Investor That Can See The Future

Chapter 161

I sent the contract to Karos and asked for consent to the terms of the contract.

Upon hearing the news, Daryl was overjoyed.

[The exchange of shares with Seosung Electronics will be of great help.]

If you look at the immediate exchange rate alone, the value of Karos reaches 86 trillion won. As a result, Daryl, who holds a 1.5 percent stake, was suddenly denied with assets exceeding 1 trillion won (although the stake held by the management is prohibited from being sold until retirement).

“The details of the contract will be announced at a later date at Suseong Electronics, so until then, only the management should know.”

[Okay.]

He also contacted the second and third largest shareholders of OTK Company.

Upon hearing the news, the second-largest shareholders were outraged.

[Wow! The real Seosung Electronics has become the second largest shareholder of Karos.]

“OTK Company also became a major shareholder of Seosung Electronics. If you receive an additional 7% later, you are the largest shareholder.”

Taek-gyu said excitedly.

[I think it was just yesterday that I made money with the Suseong Electronics put option. Now, if my smartphone explodes, I don’t even like it.]

“That’s it.”

Hyun-joo’s sister, who is the third-largest shareholder, praised the negotiation process and the conditions.

[Now I’m good on my own.]

“It’s all thanks to what I learned from watching my sister.”

[It is rewarding to hear that. Anyway, it was a lot of trouble.]

* * *

The presentation was held at the Carlos Institute.

Silicon Valley is a battleground for autonomous driving technology. Therefore, such presentations were not uncommon. However, as it was the first time for Karos to show his technology to the public, a large number of reporters and attendees gathered.

I attended with Chairman Im Jin-yong. Ellie sat away from the reporters so as not to be noticed.

The reporters were surprised by the appearance of the chairman of the Suseong Group, who they thought was in Korea.

Magnus Dewey, who is in charge of the lab, gave the presentation. He is one of Karos’s executives and has been a founding member since Daryl took over as Karos’s CEO.

He first revealed the renderings and specifications of two cars, a sedan and an SUV, to be released by Karos in the second half of the year. Size, engine power, fuel economy, driving performance, etc.

Then he said it like a joke.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything special so far, right? I know.”

Laughter erupted everywhere.

“Now let me tell you something great. These cars enable fully autonomous driving. Previously, automobiles were nothing more than machines powered by an internal combustion engine. But now, it has evolved into an electronic device that is equipped with GPS and communication equipment to enable two-way communication, remote control and autonomous driving.”

Magnus explained the concept of self-driving cars and the test driving process so far.

“We drove 65,000 miles last month alone. Considering that it’s less than 3,000 miles from West San Francisco to East Manhattan, that’s more than 20 round trips. Those of you in this room know how infamous San Francisco traffic is. Due to severe traffic jams, construction is being carried out everywhere, and there are many one-way roads, so it is often difficult to get lost. Thanks to this outstanding civic awareness, unexpected situations such as jaywalking, reckless driving, and traffic accidents often occur. As the developers say, “If you drive in San Francisco without problems, you will have no problems across the US.” That’s why Silicon Valley may have become a battleground for autonomous driving.”

Everyone laughed again.

“The autonomous driving system notifies the driver immediately if there is a problem and recommends switching to manual driving. So, how many times did the driver manually intervene while driving 65,000 miles?”

A driving scene of the experimental vehicle appeared on the screen. The car was driving well on the road when suddenly a car in the next lane collided with the side.

Quang!

Some people were startled by the sudden accident scene.

Fortunately, the staggering car slowed down and stopped on the shoulder.

“The sensor was damaged by an external impact, and as soon as it was detected, the driver was immediately notified and advised to switch to manual operation. But before the driver intervened, the autonomous driving system automatically turned on the hazard lights, slowed down, and stopped the car on the shoulder. Therefore, there has never been a single driver intervention.”

clap clap!

When the presentation was over, there was a standing ovation.

Chairman Im Jin-yong said to me with a smile.

“Now, I am getting calls from all over the world to invest. I’m glad I made a contract in advance. I don’t want to ask for it later.”

After the presentation, a test drive ceremony followed.

There were already 20 experimental vehicles based on the Chrysler 300C outside the venue. The destination was randomly selected downtown San Francisco.

The 20 experimental cars perfectly drove the busy streets of San Francisco to take passengers to their destinations, and the appearance was reported through various media.

* * *

[Caros self-driving technology complete!][Is the era of driverless cars ushering in?][The future that self-driving cars will change][The government must hurry to amend the law for autonomous driving… … .]

Related articles were flooded, and the Internet went into an uproar.

-Are self-driving cars finally coming out?

– What if someone dies in an accident? Is Jinhoo Kang responsible?

-Until the law changes, it will be the driver’s responsibility. Fully autonomous driving is not yet allowed.

-After all, the Otaku Company! Jinhoo Kang did another thing.

-By the way, this is what Karos did well, isn’t it Kang Jin-hoo?

-It’s great that you took over that company and invested it to grow it up to that level.

-I was going to buy a Porsche, but I changed my mind. If that car comes out, I’ll buy it.

-Yeah. next bump.

Competitors such as Gubble and Iver said they had reached that level too, and announced that they would announce the technology soon.

The commercialization of autonomous driving was already planned anyway. But because of us, that time has only been advanced by three years.

There are no problems with the self-driving car being released with the technology itself, but there are a number of issues that need to be addressed, from legal revision to insurance, in order to actually use it.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has only allowed companies that meet certain conditions to test drive autonomous vehicles on the road. However, even in this case, the driver must be in the driver’s seat.

By the way, this is only allowed for experimental vehicles, and for general vehicles, the driver must hold the steering wheel.

Even if it is difficult to achieve self-driving cars right now, at least this level of legal reform can be used to utilize autonomous driving.

We need Ronald’s help on this.

The reason that the experimental vehicle was allowed in the first place was thanks to the lobby of giant IT companies such as Google and NPL. We do not have that much lobbying power, but fortunately we have a bond with the President of the United States.

This time, Suseong Electronics announced an exchange of shares and future cooperation plans between the two companies before the excitement subsided.

[Signed a share exchange contract with Seosung Electronics OTK Company][Seosung Electronics holds a 10.5% stake in Karos, OTK Company holds a 3% stake in Suseong Electronics][The value of Karos is estimated at 86 trillion won. Is it really appropriate?]

The internet has been turned upside down again.

-Caros is worth 86 trillion?

– Does this make sense?

-Is it higher than GM and Nikola?

– What the hell does Im Jin-yong believe in? Isn’t this enough?

-Did Im Jin-yong receive money from Kang Jin-hoo?

Suseong Electronics immediately announced that it would invest 15 trillion won in system semiconductor production facilities and 10 trillion won in parts production facilities, a total of 25 trillion won.

This is equivalent to the total investment last year.

The semiconductor investment was a result of Chairman Im Jin-yong’s will to preemptively respond to market changes as timing is vital.

Intel has been the leader in the semiconductor market for the past 20 years. However, not long ago, Suseong Electronics defeated Intel in terms of sales and rose to the top spot.

However, this is thanks to memory semiconductors, but it was still weak in the field of system semiconductors.

In fact, while the share of memory semiconductors of Suseong Electronics exceeded 50 percent, the market share of system semiconductors was only 5 percent. Fortunately, this is thanks to the AP installed in their smartphones.

In the system semiconductor field, Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Texas Instruments, and AMD are still dominant.

System semiconductor is a high value-added industry compared to memory semiconductor. In the meantime, Seosung Electronics has continued to invest and seek to expand its market share. Entering the autonomous driving market was a golden opportunity to become a strong player in the system semiconductor field.

The view of concern was not uncommon. If vehicle sales are lower than expected, excessive facility investment will come back as a boomerang.

Therefore, the negative evaluation of reckless investment and the positive evaluation of a bold investment to preoccupy the market were mixed.

After all, the only thing shareholders are interested in is the stock price. Fortunately, the share price rose slightly on expectations for a new industry.

At this point, there was one more company that caught people’s attention as much as Suseong Electronics.

-What about Eunseong Cha?

– Selling a company with that kind of technology to Kang Jin-hoo for only $88 million.

-Alas! fail. Totally ruined.

– The company you bought. That company should have been mine.

-If I had only Karos, the stock price of Eunsung Car would have doubled.

– I am a shareholder of Eunsung Motors. Can’t we file a lawsuit for CEO Han Min-koo’s breach of trust?

– Chairman Min-goo, stop bullying me. How upset are you?

– Mother! Here’s a bowl of Gelforce!

* * *

[Karos plans to release the world’s first self-driving mass-produced car!][What is the level of autonomous driving technology in Korea?][Eunsung car’s technology, where is it?](Read more @ wuxiax.com)

Chairman Han Min-koo put down the newspaper.

It is a known fact that autonomous driving is the core technology of future automobiles. If we fall behind in this field, it will be difficult to maintain our current position.

Even with the current technology of Eunsung Motors, autonomous driving was possible. However, this is only assuming normal driving conditions. Complex and abrupt situations required more sophisticated algorithms.

On the other hand, Karos developed machine learning technology through artificial intelligence.

At first, I couldn’t even learn simple rules, but as time went on, the AI’s judgment became faster and more certain. It has now reached the stage of commercialization.

Currently, Eunsung’s autonomous driving technology was evaluated to be one year behind Guble and three years behind Karos.

Although Eunsung MD is doing its best to develop autonomous driving technology, it was not easy to narrow the technological gap once it had arisen.

The biggest barrier to mass production is the price, and Karos solved even this problem by exchanging shares with Suseong Electronics.

Eun Sung Cha has been keeping the Seo Sung group in check. This is because there were concerns that the Seosung Group might re-enter the automobile market with its financial strength and technology.

So, for EV batteries, we collaborated with CL Chemical, not with Seosung SB, and for automotive electronic equipment, we collaborated with CL Electronics, not Seosung Electronics.

However, this led to the worst outcome of a strategic alliance between Seoseong Group and OTK Company. If I had worked with Seoseong Group from the beginning, the situation would not have turned out like this.

It was a known fact that this share swap was not made by Jin-hoo Kang, but by Jin-yong Im’s active request.

‘I saw Im Jin-yong so easily.’

In the eyes of Min-gu Han, who raised the Eunsung Tea Group to this point, Jin-yong Lim was still just a kid. But how long has it been since he took the position of president, he can’t move so boldly and quickly.

Of course, even if Karos launches an autonomous vehicle, it will not be easy to penetrate the Korean market immediately.

Korea has always been a monopoly market for Eunsung Motors. Therefore, the government will never make related laws or loosen regulations until Eunsung Motors commercializes autonomous driving.

The problem is the US market.

Unlike the Korean market, where its market share is increasing, Eunsung Motors was experiencing several difficulties in the US market.

Since Ronald became president, there has been strong pressure to move the factory, and the revision of the Korea-US FTA is also a big burden. Now, even a strong competitor called Karos has appeared.

And Jinhoo Kang was involved in all of that.

Han Min-koo remembered a young man in his 20s he met at a business meeting hosted by Ronald.

‘If it wasn’t for him… … .’

Without Kang Jin-hoo, the president of the United States would have been Diane, not Ronald. And Carlos must have remained in Eunseong’s arms.

It was less than half a year after the sale, when Karos’ technology was re-evaluated. If OTK Company didn’t take over Karos… … So, if Carlos had continued to remain in the car’s arms, the technology would have been completely owned by the car.

If that were the case, it might not have been a vain dream to defeat Toyota and become the number one in the automobile industry. But now that opportunity is completely gone.

Han Min-goo picked up the file about Kang Jin-hoo lying on one side of the desk. He had already seen it a few times, but he read it carefully again.

Then, when news of the company’s bankruptcy and the death of his father Kang Dong-hyun came out, he stopped.

Han Min-gu put down his file and drank tea. After a long time in his thoughts, he muttered softly.

“It would be nice to meet you sometime.”