2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 448 The Mysterious Boss Tan
Flashpoint's battery business consists of three main segments.

The company's three main business segments—two-wheeled electric vehicle batteries, mobile phone batteries, and power batteries—are located in three different regions, a very reasonable layout.

Many people may not know about Changxin County in Huzhou, and even Huzhou, which has a Zhejiang E license plate, is not particularly well-known in Zhejiang Province or even nationwide.

To be even more absurd, many people's first reaction upon hearing "Huzhou" is that it is the capital of Fujian Province with a strong accent.

However, Huzhou's economy is by no means bad. Each county has its own economic characteristics. Changxin is famous for its battery industry. Almost all of the top lead-acid battery giants in China are gathered in Changxin County.

Tianneng, Chaowei and other well-known brands are either local Changxin enterprises or have large battery factories here. Before 2005, Boneng Environmental Power, which was born and raised in Changxin, was not a particularly large enterprise.

Locally speaking, it's considered a medium-sized enterprise, and in the lower-middle range of the entire battery industry. Otherwise, they wouldn't have taken a liking to Flash Technology, which at the time had nothing and didn't even have a few electric vehicles to assemble.

Oh, back then it was called Shanchi Auto Industry. Tan Jincheng and a few people came to our door. At that time, Zhang Yunhua, the actual manager of Boneng Environmental Protection, and his boss never thought that this was an opportunity for their company's development.

As the most important supplier in the electric vehicle industry under FlashCar, Boneng Environmental Protection's current factory area has more than doubled since Tan Jincheng first visited. While increasing its lead-acid battery production capacity, it has also expanded into the lithium battery business for electric vehicles.

Thanks to the advanced technology support of Hangxin New Energy, Boneng is currently among the top producers of lithium batteries for electric vehicles in terms of stability testing methods, even far ahead of traditional lead-acid battery giants.

However, while giants like Chaowei have the resources and the lithium battery technology for two-wheeled electric vehicles isn't particularly complex and can be easily cracked, Boneng's advantage lies in the support of Hangxin New Energy.

Hangxin New Energy has the capability to research electric battery technology.

To use a somewhat inappropriate analogy, if Jinsheng New Era's improved power battery technology were applied to two-wheeled electric vehicles, it would be similar to a military enterprise transforming to produce civilian products.

The analogy isn't quite perfect, but that's the general idea. Batteries used in electric vehicles can actually be recycled and reused in two-wheeled electric vehicles without much performance loss.

The technology of power batteries requires constant innovation and requires a lot of R&D investment. If Jinshidai wants to maintain its competitiveness, it must keep making technological progress. But even outdated technology can be useful in the field of two-wheeled vehicles.

With leading technology, Boneng Power already has the confidence to compete with the giants in the lead-acid battery market.

FlashTech and Boneng Environmental Power can be said to have complemented each other, but in Zhang Yunhua's view, Tan Jincheng is more like a benefactor to the company. The startup assembly plant two years ago actually brought about a qualitative change to the company.

Without this qualitative change, Boneng Environmental Protection's breakthrough in lead-acid battery production capacity will be relatively slow, and the inability to achieve a breakthrough in production capacity will mean that battery technology cannot be innovated.

Several years or even a decade later, as the market becomes saturated, companies like ours will be the first to be eliminated.

It's even more out of the question that we can't keep up with the giants.

The lead-acid battery business is relatively simple, the technology is very mature, and it is highly dependent on customers. Anyone who has a few large customers can live very well. But lithium battery technology is different; it is considered high-tech.

In addition to receiving subsidies from high-tech enterprises, the application scenarios are also more diverse than those of lead-acid batteries, resulting in better prospects for enterprise development.

Currently, in addition to FlashCheer and Yadi, Boneng has also received many battery orders from other assembly manufacturers, and its business is booming. However, all of this is under the premise of ensuring FlashCheer's production capacity.

The senior management of Boneng and the Changxin Battery Industrial Park attached great importance to Tan Jincheng's visit. Shanchi is not only Boneng's client, but also its second largest shareholder. This cooperation model has now been promoted by Tan Jincheng.

Leading and mid-tier manufacturers, including Chip-Nav, Yadi, and Luyuan, except for those planning to build their own component factories, all cooperate with their component suppliers in this way to achieve more stable production capacity.

For parts suppliers, sacrificing some equity to have a stable supplier is, in the long run, a much more stable source of profit than having the owner hold all the shares.

As for the assembly plant, since they have shares in the core suppliers, the other party's interests are their own interests. Consequently, the purchasing department will not dare to take kickbacks too much, because if they make a big fuss and it reaches the boss, they will be in trouble.

Tan Jincheng's initial itinerary was mainly for Orange Technology, serving as a supporting role. However, starting from Huzhou, the itinerary shifted to the actual business.

From Huzhou to Suzhou, then to Luzhou, Yicheng, and then to Tianjin in the north, this series of trips mainly involved visits to physical enterprises.

During the whirlwind inspection, in addition to their own industries, the team also focused on the auto parts industry. Starting from Huzhou, the accompanying personnel began to introduce to Tan Jincheng which companies were worth visiting.

"Is this kid really going to build cars? Why does he keep visiting auto parts companies and industrial design research institutes?" Ni Jie frowned and said to his wife at the Green Plains headquarters.

To be honest, when he first met Tan Jincheng, he quite admired the young man. Since they were both from Zhejiang Province, he even offered Tan Jincheng a lot of help with the intention of mentoring him.

But now, he's starting to dislike the kid.

If nothing unexpected happened, Tan Jincheng should have received the Economic Person of the Year award, even though he knew it had nothing to do with him. In fact, the Flash Group's publicity plan was disrupted by this unexpected award at that time.

But no matter what, it's a bit unsettling that the title that belongs to me has been given to Tan Jincheng.

Secondly, FlashCheer is growing larger and larger, and its sales have far exceeded those of GreenSource. This poses a significant threat to GreenSource, which has always been the market leader in Zhejiang Province and even ChipSun could not shake its position.

They're all their own children, so the province can't possibly favor Lü Yuan. Besides, in terms of both image building and setting a good example for young people, Tan Jincheng is much better than this "troublemaker."

If we're really going to favor one side, it'll be Flash, not Green Plains.

Luyuan's sales are mostly in Zhejiang Province, where it holds a dominant position. This situation continued until the Shanghai Electric Vehicle Exhibition this year. Since then, the Zhejiang market has shown a clear signs of loosening.

It has to be said that this guy's 6000 million yuan price cut is quite devastating for any manufacturer.

The practice of delivering cars directly to consumers maximized the brand's positive image, even though the first year's sales were concentrated in Anhui and Henan provinces, and the impact on other regions was not particularly significant.

However, in the months since the exhibition, coupled with 6000 million yuan in follow-up marketing, the brand's goodwill has been maximized and its sales have been far ahead of the competition in the market.

There's no doubt that ChipDay won't be able to take the top spot in annual sales this year; the sales figures for the past few months alone are enough to show that.

The impact on Luyuan was also significant. Flash's marketing campaign was clearly aimed at all its competitors, and it subsequently accelerated its distribution and marketing efforts in the Zhejiang market.

Currently, Luyuan's market share in Zhejiang Province has been reduced, and this is just the beginning, which is really a headache.

The promotion of lithium battery electric vehicles is imperative. Green Energy missed a wave because of its reluctance in the early stages, and it did not reach a cooperation agreement with Flash Motor like Yadi did. Now it seems that it is a case of being slow at one step and slow at every step.

Tan Jincheng's high-profile travel plans this time have touched a nerve with his peers the most.

We're really scared of him causing trouble. We're afraid he'll cause some kind of trouble wherever he goes, which will give everyone a headache. The marketing of electric vehicles is really just about price reductions and promotions.

If you lower the price, more people will naturally buy from you. But other manufacturers are not happy with the kind of strategy that FlashCheer uses. Big manufacturers have to do some promotions to follow up, while small manufacturers just give up. With 6000 million yuan, why would I do anything?
Therefore, whenever Tan Jincheng goes to a new place, leading electric vehicle manufacturers will use their networks to find out what he has been doing there so they can take appropriate countermeasures.

However, their actions of buying auto parts factories or investing in car factories everywhere really puzzled them.

By now, rumors of Flash's intention to enter the automotive industry have been quite widespread. They have deepened their cooperation with ZT, are building a power electric vehicle factory, and have now acquired some auto parts companies.

Although the events were not large in scale, they basically confirmed the previous rumors.

While puzzled, Ni Jie and Zhang Congxun also felt somewhat relieved. "It's fine if you go into the car business. The electric vehicle industry is too small to accommodate you. Give us some peace and quiet."

However, at the same time, he felt a little disappointed. He had been thoroughly humiliated by a junior, only to have the junior turn to another industry. He felt a sense of loneliness that comes with being a master.

In addition, a very strange thing came from the headquarters of Beicang Group's Flash Speed.

Recently, Flash Group has bought a lot of cars, including luxury cars, ordinary models, and even minibuses. These include several joint venture brands and domestic brands. I wonder what this guy is up to now.

If the company is going to give employees year-end bonuses like last year, isn't that a bit too early? And the car models seem too mixed up, don't they?

(End of this chapter)