My Italy

It’s not news that the Fiat B-type car is selling like hotcakes, but it’s news when it’s selling so well that it causes fights.

That's right, there was a dispute in the United States over the purchase of a B-type car, and news of a fight between two groups of customers appeared in the newspapers.

This can be regarded as adding fuel to the already hot B-type car market. The monthly output of 5,000 B-type cars can be fully absorbed by the United States alone.

With its novel appearance and low price, coupled with the blessing of new technologies, the B-type car is difficult to sell, let alone there is no decent competitor on the market.

Big seller, hot seller, looking at the customers waiting to pick up the car, and then looking at the empty booth, he can only do two things, one is to appease the customers, and the other is to send a reminder telegram to Fiat, asking them to hurry up and deliver the cute car. The B-type cars were delivered, and these customers were impatient to wait.

That's right, Fiat's telegram mailroom has been filled with urging telegrams from dealers in various countries.

There is nothing to say next. Fiat's new factory must continue to be built. Orders are even more fierce than those for the Type A car. Fiat has already considered whether to directly discontinue the production of the Type A car and transform it into the Type B car.

The reason why Fiat executives consider this is that it will take at least half a year for the new factory to be put into production, and the current accumulation of orders for B-type cars has pushed the production time to next year. As for the Model A, the current production capacity is 6,000 units per month. Although there are still orders, based on the declining number of orders, Fiat feels that this car may only have a production life of two or three years.

In the final analysis, this is because Fiat underestimated the popularity of the B-type car. With such an excellent combination of price, performance, and appearance, the price difference of the B-type car is only a thousand lire, which is not a problem for many customers. .

Well, this B-type car is backward compatible with the A-type car market, which is something Fiat executives did not consider. Of course, what they have considered is the profit of the B-type car. Compared with Type A car, although the price of Type B car has increased by one thousand lire, the cost has only increased by 800 lire. In other words, the profit of Type B car is two times higher than that of Type A car. Parilla.

This is not a small number. Fiat can sell its own cars so cheaply. In addition to assembly lines and standardized production, it is also Fiat's strategy to reduce the profit of each car.

After all, Fiat produces tens of thousands of cars every year, which exceeds the production capacity of dozens of cars every year by handicraft workshops in other countries.

Fiat only makes three to four hundred liras per car, but these tens of thousands of cars can make it hundreds of millions of liras in profit.

Large-scale production also reduces the production cost of parts, allowing Fiat to reduce vehicle costs. These complement each other and are Fiat's first-mover advantage. Unless other car companies compete at low prices to hurt people, otherwise this first-mover advantage It’s not easy to solve.

Of course, it would take two months to renovate the assembly line and workshop after discontinuing the Model A car, which is indeed faster than directly building a new factory.

But Fiat is a little hesitant about this. After all, discontinuing the Model A directly has certain risks.

No matter what Fiat decides, the backlog of orders for the B-model must be resolved. After some thought, Giovanni Agnelli finally made the decision to stop the production of Type A cars and invest all resources into the production of Type B cars, striving to increase Fiat's monthly production of Type B cars by 10,000 More than five thousand vehicles.

Yes, for Fiat, the only motivation now is to challenge itself. The key is to release its own automobile production capacity and seize the market first.

While Fiat was developing its ambitions, Carlo, who was far away in Rome, also encountered a troublesome thing.

"Your Majesty, I don't know what the people of the Qing Dynasty think, but this declaration of war simply challenges my many years of diplomatic experience. I can only say that this empress dowager really doesn't understand diplomacy at all, or around her. There is no Qing official who understands diplomacy."

In front of Carlo, Italian Foreign Minister Bacona complained to him about the indiscriminate behavior of the Queen Mother in the Far East.

That's right, the Empress Dowager was very dissatisfied with the intervention of various countries in the abolition of the Qing emperor, as in history. Instigated by a group of Manchu dignitaries who had high ambitions and low abilities, she decided to take a strong stance for the Empress Dowager. But having said that, you can be tough as long as you are tough. What does it mean to let those who practice boxing until their brains are damaged enter the capital and Tianjin? I really think that magical body protection is invulnerable.

In addition, the "Declaration of War" issued by Cixi was even more of a big trap. Because this "Declaration of War" did not clearly explain the objects of the war, but used a slightly contemptuous word "those".

In fact, before the Queen Mother declared war, Italy worked hard to play the role of mediator among various countries. He traveled around various countries and the Qing Dynasty, working hard so that the two sides could sit down and talk.

Does Italy love peace? Is it because of overthinking or for profit? Italy originally occupied the first role in the Qing market, but the gap with the British was very small. Any major turmoil may cause the roles of the two to reverse.

The empress dowager who was in power did not understand the Italians' painstaking efforts at all, and constantly provoked the relationship between various countries.

For this reason, Italian Ambassador to the Far East Jia Liwen even complained to the country about whether the empress dowager had a tendency to self-destruct.

Let me tell you a very interesting thing here. That Yuan Xiangcheng is very good at this. You said that you can block bullets magically. Well, the latest Italian fast gun is here. Please use your skills, senior brother.

Alas, the senior brother was shot. It seems that this skill is not practiced well. The next second senior brother will try it.

Therefore, Yuan Xiangcheng, who was stationed in Shandong, was not affected at all by these people who were practicing boxing stupidly, and still firmly controlled his army.

Carlo ignored Bacona's complaints, but looked at the telegram in front of him and sighed. "Now the Kaiser is angry."

Carlo was talking about the unlucky child, the German Minister Klinde. When he left Dongjiaominxiang and went to the Prime Minister's Office of the Qing government to negotiate the evacuation of the envoys, he happened to encounter the officers and soldiers of the Hushen Camp patrolled by Duanjun Wang Zaiyi on the way. Clinder was shot and killed by the Qing army.

Now it's better. Germany has killed its minister and will not let William II get angry. What's more important is that Germany has 40,000 German troops stationed in the Philippines. These troops, which have just completed the suppression of the rebels, are afraid that they will advance directly to the Far East.

"Your Majesty, there is nothing we can do about this. We can only blame the Qing people for their own incompetence."

Bacona said with his hands spread out, and judging from his tone, he had given up on the Qing people.

"Then we cannot fall behind and order the troops from Borneo to set off. Since the Queen Mother does not accept our olive branch, then accept our anger."

That's right, Carlo has decided that he will never stop until he earns 80 to 90 million taels of silver this time.

Even if it damages the relationship between the two countries and reduces Italy's market share, there is nothing to fear.