Still Confused - Car Making Details and Wealth Details

[Ukir]

I still have no idea about how I could possibly make a cheaper car, yet have it sell. I've been lurking a little but saw no threads addressing some of my questions so figured I'd make this one.

I feel I'm missing lots of information when checking the game.

Let's say I am in a city with 300 per capita, what's the income from each wealth class? Basically I haven't the slightest clue to which wealth class I should design my cars.

My cars are at their cheapest forms 900$ to make, so that means at least 1500$ price is needed to make them be profitable, as far as I know.

I've read a recommendation saying to keep everything below 200$ for components, but that is crazy. I've never seen an engine below 400$, and the ones at 400$ basically have nothing whatsoever.

I also want to know more about the car stats. Every car I make seems to have an overall of 1.5 stars, and I have no clue how to raise that. Even with every stat on 4~5 stars it still doesn't go up.

While the information on how to check the popular car types I've read on another thread was useful, without knowing these, I have no confidence I can make good sales whatsoever.

I started getting better profits with cheap yet decent cars I've made, but if I don't know which wealth class actually buys the most, I doubt my sales are going as smoothly as they would if I did.

Getting monthly incomes of roughly 50,000~100,000$ on months that have no taxes, and 8,000~20,000$ on months that do have taxes...But I feel that could be a little better if I knew the right information. Plus everytime my cars get old I start getting -100,000$ a month unless I make new ones in time...which makes this game incredibly hard to manage, for me.

[freeman2344]

There is currently no way of knowing how the different shares of wealth are distributed. It would, however, be safe to assume that this distribution is in accordance with historical realities. Meaning that only a very small portion of the population can be classed as "wealthy" in the early 1900s. Therefore, common sense kind of dictates the target groups you should cater to. I also don't think it's possible to go beyond 2 stars in the early years, I don't know whether that is intended or if that will be tweaked so that the stars rating depends on some kind of general average for that specific timeframe.

As for costs and car sales: your HQ should be located in New York or London (at least for your first few games). Stick with Sedans and Compact Cars in the beginning. These are usually the most profitable. Pick-Ups also have a high profit margin in the US market, but don't do well in Europe. You should also not be afraid of producing a "lesser quality" vehicle (as in low quality sliders), you can generally outsell the competition as long as your vehicle is cheaper. Ratings detoriorate very quickly in any case, so the inital investment may not be worth it. It's usually no problem to design a half-way decent car with a unit cost of less than 300$, which will be even less once a few thousand of these have been produced (in this case, it may even make sense to go for a low initial profit margin in order to produce more units and in this way decrease production costs - Ford did this with the Model T for some time). "Normal" or non-budget cars should always be marketed at at least 2x the manufacturing costs in order to turn a halfway decent profit. Depending on the market and vehicle type, you can even get away with more than that (such as 3x costs). You're probably also trying to build fairly "big" engines, but you have to understand the difference between early automobiles and today - though they are arguably more exciting, it doesn't make sense to put a gigantic V8 engine into early cars. Start out with something small and crappy. Even an I3 would honestly be considered overkill before 1918. That being said, you don't have to move significant numbers of vehicles to be profitable. I've played a number of games where I restricted myself to only building expensive sports cars or high-powered sedans for the super-rich.

[Arakash]

Welcome to the forums.

One thing that might help flesh out your post.
When your talking about vehicle prices and per capita, you really need to list the date you are talking about. These change quite dramatically over time.
Ill assume you are talking about pre 1910, as thats the area most people talk about due to the limited starting dates.

I still have no idea about how I could possibly make a cheaper car, yet have it sell. I've been lurking a little but saw no threads addressing some of my questions so figured I'd make this one.

I feel I'm missing lots of information when checking the game.

Let's say I am in a city with 300 per capita, what's the income from each wealth class? Basically I haven't the slightest clue to which wealth class I should design my cars.

Eric might be able to give you more specific information on this. Afaik, the per capita income follows actual demographics.
So you can use real life income distribution to interpret it in some ways.

For me, usually i can tell by the price im setting it at. Using your 300 per capita for example, that is the average income of an average person per year (afaik).
Go ahead and google the per capita income of your own country for comparison then think of the price of vehicles you see around.
You then need to consider they arent likely to spend all their income on a car. (apparently only around 80%

Thats your mark for the middle class, but when we consider that pre 1910 construction costs of vehicles (let alone the other costs) are usually double that (400-500+)selling at that price is way beyond impractical early on.
Personally i think it might even be impossible to sell to the lower classes early on. (i dont think ive managed to have my sell price below capita and still make a profit before 1910 from memory)

So you might sell at 3-5x per capita (which is pretty normal early on) and sell to the upper middle to the wealthy classes.
This is a reflection of the actual car industry in this time period as well. The model T, around 1912 was famous for being one of the first cars mass produced for a mass market for example. Many cars were produced before it, but it was one of the first that was really aimed to be mass produced.

Later on, especially post WW1, it becomes (much easier)practical to sell vehicles at or below per capita and really target that middle class for mass market sales.

Does that help in any way?

My cars are at their cheapest forms 900$ to make, so that means at least 1500$ price is needed to make them be profitable, as far as I know.

I've read a recommendation saying to keep everything below 200$ for components, but that is crazy. I've never seen an engine below 400$, and the ones at 400$ basically have nothing whatsoever.

Your probably referring to the FAQ, which i wrote, so i can give more detail on that. Perhaps i even need to rewrite it if its confusing.

I think about the cheapest i can make a car is about 300, perhaps 180-200 in 1900-1905.
The biggest thing you need to do is make components with really terrible stats, with almost all sliders to the left.
These components can easily be below 200 if the sliders are low enough.
Once you do so, the end vehicle you produce will be cheap as well(and terrible). Then you can move the sliders in vehicle design down and the car will get even cheaper.

This is how i pursue high volume low margin strategies, attempting to sell over 1000 per month before 1910 with a low margin while still yielding decent profits.
Im doing one in London atm, which sell for about $500-700 in 1904-5
They cost about ~200 to produce and perhaps another $200 to get to the customer.

You really dont need to be afraid to make terrible cars especially early on.

Edit:
Changed this section a bit to make more sense.

Usually you need to strike a balance between low cost and high ratings in specific areas.
Even in my super cheap cars, i have high ratings in fuel efficiency and dependably which are really desirable ratings for those vehicle types.

If you insist on having high ratings across the entire vehicle, you might have to pursue a luxury or sports car strategy with high prices and high margins but low sales volume.
Im not too familiar with that myself, though many others on this forum are.

I also want to know more about the car stats. Every car I make seems to have an overall of 1.5 stars, and I have no clue how to raise that. Even with every stat on 4~5 stars it still doesn't go up.

I think there is a bug floating around about this one. Specifically the overall rating, which in some cases is bugged to be too low.
Im pretty sure its being fixed.

While the information on how to check the popular car types I've read on another thread was useful, without knowing these, I have no confidence I can make good sales whatsoever.

I assume your talking about the body style demand area in the sales book.
Its really useful im glad you found it.

I think i also wrote some other tips in the FAQ about car types. Phaetons tend to be really awesome early on for e.g. Cheap and sell in large numbers.

I started getting better profits with cheap yet decent cars I've made, but if I don't know which wealth class actually buys the most, I doubt my sales are going as smoothly as they would if I did.

This is something i believe ive asked for in a suggestion before.
Its actually really really difficult to determine who is buying your vehicle, which can often as you mention make it really hard to target a specific group.

Getting monthly incomes of roughly 50,000~100,000$ on months that have no taxes, and 8,000~20,000$ on months that do have taxes...But I feel that could be a little better if I knew the right information. Plus everytime my cars get old I start getting -100,000$ a month unless I make new ones in time...which makes this game incredibly hard to manage, for me.

I see you've noticed the fact that sales drop after a design is 5 years old.
This as i see it is a really central pillar of the cycle these companies go through in the game.
Usually you need to develop a vehicle and sell enough of it in 5 years at least to cover the development of another vehicle or you go bankrupt.

[Ukir]

There is currently no way of knowing how the different shares of wealth are distributed. It would, however, be safe to assume that this distribution is in accordance with historical realities. Meaning that only a very small portion of the population can be classed as "wealthy" in the early 1900s. Therefore, common sense kind of dictates the target groups you should cater to. I also don't think it's possible to go beyond 2 stars in the early years, I don't know whether that is intended or if that will be tweaked so that the stars rating depends on some kind of general average for that specific timeframe.

As for costs and car sales: your HQ should be located in New York or London (at least for your first few games). Stick with Sedans and Compact Cars in the beginning. These are usually the most profitable. Pick-Ups also have a high profit margin in the US market, but don't do well in Europe. You should also not be afraid of producing a "lesser quality" vehicle (as in low quality sliders), you can generally outsell the competition as long as your vehicle is cheaper. Ratings detoriorate very quickly in any case, so the inital investment may not be worth it. It's usually no problem to design a half-way decent car with a unit cost of less than 300$, which will be even less once a few thousand of these have been produced (in this case, it may even make sense to go for a low initial profit margin in order to produce more units and in this way decrease production costs - Ford did this with the Model T for some time). "Normal" or non-budget cars should always be marketed at at least 2x the manufacturing costs in order to turn a halfway decent profit. Depending on the market and vehicle type, you can even get away with more than that (such as 3x costs). You're probably also trying to build fairly "big" engines, but you have to understand the difference between early automobiles and today - though they are arguably more exciting, it doesn't make sense to put a gigantic V8 engine into early cars. Start out with something small and crappy. Even an I3 would honestly be considered overkill before 1918. That being said, you don't have to move significant numbers of vehicles to be profitable. I've played a number of games where I restricted myself to only building expensive sports cars or high-powered sedans for the super-rich.

Well, thanks for the information. It's too bad there is no way to know about the wealth, but this did clear a few things up.

I was indeed trying to make big engines - 44' big, at least. I was simply worried the top speed would be too low and it would lower the profit - seeing as I can easily make engines with only 10 Horsepower if I don't invest enough.

However it seems that was a bad idea in itself - perhaps I should make a smaller engine yet still invest in performance/fuel economy somewhat?

I've had a session where I had great profits with sport cars, with huge engines which were described by the game as "saturn v rocket" lol. But once they stopped selling I quickly went bankrupt due to investing too much in factories and branches(It was my first game, so I made the scale too big, invested 7 million in factories a month, but was getting positive profits nevertheless, for a while).

My newer sessions were far less ambitious, but it seems I still have no clue how cars were back then, considering the whole engine thing.

At any less than 50 horsepower I get worried for some reason. Probably because nowadays having even 200 horsepower is sort of slow for a sports car, for example...And since I have no clue about cars THAT old, I don't know how to design them, hehe.

Just one last question, how small and cheap can I make my car and engine without making it become too bad and having fewer sales?

[Arakash]

To follow up my other post and some comments you made.

Ill first mention that yes, i think most of us would consider a 50+HP engine pre 1910 in a car to be really top of the line/sports.
Perhaps even pre 1920 that's a lot of HP, im less familiar with Gearcity cars in that time frame.
Its probably also really inefficient as i suspect you would have to make a really heavy engine in a huge(and probably heavy) frame which would slow the vehicle down dramatically.

Onto my SC i promised.
Ive posted this SC from a 1906 Gearcity game just to demonstrate the cheap car concept.
Ive sold 40k units of this, entirely to London i think.
I have 3-4mil in cash, without really doing anything else other than selling it, so clearly its payed for its development.
Not any kind of record design, but well worth the investment.

There is a lot of potential gain in having a highly specialized vehicle with only a few good ratings and the rest terrible to reduce its cost to the lowest possible mark.

[Ukir]

To follow up my other post and some comments you made.

Ill first mention that yes, i think most of us would consider a 50+HP engine pre 1910 in a car to be really top of the line/sports.
Perhaps even pre 1920 that's a lot of HP, im less familiar with Gearcity cars in that time frame.
Its probably also really inefficient as i suspect you would have to make a really heavy engine in a huge(and probably heavy) frame which would slow the vehicle down dramatically.

Onto my SC i promised.
Ive posted this SC from a 1906 Gearcity game just to demonstrate the cheap car concept.
Ive sold 40k units of this, entirely to London i think.
I have 3-4mil in cash, without really doing anything else other than selling it, so clearly its payed for its development.
Not any kind of record design, but well worth the investment.

There is a lot of potential gain in having a highly specialized vehicle with only a few good ratings and the rest terrible to reduce its cost to the lowest possible mark.

Hmm...I can't seem to sell anything more than 100 units a month, though. Even my cheapest car which was roughly 900$ sale price(it was like 350$ to make) only sold at most 150~200 per month, and only initially, after a time period of say, 3 months, it went down in sales to 70~100 a month.

So I'm not sure what I am doing wrong, right now. I seem to have grasped a better way to profit, though.

I've been making new models every year, and selling models up to 4 years old. Once a model goes 5 years old, I stop producing and selling it, and add the new one which is produced around November/December that year. The newer ones have been cheaper to make, despite having more quality, so I've been placing the same price tags as the older ones, considering they're better than the older ones.

I may have been trying to profit too much from each unit, though. I'm not sure.

At any rate it's getting better, now. I'm making 150~200k a month when there are no taxes, and my expenses are roughly 400k a month total, so they aren't crazy high expenses.

@Edit: Oh. After checking your car, I can say it's even cheaper than mine to make. Mine had 25 horsepower, this time around, while yours has only 10. Seems I haven't grasped the whole engine thing yet, then. Your fuel mileage is way greater than mine, though, so no wonder it had good sales. My car was bad at everything, not just a few things, hehe.

[freeman2344]

Again, aim for really low performance figures when designing a car that is not supposed to be especially sporty. 10HP is actually quite alright for your initial vehicles, but I suspect there's something else that you're doing wrong as your unit prices seem to be OK. If the car is at least halfway decent it should sell for the 900$ you're asking.

Here's a couple of points that you should follow:

1. Make sure your first car is a Sedan or Compact (preferably a Sedan).
2. Make sure your factories are very close to your main market (preferably in the same city!). Don't think that you can outsource your production to Mexico in the early game years .
3. Make sure you have decent branches (not too big though).
4. I'll assume that you have the auto-wage function on. You can turn that off and decrease wages for factory workers and branch employees - that will increase your profit, though you might suffer from strikes later on and its a bit of a micro-management hassle right now.
5. Advertise your vehicles and/or your brand in the target markets.
6. Check your expenses report for any "oddities", such as high transportation costs (factory too far away), high wage costs (see item 4) or other anomalies.
7. Again, make sure to start on the US East Coast or England. Other starts are viable too, of course, but since you are still learning the game, this is by far the most business-conscious way. You can also start selling your car in both European and US markets using the new "shipping distance" slider (I don't know if you're familiar with that function yet) once you start turning consistent profits on one continent. There's no need to develop separate vehicles for both markets! (Although you can, of course).
8. Check your demand report to quickly see whether you need to increase or decrease production in a region. Apply basic principles of economics and try not to overproduce (kind of obvious, right?).
9. Don't be discouraged by low sales figures. Not a lot of cars were sold from 1900-1910 and this is properly represented in the game. Play on and you will see dramatic sales increases towards the turn of the decade and especially after WW1 (make sure to abandon all your branches and factories in Europe when that time comes - a bit gamey, but YOU KNOW what's coming).

[Ukir]

Again, aim for really low performance figures when designing a car that is not supposed to be especially sporty. 10HP is actually quite alright for your initial vehicles, but I suspect there's something else that you're doing wrong as your unit prices seem to be OK. If the car is at least halfway decent it should sell for the 900$ you're asking.

Here's a couple of points that you should follow:

1. Make sure your first car is a Sedan or Compact (preferably a Sedan).
2. Make sure your factories are very close to your main market (preferably in the same city!). Don't think that you can outsource your production to Mexico in the early game years .
3. Make sure you have decent branches (not too big though).
4. I'll assume that you have the auto-wage function on. You can turn that off and decrease wages for factory workers and branch employees - that will increase your profit, though you might suffer from strikes later on and its a bit of a micro-management hassle right now.
5. Advertise your vehicles and/or your brand in the target markets.
6. Check your expenses report for any "oddities", such as high transportation costs (factory too far away), high wage costs (see item 4) or other anomalies.
7. Again, make sure to start on the US East Coast or England. Other starts are viable too, of course, but since you are still learning the game, this is by far the most business-conscious way. You can also start selling your car in both European and US markets using the new "shipping distance" slider (I don't know if you're familiar with that function yet) once you start turning consistent profits on one continent. There's no need to develop separate vehicles for both markets! (Although you can, of course).
8. Check your demand report to quickly see whether you need to increase or decrease production in a region. Apply basic principles of economics and try not to overproduce (kind of obvious, right?).

Thanks for the help, and well, I had some more progress after my last post. Made a car with like 500kg weight, 10 horsepower and a small engine which has lots of fuel mileage(inspired by the screenshot above). The result was at least 25km/L fuel, and 70km/h max speed due to the weight being so low. So I'd say that was a great attempt

Sure, there still isn't as much fuel economy as on the car on the screenshot above, but it is better in terms of speed, without being too expensive. I have no clue how he made a 200kg car, heh.

I'll post a screenshot with sales once I get to selling it. Taking a short break right now.

@Edit: Also, I'd like to see your branch network screenshot, to have an idea on what's a "decent branch", and on the amount you add.

My low sales were with the starter branch, and no additional branches. So that could be the issue with the low sales, on my older car. I also think the fact it was bad at absolutely everything was not good for the sales.

[freeman2344]

I usually do not expand my US branches beyond the Eastern Seaboard, the American West is not yet fully developed in the early years - though Los Angeles is (obviously) steadily growing, it's not worth it until the 1930s. So you should definitely have your main branch in NY and its vicinity, including Boston. Further west, Chicago is the big player with Indianapolis and Detroit being important as well. You need not bother going south. Although you could feasible have branches "everywhere", I don't think it's worth it as the profit margin is generally very small. This is especially true for Europe. Although transportation costs are rather low compared to the US, branch costs usually prevent cities like Luxembourg from being a viable sales location . It is usually sufficient to cover the main population centers, like Paris, Berlin, Hamburg...Madrid is already a questionable choice and not very profitable in my opinion, same goes for Italian locations (as transportation costs start to mount unless you put a factory there). Don't bother with the Balkans for obvious reasons.

That being said, and as others have pointed out, you CAN sell cars everywhere - it may just be a little harder. AFAIK you can even positively influence the per-capita and growth of cities by putting factories there and paying the people decent wages, thus enabling them to buy your vehicles. Pretty neat feature.

[Arakash]

Freeman gave a lot of good advice there.
I can add to some of his points.

When i say small branch, i would just go with minimum size. Branches can actually be really really expensive.
Youll notice this if you look at the cost per unit in the expenses screen. Medium and Large sized branches can literally cost 100s per unit and ruin your profitability unless you sell large volumes.

If you really want to learn the game in a really simple easy to understand way, start off with a branch(minimum size) and factory(minimum tech slider) in either London or NY.
Just run the game with that one factory and branch for 5+ years.

If something is of average demand or above, in London or NY you should be able to sell in the hundreds per month, unless there is a lot of competition which can potentially reduce overall sales quite a bit.
The AI certainly sell vehicles by the hundreds every month in those cities and thats achievable for the player too.

Referring to costs, go into the expenses screen and look at the expenses per unit sold.
Adding your Transportation, Marketing and Branch costs together will give you a rough estimate of how much it costs to actually get your vehicle to your customer.
Even transporting short distances, you can expect this to be 150+ (usually 250+)and possibly a lot higher.
Add this to your production cost you will get a rough estimate of how much it costs overall, excluding other costs like factory labour/upkeep.
I believe there is a user generated report which does this as well, though i think it averages it across all your cities.

$900 is probably a reasonable price early on for a Compact, but if you look at your competitors youll notice that its probably a low price for most other vehicle types including things like Pickups.
I use 3-5x per capita sales price as a rough figure for new players to aim for as its often in the region of what players use.
So thats probably 1000-1800 early on in the US/UK.

On that vehicle i posted.
It was built for fuel and dependability as those are the two main concerns of its type.
I also hoped to eventually be able to sell it or the cars i designed after it to the middle classes which favor fuel efficiency more than the higher ones. (as some of the tips say)
I would say its fuel efficiency is well above average. I think its fuel rating was 90's in 1900.
So i wouldnt worry too much about matching it, i think 20-50mpg or low is pretty normal at the time.

On your actual setup.
Dont forget to use a fair amount of marketing it can be extremely cost effective.
If you check your marketing expenses per unit which is in the expenses screen as well, keeping them under $20-30 per unit can produce really good results without increasing your cost enough for it to be noticeable.