I'm Proud!

After checking the remaining funds, Xu Yifan sighed.

"Even after selling more than a hundred cars over the past ten days or so, our profits only came to a little over two hundred thousand."

The profit was what Xu Yifan actually earned after deducting employee wages, taxes, and other expenses.

That was already a pretty good income. Jiuzhou Mini had only been on sale for a little over ten days, and at this rate, it could bring in more than six hundred thousand a month. And once production ramped up, it would earn even more.

But compared with the huge expenses coming up, that little bit of income was a drop in the bucket.

"There were still more than four million in the account before. After paying the mold-making and parts production fees to the suppliers, as well as the cost of purchasing production materials and so on, we've only got a little over two million left to use.

And once Jiuzhou Mini's production capacity increases, we'll need even more money to buy raw materials.

If we run at full capacity and make around seventy cars, we'll spend over a million a day on raw materials alone.

Besides, we can't buy parts and raw materials just once a day. We'll need to buy enough to last at least a week at a time.

Fortunately, we don't need to do that just yet. Production hasn't ramped up, so each purchase only costs one or two million.

Taking the funds we have left and the money we'll earn as production ramps up into account—

After deducting employee wages, purchases of materials and parts, and other expenses, we'll only have about a million available."

As the factory settled into normal operation, the system interface began showing more information.

For example, it now displayed details about the company's funds. The main panel showed the factory's total funds, while a separate section listed how much was available to use.

The funds also changed constantly. Selling a car and receiving payment or a deposit, paying for a purchase, or buying the canteen's daily ingredients—all of it appeared in real time in the detailed funds interface.

Any financial transactions unrelated to the factory or its operations would be highlighted in red in the system.

Xu Yifan had already dealt with one of the purchasing staff. The employee had abused his position, ordering some things for his own home from a supplier while purchasing parts for the factory: more than ten air conditioners!

The purchasing employee was fired the next day and had to return the air conditioners. Xu Yifan had been merciful by not taking him to court.

Xu Yifan assigned the air conditioners to the employee dormitory, raising employee satisfaction by one percent!

The incident had left the purchasing department stunned. They hadn't expected the little factory director, who rarely showed his face, to catch them pulling tricks so quickly.

At least until they found out how Xu Yifan had discovered it, most of the purchasing staff wouldn't dare entertain any crooked ideas.

The factory was just getting started. It had absolutely no tolerance for this kind of behavior.

With the system's help, even an ordinary person like Xu Yifan, with little management experience, could keep the factory completely under control!

After calculating how much money the factory currently had available, Xu Yifan sighed and shifted his gaze to the buildings.

The production workshop was running normally and was expected to make twenty-three Jiuzhou Minis that day. The job openings would only be posted today.

Most important of all was the Battery Research and Development Center.

Battery Research and Development Center Level 1: Eight researchers

Lu Jingping: ★★★★

Hua Yong'an: ★★★

Liu Mincai: ★★★

Qin Si: ★★★

Qiu Haowei: ★★★

Zou Zhao: ★★★

Jiang Han: ★★★

Niu Litao: ★★★

Research project: New Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Technology, 35% complete.

When he selected the option to view the center, Xu Yifan could see the researchers conducting various experiments inside.

However, when he checked over the past few days, the researchers no longer looked as relaxed as they had before.

Sometimes they frowned, sometimes they sank into deep thought, sometimes they sighed, and sometimes they pored over domestic and international papers on their computers.

They could even get lost in thought in the middle of an experiment. They didn't have much hair to begin with, and the complexity of the problems had left it all disheveled from being tugged at!

They had a good attitude toward work and all seemed very serious. There was no sign of anyone slacking off or cutting corners.

Thanks to their hard work, this young team had been steadily advancing the project by one percent every two or three days.

In just three months, they had brought the development of the new lithium iron phosphate battery technology to thirty-five percent.

But they seemed to have run into a major obstacle over the past few days. They hadn't made any progress for a week.

The researchers were a young team with an average age just over thirty. They weren't slacking off in the slightest, but nothing they did seemed to help.

Xu Yifan understood: they had encountered a technical bottleneck. They had already run into two or three minor snags, each taking four or five days to solve before they could make progress again.

But this time, the problem looked much tougher.

Xu Yifan reached out and lightly tapped the project's progress on the system panel.

A new dialogue box appeared.

[Would you like to spend 8 million yuan to accelerate research and development?]

[Yes] [No]

He had checked this feature before. Most of the time, he only needed to spend a few hundred thousand to a little over a million to make some progress.

The enormous cost this time could only mean one thing: this was a very difficult problem.

For the researchers, unless they had some kind of cheat, it might take a long time of tinkering, learning, and experimenting to break through this obstacle.

It might take three or five months, one or two years, or even three or five years.

If some of the researchers broke down after being stuck for too long, the delay could become indefinite.

The battery lab had been established for a little over three months, and the project was already thirty-five percent complete.

That sounded fast, but they had started with some of the simpler parts of the project. The rest were all relatively difficult.

If the team of just a few people continued with ordinary research, there was no telling how long it would take them to finish.

"This research is kind of like a student taking an exam: first they finish the questions they know how to do, the easy ones, and then they slowly work on the difficult ones?"

"But a student has a time limit. Whether they finish affects their final score, while this research project has no deadline."

After a couple of remarks, Xu Yifan's gaze sharpened.

"No, I can't keep waiting like this. There's no telling how long it'll take them to crack this problem. In this situation, the only way to break the deadlock is to spend money!"

"It's just eight million. I've got someone backing me!"

"I can live off my parents, and I'm proud of it!"