Story of the automobile: Its history and development from 1760 to 1917: With an analysis of the standing and prospects of the automobile industry — John Shaqi
Story of the automobile: Its history and development from 1760 to 1917: With an analysis of the standing and prospects of the automobile industryBarber, H. L. (Herbert Lee)
History
Story of the automobile: Its history and development from 1760 to 1917: With an analysis of the standing and prospects of the automobile industry
Barber, H. L. (Herbert Lee)
Automobiles -- History
This is one reason why the American car could invade England and her
dominions beyond the seas, why Ford has factories in the British Isles
and Canada, and why our yearly exports of automobiles have increased in
the last five years over $100,000,000 in value.
Other reasons that make us an exporting country of automobiles through
their low prices are our natural resources of iron, steel, lumber, coal
and alloys, enabling us, by their plentifulness and accessibility, to
manufacture at cheap cost, thus offsetting the higher price we pay for
labor in this country than the European manufacturers pay.
But the biggest factor in the lead which the United States has taken
in the production of automobiles, both for export and consumption
within her own borders, is the universal method of standardizing in
manufacture, adopted by the automobile producers of the nation.
The manufacturers of this country shine in the field of cost
production, in the economies of purchase of raw materials, in the
method of manufacture, and in marketing their product.
ADVERTISING’S HELP IN MAKING THE AUTOMOBILE.
The extent to which economic methods of purchase of raw
materials—getting the price down—economic standardization of
manufacture, inventing short cuts as it were—affects production cost,
is shown in the fact that the automobile industry ranks almost at the
top in the manufactures of the United States in the per cent of value
added by manufacture to the cost of material.
The per cent of value added by manufacture to cost of material in
automobile production is 71 per cent, against 66 per cent in cotton
goods, 55 per cent in iron and steel products, 51 per cent in boots
and shoes, 16 per cent in flour and grist mill products, and 12 per
cent in slaughtering and meat packing.
Strange as it may sound when first stated, advertising is primarily the
base of this result. We know that the first principle of lowered cost
is buying in quantities; that if we buy for 100, the cost for each is
lower than the cost for one; if for 1,000 it is lower than the cost for
each of 100, and so on.
So, when Ford buys the materials for 533,921 cars, which was the
number he sold in 1916, he gets the price of the cost of each of these
more than a half million cars down to a less price than if he bought
material for 1,708 cars, the number he made in 1904, or even 168,220,
the number he made in 1913.
This is patent to any one who ever heard of wholesale and retail prices.
But how did Ford find a sale for 533,921 cars in 1916?
By advertising.
The first thing a manufacturer must do to lower the cost of production
of the single unit is to make in quantities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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