I want to be emperor

Chapter 1091 Auto Expo

In the autumn and October of the 50th year of Chengshun, under the leadership and coordination of the Emerging Industries Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, hosted by the Yingtianfu Industrial and Commercial Office, and co-organized by the Ministry of Industry, the four major automobile manufacturers and more than 20 domestic third-party automobile manufacturers, and two hundred engineering special vehicle manufacturers The first Auto Expo of the Dachu Empire opened in Jinling City with the participation of multiple automotive industry chain suppliers.

This is the first expo in the history of the Chu Empire specifically for automobiles and related industrial chains. This expo is not only open to the industry, but is also widely open to the public.

Various automobile manufacturers want to take advantage of this opportunity to launch a big promotion to attract consumers and win a large number of orders.

On October 7, the exhibition officially opened. In order to reflect the empire's official emphasis on the automobile industry, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince attended the opening ceremony in person and delivered a public speech. In his speech, he emphasized the empire's emphasis on and support for the automobile industry and encouraged all parties to participate in the exhibition. Automobile manufacturers and related industrial chain enterprises must be brave in innovation, promote the further development of automobile technology, promote the further popularization of automobiles, and strive to bring automobiles into the homes of ordinary people within ten years.

This public speech can be regarded as the first time that the empire's core executives' high hopes and expectations for the automobile industry have been officially announced to the outside world.

What does it mean to strive to bring cars into ordinary people's homes within ten years?

This means that the annual production of cars must reach at least millions or even tens of millions, so that cars can truly enter the homes of ordinary people, not just become used by the rich and high-income groups. Tools to show wealth.

Behind the huge car production, it means low car prices, and low car purchase and use costs will promote the important role of cars in the transportation industry.

It is worth noting that at the opening ceremony, the Minister of Transportation of the Dachu Empire also said in a simple follow-up speech that he would vigorously promote the construction of highways in various places, focusing on the construction of hardened roads in cities, focusing on the construction of official roads between cities and Key official roads will be hardened, that is, asphalt roads or cement roads will be constructed.

If cars want to become a real means of mass transportation and cargo transportation, corresponding road supports are indispensable.

In the city, it's actually not a big problem... Most of the cities in the Chu Empire, even the main roads in small cities, are basically hardened roads, either asphalt roads or cement roads, rather than main roads. Cinder was also laid.

Cinder roads are the main road material in the contemporary Chu Empire... There is no way. Every year, the Chu Empire burns countless coals and produces an astronomical amount of cinders. Most of the final uses of these cinders are to pave roads.

Therefore, the roads in the mainland of the Chu Empire, especially in economically prosperous areas in East Asia, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Bohai Rim, and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, are quite good.

Even ordinary official roads are mostly cinder or gravel roads!

This is not to say that it is prepared for cars, but for countless horse-drawn carriages...

There are many kinds of carriages in the Chu Empire... much more than the number of cars now. The various contemporary carriages undertake the massive short-distance transportation tasks in the Chu Empire, and some are used for people transportation in the city. There are public carriages, private carriages, rental carriages; there are also public carriages, private carriages, etc. used in suburban and rural areas; and the carriages carrying passengers are actually only a small number, and more are actually a large number of carriages used for cargo transportation.

Every large city requires a large number of freight carriages to transport various goods.

And carriages are also cars, and they also have a need for good roads.

So many years ago, even in the 1920s, the Chu Empire had already launched large-scale road construction. At that time, many urban roads were paved with cinder roads, even cement roads, and asphalt roads.

Long-distance roads, also known as official roads in the traditional sense, are also being gradually widened and improved, gradually changing from traditional dirt roads to cinder roads and gravel roads.

Even some relatively short intercity roads were gradually paved with asphalt roads, such as Jinling City to Dangtu, Songjiang to Suzhou... Asphalt roads were already paved in the early 1940s.

At that time, cars were still in a very primitive stage.

Therefore, the road development of the Dachu Empire preceded the development of the automobile industry to a certain extent.

But...even that would hardly satisfy the car's requirements.

The reason is simple. Cars carry more weight and are faster, which means higher demands on the road.

For example, many of the previously paved asphalt roads actually had very thin land bases and asphalt, and their designed carrying capacity was limited. There would naturally be no problem with horse-drawn carriages carrying hundreds of kilograms or more than a thousand kilograms in daily traffic.

But what about today's cars... Many cars weigh over a thousand kilograms, and when combined with the load, it can easily reach three to four thousand kilograms.

For example, the civilian version of the No. 15 truck launched by Tangshan Automobile Company. Although this truck has a nominal load of 1.5 tons... But in fact, this is a previous design requirement of the military. Under such load conditions, it can still drive on dirt roads and even Keep driving normally at low speed in the wilderness.

But if necessary, it can actually carry more than two tons or even three tons of cargo... It may not be able to run in the wild, but there is no problem on a flat dirt road.

But in this way, the requirements for roads will also be higher.

For example, if you drive on many previously constructed asphalt roads, it will be fine once or twice, but with so many overloaded trucks driving on them every day, the road will soon be damaged.

In other words, although the road system in the contemporary Dachu Empire is very developed and complete, with official roads covering almost every town, the quality of the roads is still unsatisfactory... Of course, this unsatisfactory quality was used in the automobile era. If it were the horse-drawn carriage era, then the quality would be unsatisfactory. The road standards of the Chu Empire are unparalleled in ancient times and today.

After all... you can't find another country that has already begun to build large-scale asphalt roads in the horse-drawn carriage era, and has spread official and religious monasteries in almost every town.

The transportation department has also taken into account that the current road standards are not enough for faster and heavier cars, so they have formulated a new generation of road construction standards to classify road grades into Class A roads and Class B roads. , a total of four levels of road construction standards for Class C roads, and at the same time, the construction progress of hardened pavement will be increased.

This Auto Expo will take advantage of the situation to announce it to the outside world, and plans to build a large number of second-class roads in major cities.

The so-called second-class road is actually a main highway, which requires the use of cement or asphalt to harden the road surface, and is a two-way four-lane or six-lane road.

Class C roads are also hardened roads, but they only refer to hardened roads with two-lane traffic in both directions.

Ding and other roads are traditional non-hardened roads.

Finally, there is a Class A road, which has higher requirements and requires a two-way four-lane, six-lane or even eight-lane asphalt road or cement road that can quickly pass heavy vehicles.

At the same time, the load-bearing requirements of hardened pavement are also higher. The construction standard of hardened pavement is that the lowest grade C road must reach 0.35 MPa, while the load-bearing capacity of B grade road is required to reach 0.5 MPa... Although this This road load-bearing standard is actually the level of rural roads in later generations... But don't underestimate the rural roads of later generations. Although the rural roads of later generations are smaller, people can still run large trucks with dozens of tons... …

In the contemporary Dachu Empire, there are no large trucks with dozens of tons, and there are very few trucks with a load of several tons. After all, the engine has only so little power, and it cannot pull dozens of tons!

Times are different, technology is different, cars are different, so road standards are also different.

In fact, it is not that the Dachu Empire cannot build high-standard cement roads or asphalt roads like those of later generations, and increase the road pressure-bearing capacity to 0.7 MPa... It is just that more materials are used, but it is not necessary, and the cost will be It's too expensive and has no practical use scenarios. It's just a waste of money.

When there is actual need in the future, it will be time for the roads being built now to be repaired. At that time, it will just be necessary to carry out modifications to improve the technical standards. In the future, closed high-grade roads, also known as expressways, can be built.

In short, you have to eat the food in one mouthful. It is impossible to become fat after eating one mouthful. It is easy to choke to death.

The prince attended the Auto Expo, and ministers from the Ministry of Transport and several other important departments also attended and spoke. This gave the first Auto Expo a strong political atmosphere...

This is not surprising. The automobile industry in the Dachu Empire has always had a strong political atmosphere... Without the vigorous promotion of the government, the automobile industry in the Dachu Empire would not have grown from its original state in just ten years or so. The form of automobiles has developed to the current production of hundreds of thousands of automobiles.

The automobile industry has many benefits for the senior leaders of the Dachu Empire... It can replace horses and save agricultural resources that can feed hundreds of millions of people; it can replace horse-drawn carriages and improve the urban environment; it can also drive the development of the industrial economy and improve people's living standards. Increase financial revenue, etc.

With so many benefits, the empire’s top brass naturally strongly supported it.

It can even be said that the development of the automobile industry in the Dachu Empire was promoted by the empire's senior leaders from the beginning... The starting point of the matter was when Luo Zhixue personally instructed the three major manufacturers of internal combustion engines to increase their efforts to develop internal combustion engines, especially It is the research and development of gasoline engines, and various supports such as interest-free loans and tax incentives have been provided for this purpose.

At that time, the three major internal combustion engine manufacturers were almost desperate for internal combustion engines... Well, they were still the three major agricultural machinery manufacturers at that time. It was because of this policy support that they could continue the research and development of gasoline engines, and then successively developed industrial gas engines. Early heat pipe ignition gasoline engines, and finally the current spark plug ignition gasoline engines.

This step by step also took ten years.

If calculated in terms of money... The Chu Empire's support for the automobile industry in the past ten years has been as high as 10 to 20 million Chu yuan... Well, although the money directly taken out is not much, the interest-free loans provided , it is not truly interest-free. Banks still charge interest, but the interest is subsidized by the government.

At the same time, there are tax benefits... It seems like you don't have to pay for it, but you don't have to pay taxes when doing business. This can also be said to be a financial rebate.

In recent years, in order to support the automobile industry, the imperial finance has actually confiscated several taxes on the automobile industry, and even provided a large amount of subsidies.

Of course, the government will never lose money... Although it cannot collect taxes from the automobile industry, the expansion of the automobile industry will drive huge economic development. Not to mention other things, just automobiles and related industries The number of jobs added in the chain is a very huge number. The increased jobs have allowed a group of people to have income, and with income comes consumption. And in terms of consumption... every Chu Yuan spent can at least contribute 30 to 40% of indirect tax revenue to the empire.

Therefore, for this large-scale industry, the imperial government did not receive any tax revenue on the surface, but in fact tax revenue was still indispensable.

In fact, taxes are not important... what is important is jobs and increasing people's income.

And these reasons are also the reason why the empire's top officials once again took a public platform to attend and speak at the first Auto Expo.

The exhibition on the first day was not open to the public, and was only open to official personnel, some official media, and the industry. The main itinerary of this day was actually a large number of people accompanying Prince Luo Jian to visit.

Prince Luo Li also attaches great importance to today's visit... He had met his father Luo Zhixue before coming and asked about relevant matters.

His father, Luo Zhixue, once again emphasized the importance of the automobile industry to him.

It is actually difficult for Prince Luo Jian to have a clear prediction of what the future of automobiles will be like, but he knows that the automobile industry is very important, and he also knows that his father attaches great importance to it.

In the past fifty years, his father Luo Zhixue has proven his strategic vision countless times.

In the early years, the development of steam engines was vigorously promoted, and later on, the development of steam ships and steam trains was vigorously promoted... Then, the construction of telegraphs was vigorously promoted, and now electrification and the development of internal combustion engines are promoted.

All these prove one by one that his father Luo Zhixue has an intuition about future industrial development that is far beyond ordinary people and even incomprehensible.

Luo Zhixue, who has never missed anything, made it clear that he attached great importance to the automobile industry. Others, including Prince Luo Li, had to believe it...

When the visit officially started, Prince Luo Li's eyes were opened... He saw all the models on sale from the four major automobile manufacturers, in addition to many third-party manufacturers, engineering special vehicles, all kinds of There are hundreds of car models, which is dizzying to see.

The most eye-catching one is undoubtedly the new generation Tangshan Type 3 sedan launched by Tangshan Automobile Company. This sedan is equipped with their newly developed four-cylinder engine and three-speed gearbox.

The power of this engine can reach 20 horsepower... and its fuel consumption is greatly reduced compared to the previous generation.

The details in all aspects are also very well optimized. The most important thing is that this thing actually uses a fixed hard carriage instead of the previous soft-top open carriage.

Although it is only such a small change, such a small change means that the body weight is a lot heavier, the requirements for the power system are higher, and the cost is also higher.

At the same time, they also innovatively installed wipers... However, this kind of wipers is still relatively primitive and needs to be shaken manually, which means that it is dangerous to shake the wipers manually while driving... So they are very considerate and installed them in the passenger seat. A wiper handle is installed. When there is a passenger on the co-pilot on a rainy day, the passenger on the co-pilot can help shake the wiper...

Don't laugh...cars these days are so primitive.

And this is already a very creative innovation that has even attracted the attention of many people... because before this, no one had thought that there could be such a thing as a wiper.

Well, in fact, it is not actually used in many cases, because cars these days generally drive very slowly... Although many cars are said to be able to run at a speed of 60 or 70 kilometers per hour, they are limited by technology, safety and other factors. I personally dare to run so fast... In daily life, the speed is usually 20 or 30 kilometers per hour, but for safety reasons on rainy days, I drive even slower. A speed of more than ten kilometers per hour is normal.

This is actually no different from the speed of a carriage!

In the past, horse-drawn carriages did not need wipers, nor did cars running at speeds of more than ten kilometers per hour!

So people before didn't think much of it... But as for Tangshan Automobile Company, they were obsessed with building better and faster cars, and they realized the trouble of driving on rainy days when the speed of the car increased.

As a result, they made all the new generation of main models have fixed hard roofs and installed manual wipers.

Judging from the appearance, the Tangshan Type 3 cars at this time were not much different from the cars in the original time and space at the beginning of the 20th century, probably around the time of World War I.

Of course, this is just about appearance, there is still a big gap in performance.

Because of its beautiful appearance and good performance, this Tangshan Type 3 car attracted the attention of Prince Luo Li, and he even got in the car to experience it... Unfortunately, the driving experience was the same as all contemporary cars, it was very uncomfortable.

If you are not a professional technician with good physical fitness, don't expect to drive...it is easy to make operational errors, and the physical requirements are too high.

In today's cars, the steering wheel and brakes don't have any power assist... they all have to be operated by the driver's own strength, which is very laborious.

At the same time, upshifting and downshifting of the gearbox is also very troublesome... It requires a lot of experience and even a certain amount of talent to be able to shift up and down smoothly. Otherwise, it will be a trivial matter if it can't start. Misoperation and forcing the gearbox into gear will cause wear and even damage to the gearbox. event.

So Prince Luo Jian got off the car after a brief experience, and then went to watch other cars.

There are too many kinds of cars today, not only regular cars, but also various other vehicles.

Soon the prince arrived at the platform of Liaohe Automobile Company. Their other vehicles were unremarkable, but their three-wheeled vehicles, also known as three-wheeled motorcycles, were more eye-catching... because this thing was a product of the military-to-civilian transformation. Thousands of these vehicles have been put into service in the military. Some are used to carry machine guns and are used as lightly armed motor vehicles. Some are used as fast small personnel carriers, cargo transport ships... and are also used to tow 70mm infantry. gun.

It is worth mentioning that the Army soon discovered that this kind of tricycle is very good for towing 70mm infantry cannons. Although this vehicle has low power, the 70mm infantry cannon is not heavy either. The whole gun only costs two tons. The thing weighing more than a hundred kilograms can only be pulled by one horse or two at most when marching on weekdays. It is not a problem to pull it with a tricycle.

Moreover, the tricycle is small and has low road requirements, which is also very suitable for the use of infantry artillery.

In short, these three-wheeled vehicles have received great attention in the Chu army...even more than those trucks.

The trucks are not bad, but they are too expensive... The military version costs two to three thousand yuan per truck. Even though the military has a big business, they say they can't afford too many.

But the performance requirements of the military version of the tricycle are even more stringent, but it only costs more than 300 yuan... This thing only uses a single-cylinder engine, and it is very cheap.

One Type 15 truck can sell seven or eight tricycles.

Faced with such a cheap price, the military said that tricycles have no shortcomings, only advantages...

The tricycle, which has achieved great success in the military, has also gained great popularity in the civilian market. Liaohe Automobile Company is not doing well in the ordinary passenger car business and is being crushed by Tangshan Automobile Company. However, this year it is Thanks to this dramatic turnaround of tricycles, they estimate that tricycle shipments this year will reach 50,000 units... This is a very exaggerated number.

Naturally, Prince Luo Li would not despise the tricycle, which has achieved great success in both military and civilian fields...even if this thing is really crude.

There is no way, the civilian version only costs one or two hundred Chu Yuan, you can't expect it to be too good... In order to save costs, lower the selling price, and make it affordable for customers in suburban and rural areas to start a business, Liaodong Automobile Company Save as much as you can, save costs as much as possible and lower the selling price.

So this thing looks a bit crude. The front cockpit doesn't even have a carport... Why don't you have a carport? It doesn't cost a lot to add a shed, but the front glass is expensive!

Large pieces of ordinary glass are okay, but this stuff is too dangerous. The Ministry of Industry issued its initial guidance in the 1950s. Cars should try to avoid using ordinary glass, otherwise it will be too dangerous in the event of an accident. Glass shards are no different from flying knives. When they hit, there will be a bloody hole...

However, the special glass made of double-layer laminated synthetic plastic for cars has improved safety, but it is expensive... The purchase cost alone is thirty or forty yuan a piece, and now there are only those mid-to-high-end cars that cost hundreds of dollars. It's only affordable... As for a tricycle, this thing only costs one or two hundred yuan, and it costs dozens of yuan to get a front glass. Isn't this a joke?

What do you think it will be like if it rains?

Wear a raincoat to drive... Others drive cheap low-end cars that cost 200 to 300 yuan, but they have to drive in a raincoat on rainy days. You drive a tricycle that costs more than 100 yuan, so don't you feel wronged when you drive in a raincoat? ?

However, you can optionally install an awning in the car... This thing is simple and costs nothing, so it is easy and convenient to add.

Due to cost constraints, these days' tricycles look very primitive and crude... but they are still usable.

People from Liaodong Automobile Company also demonstrated the overload capacity of their tricycles on the spot... they directly carried more than 500 kilograms of cargo, and then the tricycle with a single-cylinder engine was actually able to drive on the cement road. When running, the speed is not slow...

Shocked a lot of people's jaws!

The people from the Tangshan Automobile Company next to them all had dark faces... The sales volume of their 15 trucks was because the technology was too high-end and the price was too expensive, resulting in poor private sales... In order to reverse the situation, they specially developed a The light truck has lowered the engine configuration, shrunk the body, and lowered the price... The standard load capacity is 800 kilograms, and the price has been cut in half, directly to more than 700 yuan... I thought it would be harvested after it was officially launched. market.

But seeing that this tricycle, which only sells for less than 200 yuan, can pull more than 500 kilograms of cargo... even though it is clear that this kind of demonstration cannot be regarded as the norm, it is just an extreme demonstration.

But folding it in half, this tricycle can pull 300 kilograms and run normally without any problem.

Under such circumstances, the new light truck launched by Tangshan Automobile Company may be in big trouble.