Highest Vehicle Sales while still making a profit

[Arakash]

I thought id start a thread where people can post the most widely sold vehicles they've ever made before 1910 (the starting decade for now that all players have seen)

You can post records for total sales of all models, and specific model sales.
Limitations:
You have to keep at least marginally profitable, but you may be forced to do that anyway just to build enough factories/marketing etc.
You also have to play on Normal Difficulty.

Edit:
This report/save is from 1.10, rather than 1.11 the current build of the game.

Ill start by posting a 1909 save, but one i suspect will be easily beaten for a bunch or reasons, including the fact ive spread my sales into a few vehicle types out rather than just making one and forcing people to buy it or nothing. (which actually seems to work)

For one specific model before 1910:

Yearly Sales of Compact 1(my creativity is amazing i know), highest is:
195,963 units in 1907


Monthly sales of Compact 1, highest is:
20,375 units in September 1907


For all Models combined before 1910, ive added all the yearly numbers under the showroom. Best yearly is:
462,805 units from 5 models in 1907 in both Europe and to a lesser scale the US.
Rather than posting 5-6 showroom screenshots to prove it, here js a "yearly all charts" screenshot.


There is no easy way to check your highest combined monthly sales beyond your current year, so i doubt ill post one unless i spot it during play.

Finally here is a profits chart to show im not going bankrupt by setting the prices to almost nothing.


Anyone done any better or seen any better?

[Eric.B]

I thought I'd give my self a shot at beating you.

Of course, I'm playing a different version, and playing on hard, so I'm at a disadvantage...
I didn't make it to 1907, went bankrupt due to a loan payment bug... (sigh more things to fix)

*Edit* And a few other bugs I noticed ~,~;

I suck at my own game:

[Arakash]

I thought I'd give my self a shot at beating you.

Of course, I'm playing a different version, and playing on hard, so I'm at a disadvantage...
I didn't make it to 1907, went bankrupt due to a loan payment bug... (sigh more things to fix)

I suck at my own game:

I should probably put in the first post its on normal, ill edit that in.
Im a bit terrified of Hard after an earlier game i played on it. The higher expenses mean my usual reckless overproducing can (and did) kill me.
So imo hard difficulty is quite a handicap you set for yourself.

On your vehicle, you could probably reduce its fuel efficiency without hurting sales couldn't you? Im not American but afaik 100mpg is amazing already, let alone 130-150.
Model T was around 30 the Wiki says.

Whats its production cost? I think mine started around 200-250(i honestly don't really remember) but is 106 now. That let me set my sales price quite low(500-600) from the beginning.

[Eric.B]

At start it was $130, the fuel thing is a bug, there is no way a 5hp motor can move a 1ton car and get that mileage and speed.

[geozero]

I thought I'd give my self a shot at beating you.

Of course, I'm playing a different version, and playing on hard, so I'm at a disadvantage...
I didn't make it to 1907, went bankrupt due to a loan payment bug... (sigh more things to fix)

I suck at my own game:

I should probably put in the first post its on normal, ill edit that in.
Im a bit terrified of Hard after an earlier game i played on it. The higher expenses mean my usual reckless overproducing can (and did) kill me.
So imo hard difficulty is quite a handicap you set for yourself.

On your vehicle, you could probably reduce its fuel efficiency without hurting sales couldn't you? Im not American but afaik 100mpg is amazing already, let alone 130-150.
Model T was around 30 the Wiki says.

Whats its production cost? I think mine started around 200-250(i honestly don't really remember) but is 106 now. That let me set my sales price quite low(500-600) from the beginning.

I go to R&D view vehicle and it will show you your production cost per unit.

I also started with pricing cars just a couple of hundred over cost... then discovered that if I priced them at $1000-$1500 over cost they actually sold better and I made a profit. Seems odd.

[Arakash]

Whats its production cost? I think mine started around 200-250(i honestly don't really remember) but is 106 now. That let me set my sales price quite low(500-600) from the beginning.

I go to R&D view vehicle and it will show you your production cost per unit.

I also started with pricing cars just a couple of hundred over cost... then discovered that if I priced them at $1000-$1500 over cost they actually sold better and I made a profit. Seems odd.

The first part of the response kind of confused me. Im not sure who you were telling where the production cost is, because clearly both of us knew it was in the R&D screen, as we both listed unit costs.

Personally ive still found i get higher sales with a very low price, especially with other competing models on the market.
Assuming i understand the way the wealth distribution works, this makes sense, as a lower price should mean a larger percentage of the population should be able to afford it.
Especially when my sales price is below the Per capita income, i think that means the average citizen should be able to buy it with a years wage.

[Eric.B]

Most likely the AI pulled out of the city thus you had a bump in sales. Or Marketing? Or Image? Millions of things could cause it.

Also remember that the unit cost is only materials. You still have to factor in labor, transport, and overhead!

[Arakash]

Also remember that the unit cost is only materials. You still have to factor in labor, transport, and overhead!

At least for these vehicles, i think at this point the transportation cost is higher than the unit cost, and perhaps higher than the combined costs of marketing/labour/branch/admin.
I remember a figure around 150-200 per unit, which is depressingly high for transportation.

This is mainly because i was selling most of the vehicles to London, but i cant make enough nearby, so i have to produce in Ireland/France/Belgium or elsewhere.

[Eric.B]

Transport cost go down over time. It's a way to prevent someone from setting up shop in Africa and exporting to the West early in the game.

Same thing happens in reality too. Most Japanese cars in the US are made in the US these days. The only things imported are either very low end or very high end. The later is less profitable even with the reduced labor costs. (I'm still waiting for a $3000 Tata Nano damn it!)

That being said, super cheap cars in UK vs Super Cheap Cars from Yugoslavia + transport, I think eventually some point in the game the Yugos will beat the Reliants.

[Arakash]

Transport cost go down over time. It's a way to prevent someone from setting up shop in Africa and exporting to the West early in the game.

Same thing happens in reality too. Most Japanese cars in the US are made in the US these days. The only things imported are either very low end or very high end. The later is less profitable even with the reduced labor costs. (I'm still waiting for a $3000 Tata Nano damn it!)

That being said, super cheap cars in UK vs Super Cheap Cars from Yugoslavia + transport, I think eventually some point in the game the Yugos will beat the Reliants.

I follow your point about the transportation costs in Gearcity, from what ive seen i think it works well at the moment.

On your later point its interesting and something i hope to try out ingame. I would/will be quite impressed if increasing labour costs/admin force me to produce vehicles in another county. Or perhaps that happens already and im too lazy to notice

Be Warned, Long rant ahead of local car production, its a big political football in Australia(my country) atm

On car production, the trend is towards the opposite of what you describe in Australia (My country) at the moment.
My understanding was that the vast majority of car companies in the developed world were having similar problems.

In Australia:
The cars we produce here aren't bought by enough people here to cover the high costs of producing them (developed country- so wages etc.)
My understanding, is that this is partly because people aren't favoring locally produced cars enough and partly because of a slow reduction in things like subsidies and tarrifs over the last 20-30 years(probably longer).
Long story short, the vast majority of our vehicles are imported.

So:
There was local car production for the local market for many years here, but now the two largest ones, Ford and Holden, will be gone in 5-10 years.
The only remaining locally producing auto company (Toyota) makes (well, partly assembles) cars here, sells some here and ships many of them overseas.

Strangely, the only company to survive has done much better producing vehicles locally for the export market than the local market.

[Eric.B]

It does become very expensive to build in western nations as the game progresses. This is one of the problems I have with late game AI. As it is now, around 1950-1960 is when the transport/labor balance becomes something to look into.


In Australia case you have 3 major thing working against you. Location, location, and location. It doesn't cost much to ship cars from Malaysia or South Korea. Tariffs, etc play into it sure. But in my mind it'd be much harder to compete against countries only 1000 miles away.

In the US we have Mexico, and a lot of manufacturing has gone to them as well. Nissan, Ford, and Volkswagen build many models down there. Of course labor in the South Eastern US is only a little more expensive, much more safe, and no unions. Which is why almost everyone and their mother in the US market is building in the south east.

[Arakash]

Here is my latest attempt, this time in the new build 1.11.
To remind any new viewers, this is testing to see the highest sales volume you can reach before 1910, you just have to attach a yearly profits screenshot to show you arent bankrupting yourself.

I created 4 models, Touring, Compact, Sedan and Phaeton all using the same components (the sedan used a 4stroke instead of a 2)
I made all of them in 1900, as ive found that making them later makes them far too expensive to reach high volumes before 1910. (Note: The vehicle designs do get much cheaper to build after 1910, but that's outside the scope of the challenge here, so not really important) Their rating was around 45-50 at the time i made them.
I sold them all in the Eastern US, using a lot of marketing(20-70 per unit, i attached a screenshot showing) and most of what id learned about the game since my older games in everything from vehicle design to branch/factory design.

I set the price at around 600-700, then i refined and reduced it steadily over time as the construction price of the vehicle dropped. I aimed to keep it just at the point where i would get marginal profits to not go bankrupt.

It took until July 1908 for the Compact and Phaeton models to get below the steadily rising per capita of the US(420 at the time). I consider this a bit of a milestone when attempting this, as i assume it means that quite a large percentage of the population are either close to or in reach of the vehicle.
At this point those were only costing $200 to produce, so over half of my expenses were in things like marketing/transportation/branches.

Results were pretty mediocre compared to the one i listed.
I didn't get any model beyond 3k sales in a month, or combined sales from all the models beyond 6-8k. (They all use the same components, so i consider them almost identical)
Ive attached several screenshots, most from 1908.

If i try it again, i think ill focus on London, largely to simplify and speed up the process.

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Here is a screenshot i forgot to post, which contains the most successful of the vehicles i produced. (Still not overly successful)
It is a showroom screenshot, with the box from the R&D screen edited in.