Pricing Comparison

[Eric.B]

http://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread...10#pid2210

[geozero]

FROM WIKI: The standard 4-seat open tourer of 1909 cost $850;[32] in 1913, the price dropped to $550 and $440 in 1915. Sales were 69,762 in 1911; 170,211 in 1912; 202,667 in 1913; 308,162 in 1914; and 501,462 in 1915.[27] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[27]

By the 1920s, the price had fallen to $260[13] because of increasing efficiencies of assembly line technique and volume.


That means there was a 70% price drop just from efficiencies and overall volume and not economic reasons. By 1929-30 at the beginning of the Depression the price may have fluctuated further. I have read that the Ford Model A made in 1932 purchase price was about $490 yet cost nearly $750 to build. Ford lost $250 per car, production was delayed as the assembly lines were not geared to mass produce this model, and the car was notorious to break down.

I hope that somehow the effects of the depression, wars and other factors affect the playability. There may be times when you should not be able to just build thousands of cars and sell them all... the effects of supply/demand should affect play.

[Eric.B]

I have a pretty complete price and sales charts for various companies pre-WW2, the sales and unit cost follows the historical model, the problem is maintaining profitability, specially for the AI at these prices.

You'll notice that if you build a car in 1907, by 1924 it's much cheaper, same idea as with the Model T.
Prices also decrease based on how many units you build...


The main issue is the amount of units that can be built at a factory... I need to tweak the amounts produced so that it increases drastically between 1910-1930 and then taper off. As of now I believe it's a linear function.

Anyhoo as a player, you should be able to hit ford numbers easily. The main problem is getting the AI to do it without going bankrupt.

[Laurent Tommy Flanagann]

FROM WIKI: The standard 4-seat open tourer of 1909 cost $850;[32] in 1913, the price dropped to $550 and $440 in 1915. Sales were 69,762 in 1911; 170,211 in 1912; 202,667 in 1913; 308,162 in 1914; and 501,462 in 1915.[27] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[27]

By the 1920s, the price had fallen to $260[13] because of increasing efficiencies of assembly line technique and volume.


That means there was a 70% price drop just from efficiencies and overall volume and not economic reasons. By 1929-30 at the beginning of the Depression the price may have fluctuated further. I have read that the Ford Model A made in 1932 purchase price was about $490 yet cost nearly $750 to build. Ford lost $250 per car, production was delayed as the assembly lines were not geared to mass produce this model, and the car was notorious to break down.

I hope that somehow the effects of the depression, wars and other factors affect the playability. There may be times when you should not be able to just build thousands of cars and sell them all... the effects of supply/demand should affect play.

I agree with you on the demand, but I think it is already managed in the game, but mainly randomly, in my mind.

That is, even if you're right about Ford, it has not been the same for other competitors, back in time. As a matter of facts, it also depended mainly on the strategy that any company adopted. For example, and as I said in a previous post, BUGATTI strategy was pretty different, selling "Exceptional and Sport" cars, but at a much higher price (About 2K francs per car in the 20s which should be worth $ 2000 approximatively in the US).

But I assume Peugeot's one was mostly Ford-like, even if, well, it sold in France, which is clearly NOT the US market, even in those days (France was some kind of a pioneer market for cars and automotive)

For example, also, Henry Ford always said, you can buy the Ford T model any color you want! But it needs to be black! (Not sure about translation, you guys should know better than I do about US car history)

My point here is, it should be nearly impossible for Eric to develop dedicated and precise strategy for all the brands that appear in the game, and thus, there should be so many differences between two players/strategies...

I suffered this sales drop also in my new game, but I assume it is more related to my first model becoming outdated... (That is, 5 years of selling, especially in those days, should NOT be that significative)

But as I said in other post, I think there should be a small bug about that as my first car cost me about 600 to produce at first, and I sold it from 1000 to 800 (at the end of 1905). Then, in 1906, when I launched my new model, I used the same slider "strategy" mostly, but costs increased to high level values that were irrelevant... When I tried to launched it, it cost me about $ 2200, which is really weird, again, assuming the increasing assembly techniques and etc... Thus, and obviously, selling my car that high (3000-3500) caused a big drop in sales...

I really hope the new release will be able to settle all of this, as it is hard to play, or at least, to understand how to perform...

[geozero]

I agree that there is likely a bug somewhere and that it makes it difficult to play with any sort of business strategy.

Again, I have no issues with a car costing more to build and selling at higher prices IF the quality rating is extremely higher which would follow along Bugatti's line, and later high end cars.

For the assembly line cars for mass production though there needs to be more closely related pricing to quality rating ratios.

[Arakash]

FROM WIKI: The standard 4-seat open tourer of 1909 cost $850;[32] in 1913, the price dropped to $550 and $440 in 1915. Sales were 69,762 in 1911; 170,211 in 1912; 202,667 in 1913; 308,162 in 1914; and 501,462 in 1915.[27] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[27]

By the 1920s, the price had fallen to $260[13] because of increasing efficiencies of assembly line technique and volume.


That means there was a 70% price drop just from efficiencies and overall volume and not economic reasons. By 1929-30 at the beginning of the Depression the price may have fluctuated further. I have read that the Ford Model A made in 1932 purchase price was about $490 yet cost nearly $750 to build. Ford lost $250 per car, production was delayed as the assembly lines were not geared to mass produce this model, and the car was notorious to break down.

I hope that somehow the effects of the depression, wars and other factors affect the playability. There may be times when you should not be able to just build thousands of cars and sell them all... the effects of supply/demand should affect play.

Ive seen that kind of drop in production cost before, but only by producing an existing model for an extended amount of time.
This is because the game reduces the production cost of vehicles depending on how many are produced.
For example, a vehicle ive posted about in the highest sales thread, a compact car, cost about ~100 to produce by 1910. That was after 500-600k units were produced.

So i don't expect vehicles designed in 1912 to be immediately as cheap to produce as the model T.

That said, ive also noticed that designing vehicles right at the start of the game results in cheaper vehicles than at any other time in that decade (1900's)

I also agree with Eric that you could hit Model T numbers as a player at the moment.