Still Confused - Car Making Details and Wealth Details

[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.