Chapter 94 The humanoid robot was approved for commercialization
At the end, Li Fengting asked: "Comrade Lu An, what are the shortcomings of this solid-state lattice battery? It can't have any shortcomings, right?"
"Of course, no matter how good the product is, there are shortcomings." Lu An smiled: "The shortcomings of the solid-state lattice battery are the high cost. The secondary production is difficult and the production capacity is low. "
"This is mainly reflected in the complexity of the MTGED process, which is time-consuming, energy-consuming, and requires expensive equipment and environmental control."
Lu An paused for a moment and added: "The other aspect of high cost is reflected in materials, such as gallium, indium and many other specific rare earth elements, precision-made topological materials, etc."
Hearing this, Li Fengting said in a deep voice: "The rare earths are not bad. Our country is a big supplier of rare earths, and the technology in rare earths is also the strongest in the world. These core materials do not need to be imported, and can avoid the potential risk of being stuck."
Lu An nodded, and then said: "Another one is that it is difficult to recycle solid-state lattice batteries. Its complex material composition and structural design have basically not been recycled. The cost is even higher than building a new one, so it can only be scrapped directly. "
"Basically, these are the shortcomings of solid-state lattice batteries." At this point, Lu An thought about it and added: "After calculation, the cost of an armed robot equipped with a 115-kilogram solid-state lattice is likely to be around 470,000 yuan."
As soon as he finished speaking, Li Fengting said with a smile: "Generally speaking, the flaws do not cover up the advantages."
As a soldier, Li Fengting is not that sensitive to whether the cost is high, because soldiers do not consider this factor, at least the issue of cost is ranked very low in priority.
What the military is most concerned about is whether it can be produced, whether it is available or not.
In case of wartime emergencies, when military use is needed, mass production is carried out regardless of cost.
As the technical problem of the battery is solved and the cost of the battery is revealed, the comprehensive cost of configuring an armed robot is also clear.
Excluding battery costs, the total cost of the armed robot is about 670,000 yuan, the cost of the solid-state lattice battery is 470,000 yuan, and the full-line motion platform is 330,000 yuan.
The total cost is estimated to be about 1.47 million yuan. Based on a 5% profit for military products, the final purchase price is about 1.5435 million yuan.
This price cannot be considered cheap, because if the military purchases it, it will definitely be installed on a large scale. It will definitely require 30,000 pieces, and it may even be installed on 50,000 pieces.
Calculated based on the purchase of 50,000 armed robots, the required military budget is 77.175 billion yuan. This cost is definitely affordable based on the current scale of domestic military expenditures.
The cost of after-installation support and long-term maintenance is about 100 billion, and the total budget is about 177.1 billion.
This is an astronomical figure, but the military can afford it. After all, the 177.1 billion will not be used up in one year. The procurement target must be completed over several years, and the actual annual expenditure will be small on average.
This year's domestic military expenditure has increased to 886.8 billion. According to the double-digit growth rate, the scale of military expenditure next year is expected to be close to one trillion.
If it takes about three years to complete the installation of 50,000 armed robots, the average annual procurement budget will be at most 25.7 billion, and the annual maintenance cost plus after-installation support will be about 10 billion, or 35.7 billion.
This number does not put much budget pressure on the military.
Even based on this year’s military expenditure of 886.8 billion, the proportion is only 4.02%. The total military expenditure in the coming year will be greater, but the procurement cost of armed robots will not increase, and may even decrease, so the proportion of the total annual military expenditure in the current period will further decline.
For example, if the total military expenditure in 2016 increases to 950 billion next year, the proportion will be reduced to about 3.75%.
Finally, Li Fengting asked: "When will mass production be possible?"
Lu An replied: "The earliest is November this year, and the latest is January next year."
According to the established plan, the solid-state lattice battery is the last technical link of the armed robot. The follow-up testing of the solid-state lattice battery and the finalization of the first-generation solid-state lattice battery product will be completed in the next five months, which is exactly by October. The super factory is also expected to be completed and put into production in October.
It will then take one to two months to complete pre-production adjustments, and production can begin as early as November, and full production will be launched in early January next year at the latest.
Li Fengting nodded, then took out a document that he had brought along and handed it to Lu An, saying: "This is the decision of the military. First, 1,500 will be purchased, and they will be tested for acceptance for half a year. After passing the final acceptance, it will be a larger-scale batch purchase. The total purchase quantity is expected to be 65,000 armed robots, and the entire purchase plan will be completed within five years."
Based on the purchase price of 1.5435 million yuan, the scale of military purchase of 66,500 armed robots is about 100.3 billion.
The profit from a 100-billion-dollar order is about 5 billion yuan, which is far less profitable than bionic prosthetics.
Because the profit margin of military products is only 5%, this is why there are almost no private companies participating in the military industry. In addition to having real hard-core capabilities, low profit margins are also an important reason.
The national team's military-industrial enterprises have the state's backing and cannot fail.
And even the national team now has to follow the route of dual-use military and civilian. A typical example is the shipbuilding industry. In addition to accepting orders for warships, shipyards must also accept orders for civilian ships, relying on the huge profits from the civilian market to feed back the military industry.
Metaverse Intelligent Control, as a non-national enterprise, does not have a national guarantee, so it needs to realize its own hematopoiesis cycle through the civilian market.
Li Fengting immediately said: "The superiors have decided to approve the commercial use of Metaverse Intelligent's humanoid robot technology in the civilian market, but it must undergo a corresponding technological downgrade. The technology of civilian robots is at least two generations behind the active military, and strict technical protection must be achieved."
Lu An confidently replied: "We are confident in the aspect of technological anti-theft."
· Only 5% of profits are given to military products, and the civilian market is not allowed to open up. This is obviously unreasonable and unsustainable. Without enough profits, companies will not have the funds to invest in the technological research and development of next-generation products.
Either the profit margin on the supply of military products has increased significantly, but the disadvantages are too great. Referring to Amalica's military-industrial alliance, we know that this path cannot be taken, and the country's annual military expenditure is so much. Originally, 10 billion can purchase 5 warships, but with a significant increase in profits, only 2 can be purchased. This will either slow down the speed of equipment updates and upgrades or significantly increase military budget expenditures.
So choosing to take the dual-use path, in fact, means transferring the cost to the huge civilian market for digestion.
Obviously, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
First of all, enterprises have profits to support sustainable development, and then they can promote economic development and employment, provide the public with abundant high-quality goods, and enjoy the dividends of scientific and technological progress.
The purchase price of military products has also become lower, avoiding the old path of Ah Mei’s military-industrial integration, and avoiding the appearance of a bag of screws costing tens of thousands of dollars. This can save the country’s military expenditure and will not slow down the speed of equipment updates and upgrades.
Half an hour later, Li Fengting also said goodbye and left.
Lu An arrived at his office and called He Liang over.
Now He Liang is not only a member of the board of directors of the parent company, but also in charge of the subsidiary Metaverse Manufacturing. The super factory is under Metaverse Manufacturing. Whether it is a bionic prosthetic arm or an armed robot, the production end is completed in the super factory.
“Boss, what’s the matter?” He Liang came in and asked.
Lu An handed him a document, and it turned out to be the document Li Fengting handed him.
"Has the military placed an order?" He Liang looked surprised. After looking at it for a while, he said immediately: "The output of 65,000 units will be delivered in five years. Based on the production capacity of our super factory, we can complete production of this amount in two months, and the employees on the production side will work for two days." There is nothing to do in just a month. With such a huge redundancy in production capacity, is our planning too advanced? ”
Metaverse Manufacturing has recruited 18,000 manufacturing workers alone, and the total number of employees in its subsidiaries has reached 20,000.
"If we only supply military products, we must have huge redundant production capacity."
Lu An changed the topic: "But who said that the Gigafactory only produces military products? The civilian end is the big one. In the humanoid robot business segment, in addition to armed robots for the military, another major focus of the company is to launch commercial versions of domestic service robots, as well as various industrial production robots in the future."
He Liang suddenly realized: "That's it."
Lu An had a clear plan before establishing the company to develop domestic service robots and industrial production robots. In particular, industrial production robots are for long-term layout. This is an important industrial technology to deal with the "Monte Moros" asteroid crisis after 2028.
Lu An clearly remembered that in his previous life, he discovered the asteroid in 2028 and confirmed that it would hit the earth in 2036. In order to deal with the worst possible situation, the country set the goal of building tens of thousands of super-large shelters within eight years that could withstand a magnitude 10 horrific earthquake, so that 1.4 billion people could be sheltered.
To achieve this craziest epic engineering goal in human history, human productivity alone is simply not enough. However, once industrial production robots are released and 1.4 billion people are fully mobilized, comprehensive productivity will soar exponentially.
In those short eight years, all countries around the world have truly seen what industrial-level Cthulhu is from the Eastern powers.
For example, there is a serious surplus of steel before 2028, and the country is restricting production capacity. However, after 2028, so many shelters with the ability to withstand super strong earthquakes will be built, and the demand for steel will directly increase explosively.
· Steel went from overcapacity to severe shortage overnight, so production capacity increased wildly.
At its peak, the annual steel output in 2033 reached a terrifying 27 billion tons.
What is this concept?
In the more than 250 years since mankind's first industrial revolution to 2015, the world's total steel production has only been between 20 billion and 22.5 billion tons, which is less than a country's annual production.
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(End of this chapter)