single missile!" Huang He waved his hand. Building Gundam toys was fine, but anyone who genuinely treated Gundam as a weapon was an idiot of the highest order.
"Then I have no objections!" Hu Jing nodded. "If you are truly determined, I suggest that the first step should be to purchase all the copyrights for Gundam from the original creators, otherwise we will face issues of cultural infringement!"
"Cough, nonsense, I will never give Bandai my money in this lifetime, never!" Huang He remembered the money he spent on model kits in his previous life and shook his head vigorously. No, Bandai was the world's biggest scammer, and he would never fall for it.
"Then you'll have to choose something else to build. How about we build Neon Genesis Evangelion?" Hu Jing suggested.
"That's also Bandai's copyright!" Huang He's face darkened. He had been reborn too late; if it were two years earlier, he would have definitely bought the Evangelion copyright and built a Unit-01.
"Then there's nothing we can do. Currently, all the well-known robot copyrights in the world are either held by American film companies or by Bandai in Japan. We don't have such copyrights!" Hu Jing said.
"If we don't have them, we'll create our own!" Huang He suddenly felt a burst of inspiration. He finally knew how to spend the money. "We'll invest in creating our own mecha universe, animes, TV series, movies, games, everything! And then we'll build our own mechas. It's perfect!"
"I've already thought of a name for this series, it will be called 'Pacific Rim'!" Huang He declared with conviction.