Chapter 388: L5 Hurricane Sweeps The Nation
Big T does business, mainly by scamming whenever possible and bluffing whenever possible.
This is an instinct passed down through their entire family, starting from Fred.
It’s like this before signing agreements, and even after signing agreements, they still try every means to take advantage and not abide by the agreements.
The most outrageous thing is that their family can even breach agreements signed with the Federation.
In the 1970s, Fred’s company managed a large amount of federally funded housing, which was required to comply with the 1968 Fair Housing Act, prohibiting housing discrimination based on race, skin color, etc.
In reality, they have always engaged in racial discrimination, refusing Black tenant applications, using codes to mark applicants’ race, telling White testers that units were available while rejecting or directing Black testers to buildings with higher minority ethnic group proportions, and so on.
Later, they were investigated by the Federation, and eventually both sides reached a settlement, signing an agreement promising no similar behavior in the future, but such behavior has always existed.
From Fred to Big T, they have always been like this, never changing, taking advantage whenever they can, signing agreements when they can’t, and taking extra advantage during agreement implementation, as if not taking advantage is a loss.
From this perspective, Big T’s family seems more like Indian descendants rather than German descendants.
“Mr. President is wise!” Musk said, then continued: “But my main focus going forward will be on making America’s aerospace undertaking great again, so.”
He didn’t finish his sentence.
I’m about to become the NASA Director, and you want me to arrange negotiations with China, running off to Yanjing and Shanghai every few days—isn’t that a bit inappropriate?
At the same time, it’s a reminder to Big T that we agreed you’d arrange for me to be NASA Director—don’t forget!
Big T suddenly realized: “Makes sense, how about this.”
He looked around, and Old John Morgan raised his hand: “Mr. President, as a member of the Morgan family, I am willing to take on this important task! To fight for you, Mr. President!”
John Morgan stood up and performed a knight’s salute, drawing laughter from everyone present, sweeping away the previous tense atmosphere.
Big T said loudly: “Good! Good old buddy, it’s you then. After I take office, I’ll sign an executive order appointing you as Special Advisor for East Asia Negotiations.”
As everyone knows, Big T’s decisions depend on who speaks to him last.
Old John Morgan smiled, nodded respectfully to Mr. President, and sat back down.
“Do our best and leave the rest to fate.”
Facing Song Nanping’s question, Lin Ran replied.
Song Nanping was highly skeptical about whether America would be willing to reach such a deal.
After all, the chip curtain took a long process to fall, starting from 2016, hyped by Goldman Sachs and Morgan, proven by Silicon Valley, consensus reached in Washington, and finally implemented in 2023.
We’ve finally come up with a method, and now you want to reverse a strategy that was so hard to achieve—even if the cake is tempting enough, Song Nanping still thought it was too difficult.
This is equivalent to going against the inertia of America’s entire bureaucratic system.
But he had to admit that this president was the most likely to negotiate successfully— if Big T couldn’t, no other president could.
“I don’t know if it will work, but I know Big T is the most likely president to trade with us, so let’s try.
Besides, getting semiconductor technology from Japan is secondary; collapsing the 4v economy is the most important.
Short selling for profit—America’s financial capital can do it, why can’t our financial capital?
This piece of cake, Wall Street can touch it, so can we!”
Then, Lin Ran grinned: “America still doesn’t fully recognize the difficulty of landing at the Lunar South Pole.
Once Musk takes over NASA, he’ll know after a few failures.
How sincere we are to exchange North Pole landing technology.
And once this year’s electromagnetic rail and new manned spaceship are successfully operational, opening routine Earth-Moon round trips, the stimulus to America will be even greater.
They need to fully realize that this deal is to their advantage, and then they will naturally push it.
We’re just planting a seed now; the seed will grow into a towering big tree when the time comes.
Additionally, the technology in their hands is depreciating and will only become less valuable over time—time is not on their side.”
January 1, 2025, the first day of the new year, announcements flooded in.
First, official media’s Weibo: “January 1, 2025, Yanjing officially releases the Interim Regulations on Autonomous Driving Vehicle Management, providing legal safeguards for the smooth implementation of full-domain L5 autonomous driving technology.
This regulation will lay the foundation for the safe operation and standardized management of autonomous driving vehicles, and provide strong legal support for future intelligent mobility.”
Chinese netizens felt like it had finally arrived.
The moment L5 appeared, everyone knew laws and regulations would follow—China would never let them lag behind advanced technology.
China’s attitude toward new technologies is completely different from Europe’s; Europe has always regulated artificial intelligence with all sorts of regulations, regulating even when there’s nothing to regulate.
In April 2021, the European Commission officially released the draft AI Act, with the most important provision being massive fines for non-compliant AI systems, up to 6% of global annual revenue.
Global annual revenue—clearly tailored for America’s and China’s technology giants.
The official announcement was at 9 a.m., and Harmony Intelligence’s at 10 a.m.:
“Harmony Intelligence Official Announcement
January 1, 2025, Silly Girl officially launches! We are ushering in a new era of autonomous driving!
Today, Harmony Intelligence officially starts L5-level autonomous driving vehicle trial operations, initially covering 10 cities, with one-click booking via WeChat Mini Program for anytime, anywhere experience of future mobility.
Service cities: Yanjing, Shanghai, Yangcheng, Pengcheng, Hangcheng, Jinling, Yudu, Shudu, Jiangcheng, Jinmen. Each city has a different number of autonomous driving vehicles deployed, but enough for you to enjoy the full-domain L5 driving experience.
Whether on bustling urban streets or quiet suburban roads, Harmony Intelligence will provide you with safe, intelligent, worry-free travel experiences.
Officially starting January 1, 2025. Limited vehicles during trial period—welcome everyone to book and experience!
Just open WeChat, search for Harmony Intelligence Mini Program, enter your destination, and quickly book an L5-level autonomous driving vehicle to your destination.
During the trial period, we will closely monitor every user’s experience, optimize promptly, and ensure smarter, more convenient travel.
Any suggestions or issues, welcome to contact us directly via the Mini Program!
The future is here—travel will no longer be humanity’s exclusive domain. Let’s explore the future world together. Harmony Intelligence, intelligently enjoy future mobility!”
The regulation is the starting gun, and Harmony Intelligence is the first to take off.
“???”
“What? You’re not taking Zun Jie, why take Didi?”
“Ten cities? This is discriminating against tier 3 and 4 cities! Strong condemnation!”
“I booked right away after seeing it, but it says 50 minutes wait?”
Netizens exploded like a pot boiling over; in just five minutes, comments below exceeded 100,000.
Everyone rushed to open the WeChat Mini Program to book.
Netizens were surprised to discover that the booking interface really says Silly Girl; Silly Girl serves you.
“Can you change the name? Hua Zi, even if you use up every name from Classic of Mountains and Seas, I won’t tease you, okay?”
“This name has nothing but childhood nostalgia.”
Then a bunch of netizens went to the Douyin of the actor who played Lu Xiaotian, telling him: Silly Girl is back!
Many car circle self-media bloggers started booking in special ways.
Big car circle self-media have teams, or even are shareholders of self-media companies themselves, able to mobilize an entire team.
“Hello everyone, because the world’s first—note, the world’s first—L5 autonomous driving is launching. We’ve had RoboTaxi, Pony.ai, and a series of unmanned ride-hailing vehicles running on roads before.
But they were all L4, and limited-area L4, only able to run in fixed zones. Now jumping straight to L5, I’m really, really excited.
As soon as Harmony Intelligence’s announcement came out at 10 a.m., my WeChat exploded—all company groups, peer groups, stream viewers groups, family groups, everyone discussing what stocks to buy on the first trading day after New Year’s Day, which companies will skyrocket, what affiliated companies there are.
Hey, my phone’s ringing again—it’s 10:23 a.m. Yanjing time. My financial advisor at Huatai has sent a message: Zhen Ge, these are the L5 unmanned driving beneficiary companies our company experts have sorted out; you can take a look first.
Look at them—this business savvy, this efficiency, this speed. No wonder they make money.
Alright, back to the point. After seeing it, I immediately opened the Mini Program to book, and found the shortest wait here is 90 minutes, and even then I might not get it.
So I came up with a sneaky trick: call our company colleagues. Isn’t today a holiday? Everyone lives in different parts of Yanjing, meaning book Silly Girl from different parts—which has the shortest wait, we’ll rush there.
Pretty clever, right?”
Chen Zhen, the famous car reviewer in the car circle who always has fools rushing to get slapped down by him when public opinion turns against him, used his iPhone’s front camera on his somewhat deformed face from ketogenic diet weight loss, chatting casually to countless viewers.
Live stream viewers quickly broke 100,000, the highest traffic in Chen Zhen’s live streaming career.
This made him even more enthusiastic and performative.
For self-media bloggers, data is the most direct positive incentive—good data means no headaches, no sore feet, full of energy.
It’s the same for authors on certain platforms; monthly votes, subscriptions, rewards can make them burst with 200% combat power.
“I’m driving my AITO out now. Two months ago, didn’t Zun Jie have a press conference? I ordered one. Now I want to ask, when will L5 come to Zun Jie?
You can’t have your flagship car without your top technology, right?
Of course, if L5 distribution rights are in Deep Red’s hands, in Ran Shen’s hands, then forget I said anything.
We’re heading to Yizhuang now—a colleague there says only 50 minutes wait, the shortest in our colleague group.
Xiaomi Car’s factory is in Yizhuang— you think this is intentional?
This is my personal guess, doesn’t represent Huawei or Deep Red’s real thoughts. I don’t think so; just a joke.”
Chen Zhen drove while bantering idly with live stream viewers.
“I’m curious, why doesn’t everyone like the name Silly Girl? High-end tech with a simple, unpretentious name—doesn’t that create great contrast? Weren’t Microsoft Xiaoice, Apple, XPeng named like that?
Actually, this is a standard naming rule: use simple names to create contrast for users. Your tech might be 10/10, but named XPeng sets expectation at 6/10; when they feel 10/10, it’s like 12/10.
This is expectation management.
Like Silly Girl—I was stunned watching Ran Shen and Musk’s live stream; Silly Girl outperformed all autonomous driving. Is this silly?
Not to mention Silly Girl has nostalgia boost domestically—it’s the AI name from a TV series years ago.
Isn’t that great?
Of course, if they release a product, I hope the car isn’t called Silly Girl. I believe Harmony Intelligence isn’t that irrational.
As for worries that this name won’t sell overseas, don’t worry too much.
No matter the name, I feel our autonomous driving tech is hard to export.
Cars can, but L5-level autonomous driving means handing your life to a company— a Chinese company. Not just European and American countries, even friendly ones might not accept it.
Everyone needs to face reality: for a long time, L5 autonomous driving tech will only be in China, impossible to sell abroad.”
“Lin Ran? Asking if naming the car Lin Ran or Burning would be good, like foreign brands using founder’s name?
Hmm, how to put it—I’d buy it. Burning feels dynamic, youthful. Not sure if the market will, but probably no issue; Ran Shen’s word of mouth, achievements, and performance are beyond doubt.
Of course, I believe Harmony won’t do that. Convincing Ran Shen to be spokesperson at this level and use his name—what cost?
Billions—I think even Ran Shen wouldn’t agree.
Harmony won’t do it, and can’t afford the price.”
Thirty minutes later, Chen Zhen arrived at Yizhuang, waiting another twenty minutes or so.
“Zhen Ge, I think we shouldn’t stand here; let’s move back a bit.” Xiao Wang, the employee living in Yizhuang, said.
Chen Zhen looked puzzled: “Why? Isn’t this marked on the Mini Program map?”
Xiao Wang explained: “Didn’t we record our faces when registering?”
Chen Zhen thought briefly: “Right, I even thought it was weird then—why does a ride-hailing app need face recording?
I thought maybe to raise the usage threshold, prevent too many people booking, so they added face recording.”
Xiao Wang nodded: “I suspect it’s for facial recognition.
Meaning Silly Girl doesn’t just go by location; upon arrival, it uses cameras to recognize nearby faces, and if it finds the ride-hailing user’s face, it drives there.”
Chen Zhen slapped his thigh: “Damn! Makes sense!
Xiao Wang, if your guess is right, you’ve done it again—this is the first discovery!”
In the workplace, thinking of what others don’t often leaves a good impression on leaders; with private rapport, you stand out among peers.
Personal ability and connections—both essential; former reflects IQ, latter EQ.
“Wait, Zhen Ge, if my guess is right, we didn’t choose trunk use when booking. I guess it autonomously judges.
Camera sees you with luggage, opens trunk after stopping; no luggage, doesn’t.
I bet it has a judgment rule for trunk opening too!” Xiao Wang suddenly realized.
Chen Zhen quickly said: “Go home and grab a suitcase now—make it in time?”
Xiao Wang nodded: “Yes!” Then he ran off.
Three minutes later, Xiao Wang returned to the roadside; they waited another five minutes, with Chen Zhen aiming the camera at Silly Girl, not himself:
“Everyone, look—it’s at the location.”
“Damn, Xiao Wang’s guess is real! Unlike other unmanned ride-hailing that just stupidly wait at the spot, it actively seeks passengers.
Look! It’s driving toward us! Silly Girl isn’t silly at all—compared to other unmanned taxis, this reaction is too clever.”
After stopping, Silly Girl’s trunk automatically opened. Xiao Wang and Chen Zhen exchanged glances and pumped fists: “Indeed! They designed with human thinking, not rule restrictions!”
Suitcase in trunk, after Chen Zhen, Xiao Wang, and two other colleagues sat steady inside, a dedicated colleague held the phone on him.
Chen Zhen in the driver’s seat said:
“Silly Girl’s intelligence exceeded my expectations; details like this weren’t visible in Ran Shen’s live stream.
We say details are the devil; here, it’s almost indistinguishable from human drivers.
Parking at pickup, finding passengers, brief start then stop, opening trunk for luggage—unbelievable.
On finding passengers, Silly Girl does better than human drivers—no need to call; just camera recognition.
First time in a car without steering wheel, dashboard, brakes, or accelerator—future is really here.
Map on HUD display, HUD acting as dashboard.
Right side has emergency brake button. Here, Xiao Li, pass me the phone—showing our viewer friends, right here.
Unless emergency, don’t press—50,000 gone in one press. Reminder to everyone.
Ride experience is great; seats like Ideal’s sofa. No driver’s seat or engine transmission trio means great spatial sense.
Absolute luxury car experience.
Price is luxury car level too; this ride is farthest—from Yizhuang across inner ring to Changping.
Over 600 bucks—Didi luxury car price, twice as much as premium rides.
Personally, experience is no different, so this pricing anticipates huge demand, like a deliberate threshold.
If me, I’d set higher—still too few; even at this price, half-hour waits minimum, mostly for media reviews or tech enthusiasts.”
The car quietly drove on Yanjing roads:
“Sound insulation great—almost no outside noise.
Car status shown on HUD; handles complex conditions aggressively.
Not as aggressive as me driving, but more than average drivers; safety redundancy distance, from my observation, shorter than all other autonomous driving.”
The whole experience took two hours; Chen Zhen’s live stream viewers climbed from 100,000, peaking over 500,000.
Note, not just Chen Zhen reviewing—Douyin, Weibo, Bilibili, top car reviewers all reviewing.
Not the only one with this method; other big bloggers thought of it too, waiting up to 1.5 hours but rode L5 autonomous driving.
Without exception, car reviewers all raved, saying this autonomous driving clearly outperforms others, ride quality essentially same as human drivers.
After getting off in Changping, Chen Zhen smiled wryly:
“Looks like we need another ride; everyone book and head home.
Let me summarize here.
First, this isn’t a test, just a review—purely subjective, not objective at all. No money taken; it’d be abrupt, and they wouldn’t need to buy our praise for such a unique product.
So relatively objective.
Throughout the long drive—from Yizhuang to Changping, over 60 km, nearly two hours, all complex conditions experienced.
Unlike past unmanned taxis limited to specific wide-lane areas, can’t cross zones.
It smoothly handled everything—elevated ramps, auxiliary lane changes, intersections, etc., showing super capabilities past autonomous driving couldn’t.
I say it’s L5.
Undoubtedly L5, as I said before—L5 first appears in China.
Then, what everyone cares about: impacts on new forces—every one affected.
Like Tesla, still sell FSD? Controls great, but barebones interior—others don’t need controls, how do you sell?
XPeng pushes smart driving; however strong, how compete with Harmony Intelligence L5? Worse, Volkswagen gives XPeng billions yearly in technology licensing fees—can that continue with L5?
NIO’s world large model—what now? Push or not? Ideal’s Ideal Classmate, Moment, Bosch, Pony.ai autonomous providers all in trouble.
BYD and Xiaomi slightly better, but limited.
Fatal question: with L5, do we still need cars? Still need personal cars?
Most important issue—not thinking it through, whole industry could vanish.
Alright, live stream ends here. Future really came; now it’s one day at a time—maybe tomorrow car reviewer industry gone, only cyberpunk begging left.
Still need your support, thanks.”
Chen Zhen cupped fists, video screen vanished.
That day, besides live streams, Douyin, Weibo, Xiaohongshu saw a wave chasing Silly Girl shots.
“Didn’t notice all Silly Girl plates start with R? Like Jing R, Hu R, Yue R?”
“R for Robot? Previous plate sequences wouldn’t reach R.”
“Silly Girl · Jing R · 00001—really has cyberpunk world flavor.”
Then someone tallied Harmony Intelligence’s Silly Girl deployments nationwide:
“Yanjing, Shanghai, Pengcheng each 50 Silly Girls; Yangcheng, Hangcheng, Yudu, Shudu each 30; Jinling, Jiangcheng, Jinmen each 20. What does this mean? Harmony has tiered the cities.
First three super-tier 1; middle four tier 1; last three new tier 1.”
“No, why Yudu and Shudu tier 1? Aren’t they new tier 1?”
“Why isn’t Yangcheng super-tier 1? Ran Shen as Yangcheng local, no face?”
Regional war begins!
That evening at 9 p.m., Lin Ran started live streams on his personal Douyin and Bilibili simultaneously.
Douyin official discovered and pushed flow hard.
For Chinese netizens, pure surprise.
“Chat with everyone. Today is first day of 2025; L5 had no press conference, Deep Red none either, yet all sorts of public opinion voices.
Many worry about unemployment—like ride-hailing drivers, fearing mature tech means job loss.
Delivery riders too—much of their work is driving.
Even delivery guys worry future full automation.
Ride-hailing, delivery, express—big employment pools, everyone worried.
So I want to chat directly like this.”
Lin Ran in his home study, Saturn V, Burning No. 1, Burning One Modified ultra-HD photos behind.
Live stream backend viewers quickly broke 1 million; bullet screen too fast for normal eyes—good thing Lin Ran isn’t normal.
“One by one. When L5 on cars? Don’t know, probably not this year; needs overall consideration.
Many proposals; believe judgment required.
One feared: launch L5 unmanned ride-hailing platform, raise personal car costs, lower big fleets, nationwide unmanned taxis.
Downsides: Didi drivers unemployed, most automakers bankrupt, auto industries vanish.
Upsides: boost resident infrastructure again, new jobs, cities expand infinitely, daily activity range greatly increases.
Most aggressive scheme; won’t choose unless rushing into cyberpunk society.
Second: only Harmony Intelligence partner models get L5 boost; others impacted. Don’t know; I could interfere but won’t.
Not my place; I’m just one tech R&D side, won’t intervene operations.
Like TSMC making Nvidia AI computing cards—does it control where Nvidia sells? No, and I won’t either.
Not my job. Automakers figure it with Huawei; if Huawei wants to be Bosch, they’ll negotiate.
Next, third: all cars future offer optional Huawei L5 autonomous driving—most likely.
So waiters forever free!”
Lin Ran joked.
“How I see stock market? A-shares tomorrow, beneficiaries? Deep Red with Cambricon? Deep Red with Kunlun Wanwei?
Stop—I won’t recommend any stocks!
Clear answer: no cooperation with Cambricon now; future? Consider—we open to any Chinese chip manufacturer.
Some thinking—not advice, my thoughts.
Autonomous driving directly impacts—what you listed, why no insurers?
L5 means automakers liable; accident, they responsible—why let traditional insurers eat car insurance cake? Why share?
Confident in my tech, I’ll provide insurance myself.
Like who thought CATL would have offline stores? Like Bosch offline in fuel era—unthinkable then, reality in EV era.
CATL stores not just repair—they sell cars!
New energy vehicle automakers can sell insurance to their customers if confident in autonomous driving.
So post-L5, insurers definitely impacted—immediate or later.
Huawei 100% will establish or acquire an insurer to operate L5 autonomous driving vehicle insurance.
