One day after the Lantern Festival, Anran walked into Luo Jia's office and said to Luo Jia, "Our expert group has been sent down. Taking advantage of the severe cold weather in the three northeastern provinces, we can just test the reliability of the autonomous driving system in the ice and snow conditions. In addition, the south and northwest have also assigned test teams. I hope this time will be successful."

Luo Jia smiled and asked An Ran to sit on the sofa and wait for a while. Then he called the Administration Department and asked them to prepare the car.

"I can't eat hot tofu in a hurry," said Luo Jia. "Automatic driving is our preparation for the future. If our opponent wants to take autonomous driving and overwhelm us, we cannot be passively beaten."

"But if it is really self-driving, the modification fee of up to 70,000 yuan per car is not something that everyone can pay. At most, it is used on luxury models, such as Hongqi or Volvo."

An Ran was slightly stunned, "Has the national team decided to restart the Red Flag?"

"Yeah." Luo Jia nodded, "They do have this plan. If there is nothing else, let's go."

So the two left the office, met several other project leaders, got on a business car waiting downstairs, and went to Waigaoqiao, a Chinese shipbuilding giant located in Pudong.

Compared with the famous Jiangnan Heavy Industry, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding is slightly less famous, and it is even less famous than another giant in Shanghai, which is also famous for the shipbuilding of Hudong China.

But this large enterprise affiliated to China Shipbuilding Group produces the world's best bulk carriers, the 200,000 tons Cape Class, and is also the world's major manufacturer of 300,000 tons of VLCC supertankers.

With the launch of the new energy plan, oil and coal will soon become a yellow flower yesterday. The construction of tankers in Waigaoqiao has been suspended and is currently specializing in large bulk carriers.

In contrast, bulk carriers are less built than container ships, so they are equipped with electric ocean freighters with Carmen vortex power generation arrays, which are the first to be launched.

As for the famous Jiangnan Heavy Industry and Dalian Heavy Industry in China, they were taken to build warships by the military, and the manufacturing of civilian electric ships was handed over to several other giants.

Sitting in the car, Luo Jia said thoughtfully, "The fields of shipbuilding and shipping are very strange to most people, but they are crucial."

"In this world, 98% of international trade is completed by sea transportation, and the world's largest trading country is just our country. Therefore, sea transportation is really our lifeline, and our lifeline must be controlled by ourselves."

"Just like electric vehicles, if we plan to sell tens of millions of electric vehicles and related parts to the world every year, we have to build at least a few hundred car transport ships of more than 200,000 tons to meet the huge demand."

Ling Feng said curiously: "A car is a valuable commodity, and it cannot be hoisted, but can only be rolled. It sounds like it has a high technical content. Can our country build such a ship?"

"You look down on our shipbuilding industry too much, right?" Luo Jia curled his lips. "The 8500 model that Xiamen Heavy Industry is building can carry 8,500 cars. It connects these cars to the end and end. It is twenty-six miles long. It is the largest in the world, but unfortunately the design party comes from Norwegian Classification Society."

"And in addition to Xiamen Heavy Industry, Jiangnan, Nantong Zhongchuang, Jinling Shipyard, Yangfan, Zhejiang, and Tianjin Xingang, they can also build large-scale automobile transport ships."

"In this world, there are 82 shipyards that have built automobile transport ships. my country ranks third, and ten shipyards have construction experience and design capabilities. The strongest ones are still Japan and South Korea, the four giants of Neon, Jinye Shipbuilding, Toyohashi Shipbuilding, Xinlaidao Shipbuilding, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, South Korea's top three, Daewoo Shipbuilding, Hyundai Sanhu, and Hyundai Heavy Industries. These seven shipyards are all very powerful opponents."

Luo Jia patted the car seat cushion under his butt, "The first thing is that car transport ships need to be built in demand. Japan and South Korea are strong because they export a large number of car products every year. In the past, our cars were not exported very much, so naturally we did not use too many professional ships."

"But it will be different in the future. Including Xiamen Heavy Industry, any shipyard in China that can build car transport ships will have already been full. Moreover, since the Carmen vortex power generation array needs to reach 200,000 tons to operate smoothly, the construction of these giants are all started."

Ling Feng immediately became energetic when he heard this and asked hurriedly: "What a giant?"

"The super giant that can carry 15,000 cars is a new record. In the past, the largest car transport ship in the world was only 8,500."

Everyone was excited. To be honest, shipping is a bit far from life, and there are not many people who understand it. Few people are devoted to studying the entire shipping industry like Luo Jia. Now, Luo Jia is able to do it with the situation and historical data of the shipping industry.

Luo Jia and his group were warmly welcomed by Mr. Xu of Waitaoqiao Group. They were invited to the dock to check the new ships under construction. At present, Waitaoqiao is starting construction with full horsepower and is mass-produced according to the progress of the twelve Cape-class bulk carriers each year.

An Ran asked everyone excitedly, "Do you know why this ship is called Cape of Hope?"

"I know this." Zhang Cheng, who is engaged in condensed matter physics, said: "Because the ship is too big, it is impossible to cross the Suez Canal and Panama Canal, so you need to walk the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn and go around a big circle."

Luo Jia added: "What you said is outdated. Egypt has revised the rules for the Suez Canal. It can be passed now, but the Panama Canal cannot be passed by no means."

"According to the requirements, the Panama Canal can only pass through ships with a length of no more than 274.32 meters and a width of no more than 32.3 meters. In total, it is only 70,000 tons, which is called the Panama Class."

After a pause, Luo Jia stood on the dock, smiled bitterly, and asked everyone: "Do you know, after these bulk carriers are built, they will be mainly used to transport them?"

"Oh." An Ran sighed: "Of course it's soybeans. Last year, due to the trade war, the amount of soybeans imported by my country has decreased, but it is still as many as 88 million tons. In addition, we also imported more than 100 million tons of iron ore, all of which were transported back by this kind of ship."

When it comes to agriculture, everyone was deeply moved. In this field, China is really far from being apart, not just a gap in one aspect, but a gap in all aspects from fertilizers to pesticides, to seeds, soil maintenance, large-scale mechanization, etc.

Is agriculture a high-tech?

A typical high-tech capital-intensive industry is not only cost money, but also extremely time-consuming.

Mr. Yuan Longping’s achievements today were earned in his lifetime, and the global monopoly of giants like Monsanto was also accumulated over hundreds of years.

According to statistics, due to the development of China in recent years, the per capita annual meat consumption has reached an astonishing 49.8 kilograms.

It seems that this number is much less than the ninety kilograms in Australia and North America and eighty-six kilograms in Argentina.

But don’t forget that East Asia likes to eat vegetables. Neon’s per capita meat consumption is only 35.7 kilograms, while South Korea is slightly higher, 51.5 kilograms. China’s per capita consumption has exceeded Neon’s a lot, and it is catching up with South Korea.

What is the feed for raising pigs and cattle?

Soybeans.

Therefore, my country's soybean imports have remained high.

Someone has calculated that the total area of ​​arable land in the country is 2.24 billion mu. If you want to not import soybeans and all of them are self-sufficient, you need to take out another 3.6 billion mu of arable land to grow soybeans. Unless China can invent climate weapons and transform deserts into farmland, it will be impossible to meet the demand at all.

In the face of cruel reality, our only choice is to import, and import requires a large number of bulk carriers to transport.

"The time is almost over, let's go there now?" Mr. Xu said.

So everyone followed him to the dock, boarded a high-speed yacht that had been waiting for there, and drove quickly to the East China Sea.

Today, Luo Jia did not come to see the new ship launch, but rather a more important thing than launching the water, and a trial sail.
Chapter completed!