Chapter 92 Gift from the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Please subscribe!)

November 23, 1901. This day is an extraordinary day for Australian industry.

The first was Benz's automobile factory. With the joint efforts of Benz and Diesel, after half a year of reconstruction, the world's first automobile factory using assembly line production technology was finally established.

Although there are some differences compared to the more mature automobile assembly lines created by Ford in the future, the results of the modified factory are already very good in terms of saving labor costs and reducing production time.

Originally, to make a car with similar performance to Victor Deya, the factory had to mobilize at least ten outstanding workers and work overtime for nearly a week to complete.

Not to mention anything else, just over a week's salary for these dozen outstanding workers must be worth at least thirty pounds.

If you add in the cost of making various mechanical parts, the cost of a car instantly reaches more than one hundred pounds. If you include the scrapped and defective products, the cost of each car is at least one hundred and sixty pounds.

The question is, should the price of a car that costs 160 pounds be set at less than 200 pounds?

The answer is really not high. If we look at the original scale of Benz, although it is the largest automobile factory in Germany, its annual output is less than 200 vehicles.

Even if each car can earn thirty pounds, these two hundred cars can only earn a maximum of six thousand pounds.

After deducting various taxes and other miscellaneous charges, the company can only make a profit of less than five thousand pounds at most.

The most important thing is that even if Benz sets the price of the car very low and the profit is very slim, few people can afford expensive cars.

Although cars have shown huge potential, they still have not developed a corresponding market. This situation is the most important factor.

Fortunately, the modified automobile factory has significantly improved this shortcoming.

According to Benz's estimation, there are three biggest changes in the new factory. First, the car construction time is greatly shortened.

Benz's car factory in Germany previously had more than 300 employees and produced less than 200 cars per year.

Looking back now, the scale of the automobile factory has not expanded, but has become smaller. It has only more than 200 employees, but the estimated output has reached an astonishing 2,000 vehicles per year.

This is the huge change that the assembly line production method has brought to the automobile industry. Workers were originally responsible for each module of the car, but now only responsible for the production and installation of one module.

This will result in workers becoming more and more skilled at their jobs, and parts can be produced and installed faster and faster.

The second change is the unification of auto parts.

The previous production method would result in different workers producing each car, and there would be a large gap in parts between cars, which would increase the difficulty of maintenance in disguise.

This is one of the reasons why people cannot afford expensive items like cars. The repair price of a car will even rise to the same level in just a few years. An unstable car makes it very expensive. Luxury.

Now, after the same workers produce the same type of parts, the same type of parts become more uniform and easier to repair. Replacing parts can also become one of the main maintenance methods for new cars.

The third change is that the cost of automobiles has been significantly reduced.

By producing more cars with less labor, the labor cost per car is significantly reduced.

The original manual production method cost at least twenty pounds for each car.

Now after switching to assembly line production, the labor cost of each car has dropped sharply to less than three pounds.

At the same time, it is precisely because of the second change that the error rate of automobile assembly has also been greatly reduced, reducing the cost of the automobile in disguise.

According to Bentz's estimate, the production cost of a new car is between one hundred and one hundred and twenty pounds, and as workers become familiar with and improve assembly line production, the cost can be further reduced.

After all, this is just Benz and Diesel's initial attempt at the assembly line based on Arthur's suggestion.

It’s great to be able to do this now. At least it has significantly reduced production costs and effectively accelerated production speed.

After learning the news, Arthur was still very surprised and satisfied. However, the cost of more than one hundred pounds is still too high, and there is more room for improvement in the new production methods.

You know, the final price of the Model T was only $260, which was only about fifty pounds in pounds.

This means that the production cost of the car can be reduced to at least 50 pounds, which is still a long way from the current Mercedes-Benz cars.

Arthur's order was to continue to study the assembly line production method and make improvements.

As long as the production cost of the car could be kept below eighty pounds, it could go into production.

The original price of the Model T was $825, or £165. If Mercedes-Benz can reduce the production cost to less than 80 pounds, then it can make a lot of money with a price of 150 pounds.

On the basis of studying large-scale assembly line assembly technology, Arthur felt that the scale of the Mercedes-Benz car park also needed to be expanded.

As the selling price of automobiles decreases, the potential and market of automobiles are gradually expanding, and may even reach a huge market of 20 million vehicles within 30 years.

If Mercedes-Benz can seize the opportunity, it may not be able to set a sales record for the Model T car in history and create a huge automobile empire.

Therefore, the production of automobiles must also keep up in order to carve up the huge automobile market as soon as possible, at least occupying the European market.

If the initial success of the assembly line is the first piece of good news, then the return of the diplomatic delegation is the second piece of good news.

Nearly three months have passed since the diplomatic mission set off. With Arthur's expectation, the fleet finally arrived at the Sydney port smoothly and brought good news to Arthur.

The first is the formal signing of the Aboriginal Plan.

This was a plan that had been discussed long ago. After Queen Wilhelmina signed her name, the treaty officially began to be implemented.

This is good news for Australia's development. Australia's poor manpower problem has basically been completely solved.

The second piece of good news is something wrapped in red cloth on the transport ship. Because his whole body was tightly wrapped, Arthur didn't know what was inside.

But judging from the long protruding pipe, the wrapped thing should be an artillery piece.

According to Princess Louise, it is a gift from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Because of the signing of the treaty and the exchange of ambassadors, the Kingdom of the Netherlands also generously presented this gift, and judging from the solemn appearance of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the value of this gift is definitely not small.

If you are not good at emotional matters, you will not poison everyone. Is national development more important?