Daming 1805

Chapter 205 Let Daming Families Use Cars

Zhu Jingyuan chatted with the employees of his company, went up the ladder next to the plane, and glanced inside the cockpit.

Aluminum alloy seats, a simple retro instrument panel, and rows of buttons and operating levers.

It looks not much different from the aircraft in the war years in my impression.

After sitting in the cockpit for a while, I found the radio equipment in the cockpit.

While Zhu Jingyuan was taken aback, he immediately realized the problem, stood up again and looked down:
"What is the average cost of this aircraft?"

Zheng Fuguang was stunned for a moment, he didn't expect Zhu Jingyuan to ask this suddenly.

In Zheng Fuguang's mind, Zhu Jingyuan has always been very generous, and he did not expect him to care about money.

"The average price of the first dozen or so verification aircraft was [-] to [-] silver bills, depending on the type and the weapons and equipment loaded.

"After the finalization, the Dudufu ordered [-] planes at a time, and the average unit price was around [-] silver bills.

"Daming Airlines, Royal Aircraft Machinery, and the factory of the Ministry of Industry produce different types and purposes of aircraft, and the prices are also slightly different."

Zhu Jingyuan came out of the cockpit and calculated the price a little.

The cost of a 1000-ton battleship can be exchanged for [-] and [-] such aircraft.

"Our Dashiguo wants 120 planes first, but we won't pay in one lump sum, and we don't need to deliver the goods in one lump sum.

"In the future, every time I come to deliver supplies and pull crude oil, I'll just bring sixteen."

Chunxiang, who was always by the side, hurriedly wrote down Zhu Jingyuan's request on the spot.

As Zhu Jingyuan said, he took a detour and went to another plane nearby.

This is a small transport aircraft, and the overall shape was also designed by Zhu Jingyuan.

The prototype for reference is the Yun-[-]/An-[-] transport aircraft dubbed by military fans as an air tractor.

However, the body is lighter than Yun-[-], because the engine cannot reach the level of Yun-[-] in the short term.

Zheng Fuguang also followed and told Zhu Jingyuan the final basic situation of the plane:

"This transport plane uses the same engine as fighter jets and attack planes.

"But the body is bigger, and the cruising speed is reduced to 150 kilometers per hour.

"Due to the ability to load more fuel, the maximum range has been increased to [-] kilometers.

"It can transport up to one ton of cargo and up to sixteen people.

"Although the transport aircraft has fewer weapons and equipment, it uses the same engine as the fighter jet and is slightly larger than the fighter jet, so the overall price is not low.

"The mass production price also requires [-] silver notes."

After hearing this, Zhu Jingyuan nodded lightly:
"It's okay. Dashi Kingdom needs sixteen transport planes in total. Let's divide them into four deliveries."

Chunxiang followed the recording request, and Zhu Jingyuan came to the side of the car.

These two cars were also designed by Zhu Jingyuan.

When Zhu Jingyuan left the capital of the Ming Dynasty last year, in order to prevent the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry and his company from being idle, he left them with a lot of design tasks.

Give them general drawings and key points for attention, and let them complete the design and test.

The shape of the two cars designed by Zhu Jingyuan is no longer the traditional sedan chair model.

The shape with a highly prominent seating space and a relatively complicated external structure pattern is not conducive to running at a higher speed.

In fact, with the increasing number of tests and user feedback, or having time to go to the wind tunnel for an interview, the craftsmen of Daming will definitely find out slowly.

Even if Zhu Jingyuan didn't make a special request, the subsequent design style of the craftsmen would also change.

Historically, this process lasted for 100 years and is still in constant change.

What shape can make the car run stably without bumping, shaking or drifting? It needs constant trial and exploration.

At the same time, the completion of all assumptions and explorations also requires a platform for production technology and craftsmanship.

Compared with the impact of changes in aesthetic requirements, actual performance requirements and security requirements are more important.

Zhu Jingyuan can produce the final result in one breath.

Only limited by the current technical level, it is impossible to directly make the car shape of the new century.

In this era of almost manual work, the manufacture of multi-surface shapes is a worker's nightmare.

It can only use the current mature technology to achieve the aerodynamic effect as close as possible.

If the engine power is to be large enough, the size must be much larger than that of the new century.

The final car is a bit like a "tough" sports utility vehicle (SUV).

Zhu Jingyuan opened the car door and sat in the back seat, firstly pulling on the seat belt designed by himself.

Before this, there were almost no safety measures on the car, and no one dared to drive too fast.

Tried the seat belt effect and admired the interior and design.

Zhu Jingyuan got out of the car again and asked Zheng Fuguang to open the hood for himself.

The engine installed here is also designed by myself, an eight-cylinder liquid-cooled engine.

Zhu Jingyuan looked at it and instinctively asked the price again.

Zheng Fuguang is used to it. When he sees something new, he first asks the price, and then he says with some worry:

"Your car model needs to sell for [-] silver bills to make a profit. The actual market price is [-] silver bills."

Zhu Jingyuan directly took a breath:

"It's almost time to catch up with the plane, can it be sold at such a high price?"

Zheng Fuguang said with some emotion:
"Although it can't be said that the sales are too much, it is actually not too little.

"I heard that more than 100 vehicles have been ordered after the final model was released at the end of last year.

"The eight-cylinder engine runs more smoothly.

"120 horsepower, a six-speed gearbox, four-wheel drive.

"The technical parameters far exceed all other models on the market, like a chariot among cars.

"There are also a series of important safety protection measures designed by His Highness himself, as well as an image that stands out from the crowd.

"These factors make it quite popular among the affluent.

"It just so happened that the market has improved rapidly since last year, and many owners made a lot of money last year.

"With a car of this class, some people want to give it a go."

Zhu Jingyuan nodded slightly:
"The top luxury car market does exist, and it will continue to exist in the future, so it can continue to develop like this.

"However, we can't just develop this, we still need to develop mid-range models and popular models.

"Change the engine to a four-cylinder, reduce the power to thirty or forty horsepower, and change it to a normal rear drive and a three-speed gearbox.

"Other accessories are also reduced as much as possible. Can the price be reduced to a few thousand silver bills?"

Zheng Fuguang nodded directly and said:

"Yes, most of the cars were originally designed like this, and most of the cars are priced in the range of three to five thousand silver bills.

"The car requested by His Highness is a super-standard design that shocks both the market and the industry."

Zhu Jingyuan calculated again:
"Three thousand silver bills, a worker who earns fifteen silver bills a month, even if he does not eat or drink at all, will take 17 years to afford it.

"The price is still too high compared to the workers, and I can buy more than a dozen orchids to help make money.

"We still have to find a way to lower the sales price of cars and at the same time increase workers' incomes.

"It would be best if it could be done so that workers can buy a car with a year's wages.

"Let most ordinary families of Ming Dynasty have access to cars."

Zheng Fuguang basically shook his head without hesitation and said:
"It's impossible. It would have to reduce the price of cars by more than ten times, or increase the wages of workers by more than ten times as a whole..."

Zhu Jingyuan flipped through the things in his mind, compared with the current world situation, slowly shook his head and said:
"It is not necessarily impossible, first of all, the cost and configuration can be reduced as much as possible.

"It's enough to make the car run and control the speed and direction, without any complicated functions.

"For example, there are only three gears, fast, slow, and reverse, and the starter can be cranked by hand.

"Then use an assembly line to produce, as standardized as possible."

Zhu Jingyuan plans to refer to the historical Ford, refer to and reproduce his automobile assembly line.

At the same time, it is preparing to reproduce the "myth" of creating a middle class in Daming.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty in this world already has the word assembly line, and of course it was proposed by His Majesty the Emperor Shizu.

And the assembly line itself has appeared a long time ago.

There are dozens of processes and dozens of people responsible for the porcelain of Jingdezhen in ancient China.

The new porcelain factory in the era of the British Industrial Revolution also decomposed the process to everyone.

I don't know why, but many articles directly refer to Henry Ford of Ford Company as the inventor of the "assembly line".

He also said that he came up with the idea of ​​"inventing" the assembly line while visiting the "Slaughtering Factory".

Inconsistency……

At best, Ford designed the automobile production line.

Cars before that were basically handmade.

A group of workers is busy around one car, finishing one before making the next one.

Ford broke it down into a standardized assembly line.

Then there are the "myths" described in his Chicken Soup essays.

The "Great Five Dollars," an initiative to raise workers' wages from $[-] a day to $[-] a day.

"Created the American middle class", which drove the overall income of American workers to a stage and expanded the size of the middle class.

There are also "the greatest entrepreneur in human history", "propelled human civilization into a new era" and so on.

If you want to reproduce these myths of him, you have to look at the internal logic of his operations, instead of directly copying the final results in the chicken soup texts of later generations, otherwise you may die ugly.

Historically, Ford was not prepared to increase work hours.

Ford was a factory owner, not a paternalistic head of government.

Ford's more famous quote is: "I just hired two hands, why one?"

The actual situation is because his standard assembly line work is too boring and hard, and the resignation rate of workers is as high as [-]%.

Three to four people need to be changed in one position within a year.

In order to retain skilled workers, Ford had to raise workers' wages several times.

In the end, it was directly raised to the point of doubling, and the resignation rate of skilled workers was overwhelmed to an acceptable level.

The assembly line has greatly improved production efficiency and greatly reduced the production cost of Ford cars.

The price of cars in the U.S. market has dropped from two to three thousand dollars all the way to two to three hundred dollars.

Other small car workshops closed down, and large car factories copied Ford's production model.

The era of assembly line production of automobiles has come, and the wages of automobile production line workers have remained at a relatively high level.

The choices made by the relevant personnel are all driven by direct interests. The internal reason for the final result is the higher intensity of labor of the workers, which has greatly improved the overall production efficiency, resulting in a decrease in Ford's production costs and enhanced competitiveness.

Referring to these experiences, the most critical part is the efficiency of the assembly line and keeping costs down as much as possible.

Cooperate with the improvement of the efficiency of the assembly line and the improvement of the work intensity, the wages of the workers in the automobile production line will be increased simultaneously, and finally reach a relatively reasonable and high level.

At the same time, the production of Ming's fighter jets can also try to design a production line model.

Zhu Jingyuan went through the historical situation in his mind, made a simple analysis, and then turned to Zheng Fuguang and said:
"In the future, I will write a production plan and send it to the factory in Daming to try it out."

(End of this chapter)