Chapter 106: Long Country Enters the Era of Unmanned Driving

After leaving the base.

Su Xin returned to Tianjing with two bodyguards and held a simple briefing with several executives to exchange information on the development status of all parties.

For some time now.

Among the three major subsidiaries under Tianqi Holdings, apart from the slowing development speed of Tianqi Software, the development of Tianqi Energy and Tianqi Equipment has been like riding a rocket.

The former has monopolized the power battery industry for global automobiles; its existing factories are operating at full capacity every day and are currently undergoing a second wave of expansion.

The latter's cooperation with Goyadi is in full swing, and it is being watched eagerly by a large number of other car companies every day. On top of that, the Xiaozhi intelligent flight assistant has now received a large number of orders from the Military, and its revenue has entered a period of rapid growth.

After the meeting.

Su Xin and Ding Kuiyong communicated privately regarding the research and development of solid-state batteries specifically for drones.

Although the core technology for solid-state batteries has been perfected, developing specialized batteries for drones requires redesigning production processes based on parameters and assembling new production lines, which is not so easy to accomplish.

However.

There is no technical difficulty in the overall research, design, and development, so Su Xin completely handed this matter over to the R&D personnel and engineers at Tianqi Energy to research and discuss on their own.

In fact.

There are still many application scenarios for solid-state lithium batteries, such as mobile phones, laptop computers, electric scooters, and various other mobile electrical appliances.

It is just that Tianqi Energy's production capacity is limited; even if they accelerate the pace of expansion, it is impossible to satisfy so much demand, so they are simply focusing on the automotive power battery sector.

Once development stabilizes and there is spare capacity to enter other fields, they can then consider new developments.

……

On his first day back at the company after nearly half a month, Su Xin was not particularly busy.

Because of the existence of the Tianwei Butler, most matters could be handled in his spare time at home, and since he rarely manages specific affairs now, his work was not very busy to begin with.

But before long, trouble arrived.

January 1st, New Year's Day.

In addition to the New Year's galas on various television stations being attractive, a piece of news also drew the attention of many people at home and abroad—

Due to the excellent performance of the Xiaozhi Intelligent Driving System in tests and road trials, the state has decided to issue the first national-level Full-Domain Intelligent Driving License to Tianqi Equipment Company, allowing all small and micro passenger and cargo vehicles equipped with the Xiaozhi Intelligent Driving System to conduct unmanned driving nationwide.

At the same time, the higher authorities decided to officially promulgate the Intelligent Driving Management Regulations...

A series of news reports once again set off a storm in the global automotive industry.

Although industry insiders could see that the technical content of the Xiaozhi Driving System was absolutely the most advanced in the world, bar none.

With such an absolute leading advantage, the world's first Full-Domain Intelligent Driving License would sooner or later be in the pocket of Tianqi Equipment Company.

But no one expected.

That this day would come so quickly.

Generally speaking, such a major event involving the whole country, the entire automotive industry, and all the people could not be handled with too much caution, and it would be normal to even conduct trials in multiple cities for a year or two.

Yet, the usually cautious Long Country made such a decisive, and one could even say rash, decision this time; after only one month of trials in Jinding City, they directly issued the Full-Domain Intelligent Driving License to Xiaozhi.

What is a Full-Domain Intelligent Driving License?

The so-called full-domain.

Refers to all regions and all road sections.

As for the Intelligent Driving License.

It is essentially the same as a human driver's license.

After obtaining this license, one can legally drive on the road.

It is just that the holder of the Intelligent Driving License is the Xiaozhi intelligent driving program, not a human, but it possesses the same legal right to drive on the road as a human.

As long as it is a vehicle specified by the license, the Xiaozhi Driving System can act as the driver and legally control the vehicle to perform unmanned driving on any road section nationwide.

At the same time, according to the Intelligent Driving Management Regulations, to facilitate traffic police enforcement and management, cars equipped with the Xiaozhi Driving System must apply for a new type of green license plate, and when starting intelligent driving, they must use obvious external indicator lights to distinguish between traditional vehicles and cars currently performing unmanned driving.

Once this news broke.

The people of the country flocked to Goyadi even more.

Because currently, only models under Goyadi can be equipped with the Xiaozhi Driving System.

Those who love to try new things had long been full of anticipation for the Xiaozhi Driving System amidst the news related to intelligent driving that had been flooding the screens for the past month. Now that road permits were open nationwide, these people immediately scrambled to place orders as if they had gone crazy.

For a time, Goyadi's orders skyrocketed.

This news also made other car companies jealous—wasn't it just for being the first to speak at the initial summit forum and flattering Su Xin? To think they could receive such preferential treatment from Su Xin!

While the senior management of various car companies secretly despised Goyadi, they all took the initiative to contact Su Xin to propose cooperation related to the Xiaozhi Driving System once again.

Regarding this, Su Xin calmly stated:

"The relevant laws of Long Country have already been perfected, and Xiaozhi's Intelligent Driving License is only valid in Long Country, so currently, the Xiaozhi Driving System will only be equipped on vehicle models produced in Long Country."

"My friends abroad, please forgive me; it is not that I do not want to cooperate with you, but I am truly limited by many external conditions."

In fact.

Discerning people could hear Su Xin's intent to decline; after all, major foreign car companies have joint-venture factories within Long Country, and most of the models produced and sold are aimed at Long Country users.

Even cars produced abroad, once equipped with the Xiaozhi Driving System and sold to Long Country, would comply with Long Country's relevant intelligent driving regulations.

Yet Su Xin simply refused the foreign car companies.

Everyone understood that Su Xin's move was either to support Long Country's car companies or to use this to pressure them to promote the implementation of intelligent driving-related regulations in other countries.

Or perhaps both.

"Oh well, although intelligent driving is a major advantage, it is not indispensable. Since Su Xin will not authorize it, we will compete with Long Country's car companies through other advantages."

The senior management of various car companies comforted themselves this way.

Meanwhile, all major local car companies in Long Country received Su Xin's permission for cooperation.

Overjoyed, the various car companies announced at the first opportunity that both some already-sold models and new models could choose to be equipped with the Xiaozhi Driving System.

In fact, before Su Xin reached a cooperation agreement with Goyadi regarding intelligent driving, he had already convened a small meeting with the senior management of domestic car companies.

At the meeting, Su Xin stated right then that he was developing an Intelligent Driving System, and he proposed some necessary conditions for equipping the system, such as the vehicle body must be equipped with intelligent driving signal lights, as well as standards for cameras and radar, and so on.

Therefore, when various local car companies in Long Country were researching and developing new cars, they designed them in advance according to the corresponding standards for intelligent driving.

They were just waiting to install the Xiaozhi Driving System at any time, and then they could normally go on the road.