ABT Chapter 0124 Concern from Fan Ge
Japanese car companies generally attach great importance to the Chinese market. Since the year 2000, the demand for cars in China has skyrocketed, becoming the third largest market after Japan itself and the Americas. With the economy booming and household incomes rising, China has become the world's largest automotive consumer market in recent years.
As an automotive powerhouse, many Japanese car manufacturers naturally seize this lucrative opportunity. They have introduced specially designed products for the Chinese market and sought joint venture partners in China.
After experiencing a crisis of trust in 2000, Mitsubishi reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Guangqi Automobile to produce some dedicated models in China.
In the early stages of cooperation, Mitsubishi was very satisfied with Guangqi. Guangqi Automobile was essentially penniless at the time, relying entirely on Mitsubishi's orders and technical support. In this context, they played the role of hardworking laborers without complaint.
But Guangqi had ambitions.
They were not content to be mere servants of foreign companies. After more than a decade of exploration and accumulation, they successfully cultivated a group of technical talents and accumulated capital.
At the beginning of the reform and opening up, after the government set the policy of exchanging the market for technology, perhaps only Guangqi, relying on its strong endurance and high determination, was able to achieve it.
So in recent years, Guangqi has begun to reveal its self-reliant side, starting to establish its own brand models - Legend.
In contrast, Mitsubishi's interference was no longer as effective as before.
Therefore, Mitsubishi strengthened its control over the production line and even two years ago, removed all Guangqi management personnel from the production line of the Pajero SUV.
Cracks began to form at that time.
In a phone call to Zhang Yong, Xiao Shi Jinnan clearly expressed his desire to form a joint venture with Nanhe Automobile.
This was undoubtedly a huge boon for Nanhe Automobile, which lacked a powerful backing. Although Mitsubishi has now completely fallen to a second-tier brand, don't forget, they still have four models on sale in the domestic market.
These four models, even if their sales are poor, still sell nearly a hundred thousand units a year. For a car company of Nanhe's scale, this can be considered a major deal.
Zhang Yong was very pleased and naturally promised Xiao Shi Jinnan's request without hesitation.
After hanging up the phone, he called in the head of the automotive testing center, Wu Haiyan, who was his former secretary, and gave her some instructions.
After the instructions were given, there was inevitably a passionate outburst.
...
When Hong Rui and Xiao Wu's group arrived at the testing center, it was already past ten o'clock. After stating their purpose at the reception, the staff lazily led them to pay the inspection fee.
The testing fees at the laboratory actually follow an internationally accepted standard.
Generally, it's a fixed cost plus variable cost, multiplied by the operating time of the equipment plus the labor cost of the testing technician. Some countries also include algorithms such as wage rates because the testers are not full-time.
But here at Nanhe, it's a fixed price.
For cases like Hong Rui's, if they want to verify whether there is a quality issue with the front axle and steering drum, they need to conduct microscopic examination, fracture examination, hardness testing, and metallographic structure examination on the broken axle.
Microscopic examination involves placing the fracture under a microscope to check for any abnormal cracks.
Fracture examination uses instruments to test the mechanical properties of the fracture, whether it is a ductile fracture caused by external force or a fracture caused by corrosion.
Hardness testing doesn't need much explanation; this test mainly verifies whether the component meets the calibration and whether there are any problems with the manufacturing process.
And the metallographic structure examination checks whether there are any problems with the raw materials, such as uneven distribution of cast iron.
For these four tests, without any fuss about labor costs, they came up with a straightforward price - a flat fee of twelve thousand yuan.
Why such pricing?
Well, it's said that the head of the automotive testing center, Ms. Wu Haiyan, actually only has a junior high school diploma and is very averse to calculating formulas and such. So she adopted a hospital-style charging method, with a fixed price for individual projects. Testing without instruments costs two thousand yuan, with instruments costs four thousand, and there's an additional five hundred for starting up the equipment.
So, these four not-so-complicated testing projects ended up with such a fee, with zeros and halves included.
But because Nanhe Automobile's testing center has a good reputation, Hong Rui and his companions, who were unaware of the nuances, did not raise any suspicions and simply regarded it as a standard procedure.
There's no way around it, Nanhe Automobile Testing Center is the largest in Asia.
It's like going to Kyoto University Hospital for medical treatment. Would you doubt their charging standards?
Although they felt it was expensive, they naturally wouldn't. Hong Rui and the others paid the fees with a sense of resignation.
Two lab technicians in lab coats, looking quite professional, received them. After asking them to provide the items for testing, they casually filled out a receipt and handed it back, informing them to come back tomorrow to collect the inspection report.
On the receipt, only a few scribbles were written with a ballpoint pen: Received front axle X1 and steering drum X1.
There were no photos, reasons for testing, or signatures for acceptance on this receipt. Moreover, the name of the Nanhe Automobile Testing Center wasn't even on this receipt.
But because of the trust in the testing center, everyone still didn't raise any doubts. After carefully keeping the receipt, the group returned to the city and silently waited.
Meanwhile, Li Fanyu learned about Hong Rui's axle incident.
Since the Xapp upgrade, all functions on his phone except for calls and messages were disabled.
Apps like QQ, WeChat, Weibo, Xunlei, and QuickTime were all unusable.
Well... of course, the inability to use QuickTime doesn't really have much to do with the phone...
After waking up in the lab last night, he received a call from Zhou Qingyu. Zhou Qingyu ridiculed him for having the appearance of a young man but the lifestyle attitude of an old man.
This hit a nerve for Fan Ge, saying he was out of touch with the news?
Well, let me show you my QQ number with three suns and over a hundred Weibo followers!
So, feeling stimulated, Li Fanyu immediately went to the mall and bought a highly priced iPhone 7 Plus.
It was priced over eight thousand, while the market price for an iPhone 6s was four thousand five hundred...
Upon returning to Weibo, he tagged Zhou Qingyu to identify himself and then downloaded a bunch of previously used apps. Since Autohome didn't exist in this timeline, he naturally downloaded the Brand Car Network app.
Upon entering the app, the headline was Hong Rui's axle rights protection.
Li Fanyu had heard too much about axle incidents in the previous timeline. The most famous ones were Volkswagen's Sagitar axle gate and Ford's Explorer rollover gate, which made every Chinese consumer fearful.
After those two incidents disappeared from the automotive history, he thought such painful accidents wouldn't happen again.
Now seeing the axle incident again, and causing a serious traffic accident, Li Fanyu immediately entered the forum and understood the whole situation.
Until he saw the latest development - sending it to the Nanhe Automobile Testing Center for inspection, his brows furrowed.
What the hell was the basis for this testing fee?
He immediately registered an account and logged into the forum.
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