Translation

The operation editor urged his colleagues, who were elusive, to recall their “edit department story” and share it with everyone on April 2, “Garage Day”.

Wang SongSong

I carefully looked through the album, and almost all the pictures are various “black” photos. I accidentally found this ordinary work photo, but if you think about it carefully, this photo is a bit different.

At 03:16 on September 13, 2020, one day before the official launch of the 42Mark evaluation standards, all members participating in the 42Mark project were in full battle state, and this had been going on for several days…

We have had many similar experiences.

For example, the first assisted driving review. We set off at 10 pm on the first day, arrived at the hotel at 7 am on the second day, rested for less than 2 hours, and then continued to write articles and test…

Another example is the 72-hour cross-China drive of the Ideal ONE, during which 4 people almost never left the car for 4 days, did not take a shower, did not change their clothes…

And the Model Y’s biggest unboxing video, from getting the test drive car to returning it, only took 24 hours. We successfully completed the exterior mirror, dynamic mirror, endurance test, performance test, host on-site video recording, and thoroughly implemented the principle of “resting the car but not the man”…

Having said so much, I am very sure that this is not complaining. Everyone is very happy, and everyone is full of passion. I just want to say that Garage has always been working hard and hopes to bring more valuable and meaningful reports and evaluations to everyone.

Just like our current slogan: Influencing the future travel of more people!

Chang LaoShi

This is a photo of the four of us after attending the 2020 Chengdu Auto Show. 63 is almost falling asleep; DaJi is tweeting. The photo was taken hurriedly by Lai Reinhardt, and I even looked at the camera.

Coincidentally, many things have started from here since then. NIO EC6 was officially released at the Chengdu Auto Show. On another day, we really bought one. On the night of the photo, we participated in a media dinner organized by XPeng, which was a warm banquet in the automotive media circle. I am very happy to have met many colleagues there. And more importantly, it was at the Chengdu Auto Show where we decided to take an Ideal ONE car and cross-China journey for 72 hours.# Rinehart

This is a group photo taken before the end of Chengdu Auto Show last year. It was also the first time I participated in the auto show as a journalist.

Before I came to the garage, a senior colleague from my previous job warned me earnestly that “if you turn your hobby into a profession, you will find it boring.” But after a difficult psychological struggle, I decided to leave the manufacturing industry and come to this place I had been longing for.

During the Chengdu Auto Show, getting up early, running dozens of booths while taking pictures and posting on Weibo, was actually very tiring. But the strongest feeling in my heart was the excitement and love of being able to share industry news with everyone for the first time. That love continues to this day, making me curious and full of expectations for this industry every morning when I wake up.

And now I can say with certainty that Garage 42 is the place that can shine this love.

Rabbit 8

This was a 2000km long-distance trip I took during the Chinese New Year with an electric car. It was also a chance for me to experience what it’s like to use assisted driving and charging. Yes, I didn’t even know how to charge my car when I first got it…

At the end of 2019, when I first came to the garage, in order to get along well with my new colleagues, I brought some roast chickens from my hometown. After learning that the new company had a Model 3, I began to negotiate with Yang, the staff member in charge of the car, and finally exchanged “man-chicken transportation service” at the cost of one roast chicken. However, what I didn’t expect was that Yang, who was eyeing the roast chicken, was not even in the company…

To get on with it, at that time, I had just arrived at the garage, and in order to become a qualified electric car fan as soon as possible, I drove an electric car for a 2000km return journey home. Sleeping on the highway during traffic jams, eating instant noodles with NIO car owners, being led by a Highlander owner to break through the fog…the experiences on this journey greatly improved my understanding of electric cars, and also allowed my parents in my hometown to appreciate the charm of electric cars. I am more and more convinced that I will be an electric car owner in the future.

Betty

Before I started my job, I really liked watching sunsets, and the gentle light and the brightness and darkness of the clouds almost caught my attention every day. After I started working, turning on this floor lamp in the evening is like watching a sunset.

As a complete layman in the Internet industry, a road killer who passed the third subject of the driving test after five attempts, I was fined 50 yuan for running a red light on a bicycle in the morning because of not understanding the traffic regulations. At one point, I doubted that it was an April Fools’ Day joke by the traffic police. To be honest, I should not have any connection with “cars,” but real life is unreasonable.

During the Chinese New Year, I was idle at home and came across a recruitment post “wanting to achieve user growth in a fun and kind way.” Hey! How can we withstand this as ordinary operators? I rashly joined the company, and now I am on the same boat and cannot get off.

As an employee of a media company, I can intuitively perceive the passage of time, information, and even wealth rapidly passing by me. I can also see that the industry and even the world are constantly changing every minute and second, which is a living and vibrant feeling. There are also small partners around me with unlimited enthusiasm and infectiousness. Although there are many terms and memes that I cannot understand, everyone’s happiness is the same (and their weight gain is also the same). I am very lucky to be walking with interesting people, and even this road killer dares to dream of driving an electric car to travel around China with the help of assisted driving skills.

63

This picture was taken at the end of 2019 during the Guangzhou Auto Show. We were organizing the newly released car information from the Guangzhou Auto Show and at the same time following the Tesla Cybertruck launch event. After the auto show, we also accumulated a lot of drafts, so we had to make good use of the time before boarding the plane.

That was the busiest time in the industry, the official delivery of the Ideal ONE, the first stop of Tesla’s V3 in China, the first visit to Tesla Shanghai factory, the North American release conference of Ford Mach-E, the release of Tesla Cybertruck, etc.

All the events were clustered together, and at that time, Kang, the core force of writing drafts in the garage, officially left. At that time, the pressure was enormous, and Song and I wrote drafts on hot topics until late at night every day.

We sent the draft at 8:30 on the night before going to the Guangzhou Auto Show. We took the subway to Hongqiao Airport and arrived in Guangzhou after 1 am. Fortunately, we chose a hotel next to a snack street. We each ate a large bowl of beef offal before going to bed. After all, the hotels during the auto show period were seriously overpriced, and we didn’t want to stay for even a moment in the 200-yuan-a-night 7 Days Inn except for sleeping.During the auto show, we maintained a schedule of sleeping at 3 in the morning and waking up at 8, participating in activities during the day and squeezing in time to write the evening’s article. We would publish the article around midnight, then check for any new information from foreign media, prepare and save it in the draft box of Weibo, ready for publishing at 8 o’clock the next morning. This was what we did behind the scenes while writing and running our Weibo account simultaneously.

That period of time was definitely the busiest (if not one of the busiest) times, but it was also the period where we grew the most. Perhaps for many, such growth does not need to come at such great cost, but we didn’t have the luxury to take it easy.

During this process, we encountered many moments of self-doubt. We wondered if we could have achieved more if we put our energy into something else. However, with every new car release or the excitement of experiencing something new, I knew I still loved this industry. When I saw the recognition and expectations from our readers in the comment section, I knew it was all worth it.

From entering the garage three years ago to where we are now, we followed the journey of the garage, experiencing many challenges and gaining so much knowledge. Moving forward, we will continue on this path.

Da Ji

I am the person who has been with the garage for the longest time, so I want to share a rare photo. This was the first photo taken in the garage’s first office back in March 2018.

Of course, to trace the history of the garage, we need to go a bit further back. In 2016, my friend gave me a public account, “Electric Cars,” which had been registered in 2013, as I was planning to start researching and writing about Tesla. Initially, I intended to use it as a marketing account to practice my writing skills. However, as I continued writing, I found that I couldn’t spend my precious spare time on a marketing account. Therefore, I changed the account name to “Garage 42.” 42 was taken from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” and I recommend this book at the first reading salon that I held at my first bookstore. It has many mysterious explanations, and I talked a lot about its relationship with technology. In fact, in my heart, it also had another layer of meaning – absurdity and impermanence.

This might sound a bit strange compared to what most people are passionate about. But one day, I suddenly realized that “this is it,” and everything was right once the name was right. Slowly walking towards the direction I wanted to go, I was fortunate enough to meet many small companions along the way.

Many old readers of the garage thought “Da Ji” was a boy, but there was some intentional framing behind this. During the period of amateur creation from 2016-2018, I invited two friends, the bosses’ wives and Ah Hu, to write with me. Therefore, the three of us were the garage’s first authors, and we were all girls. Interestingly, from the account’s data, more than 90\% of our readers were boys.Until we officially started our business, we were lucky to form a team of readers based on our previous reader base. The class leader and Xiaokang both got to know us through our articles, 63 and Song Song were members of our WeChat group, and the earliest applicants were garage community administrators. Oh, right, I once kicked Song Song out of the group, and 63 even wrote the names of other media on his resume. In fact, I asked 63 about it, and he said that he was afraid that he couldn’t meet the requirements because our articles on the garage were too hardcore, so he didn’t submit the resume. So, if we hadn’t recruited community administrators, 63 might not have come to the garage.

Hey, who knows? Like all adventure stories, the journey continues. We will have more partners joining us, such as Betty, who is urging us to stay up late to prepare the manuscript …

Kuma

Recently, a colleague took me to the hospital for a medical examination every once in a while, with a ambiguous smile on her face. There must be something unusual about this, meow ~

I joined the garage on July 5, 2020. Although I have a small body, I used to be a bully in Changning district before we recruited me. I enjoyed a free and unfettered life until one windy night, I was attracted by the smell of dumplings to this small office, and I … shamefully gained weight. In order to enjoy the fully automatic toilet, endless dried fish, and high exposure rate during the live stream, I reluctantly applied for the job.

They hired me as a receptionist, mainly responsible for “interview reception” functions. In fact, I’m versatile and can do anything. With the increase in the number of employees, I am getting busier and planning to apply for a pay rise next month.

The above is some work memory fragments in everyone’s mind. Do you have any memories related to Garage 42? How did you get to know about Garage 42? How did you introduce Garage 42 to others? Have you participated in online or offline activities organized by Garage 42? Have you met the staff of the garage and more car friends? Which videos or articles of the garage have left a deep impression on you? Have they influenced your car purchasing decisions?

Feel free to chat in the comments~ Meow~

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.