Riding a bicycle is not a decent choice for contemporary people in Tang Dynasty. At least in formal travel situations, decent people will not choose indecent bicycles.
They'd rather walk!
Of course, people who can actually afford a bicycle worth a few hundred yuan are not so destitute that they can walk. They can take a horse-drawn carriage.
The carriage industry in the Tang Dynasty is now very developed. A middle-class family cannot afford a private carriage, but for daily travel, it is definitely affordable to take a taxi. If it is not possible, a public carriage will do.
Therefore, despite the fact that Datang has a population of several hundred million, Li's Bicycle Company actually sells only a few bicycles every year.
If everyone in the Tang Dynasty had a bicycle, the Li family would have become the richest family in the empire!
Unfortunately, this kind of thing can only be done in dreams.
But even so, Li's Bicycle Company has maintained a market value of hundreds of thousands of yuan by relying on its huge bicycle patents.
It can be seen that the patents for these bicycles are still very important.
Li Yubo obtained a patent license from his family company, even though he was paid a patent license fee, but strictly speaking he still took advantage.
But Li Yubo was not willing to directly give shares, or partnership, etc. He built this gasoline engine with my mother's dowry!
In the end, Li Yubo took the initiative to offer a higher basic patent licensing fee, and would also pay a share of the patent fees in the future, which could be regarded as increasing the patent licensing fee.
At the same time, he took the initiative to propose that the processing and production capacity of Qixiang Machinery Factory was not enough, and he was ready to hand over some orders for spare parts to his home factory.
In this way, the opinions at home can be initially calmed down.
As the military order was signed, Li Yubo went directly to the Royal Bank to apply for a loan, which was then used for patent licensing fees for Royal Institute of Technology's gasoline engines and other patents.
Then, under the leadership of the military, an OEM agreement was reached with Hanyang Precision Machinery Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Arms Company, to borrow their advanced equipment to produce gasoline engines.
There is no doubt about the technology of Jiangnan Arms Company, especially in the field of high-precision processing. The strength of the three major domestic arms companies has always been among the best in the country.
Soon, Hanyang Precision Machinery Factory, a subsidiary of Jiangnan Weapons Company, quickly built multiple prototypes based on the design information given by Li Yubo and delivered them to Qixiang Machinery Factory for various experiments and tests.
After all, the previous gasoline engine prototype did not undergo any rigorous testing. After it was built and briefly tested, it was directly installed and used.
Even though no obvious flaws have been exposed yet, there are always a lot of small problems, which require continuous testing and improvement.
Since Li Yubo initially adopted the method of outsourcing a large number of parts, his own Qixiang Machinery Factory was only used for final assembly.
Therefore, the first batch of spare parts were quickly obtained from various spare parts manufacturers for various tests and experiments.
At the same time, the second prototype of a gasoline vehicle was built.
It is worth noting that this second gasoline car does not have two wheels, but three wheels.
This is because although two-wheeled gasoline vehicles are technically simpler and more adaptable to terrain, their balance is poor. Therefore, the military has taken the initiative to ask whether they can build a three-wheeled vehicle based on two-wheeled vehicles.
wheel or four-wheel version.
Of course, this three-wheel or four-wheel version is not the same as the ordinary cars of Zhongyuan Automobile and Hangzhou Power Machinery Company. At least the weight and shape are different.
Because the difference in power is relatively large, even if a three-wheeled or four-wheeled model is developed, it must be smaller and lighter.
To put it bluntly, the military actually did not ask Li Yubo to build a four-wheeled vehicle. It simply wanted to add a wheel to the two-wheeled vehicle to improve the balance.
This simple requirement was naturally not difficult. Li Yubo spent just one night designing a three-wheeled vehicle based on his own two-wheeled gasoline vehicle.
As for the four-wheeled vehicle, he simply gave up. The power of his gasoline engine was too small, and the structure of the four-wheeled vehicle would inevitably become larger. After the weight increased, the power of the gasoline engine was not enough.
After all, the gasoline engine he designed was just a small gasoline engine with a cylinder volume of only 300 milliliters and a horsepower of no more than one horse. It was different from the three or four horsepower medium-sized gasoline engines produced by Zhongyuan Automobile Company and Hangzhou Power Machinery Company.
This newly established tricycle is in the shape of a side triangle. This is to simplify the transmission structure and control weight and cost. The driving wheel is still only the rear wheel of the two-wheeled vehicle, and the side wheels are purely for balance.
At the same time, a seat is also added to the side wheel, which can be used to carry people as well as cargo.
When military representatives saw this three-wheeled vehicle, they showed greater interest than the previous two-wheeled vehicle.
They conducted frequent test drives, and a large number of people wrote numerous reports.
The size of this thing is still very small, with a total length of just over one meter and a width of less than one meter. It is much smaller than a car that can move several meters in length.
The main load-bearing structure of the car body is made of steel, but other non-load-bearing structures are still made of wood. This is because the engine power is small and in order to control the weight of the car body.
Because the military requires cost control, the entire tricycle is very simple, with almost no superfluous items except necessary parts.
The military is quite satisfied with this. As soon as this prototype vehicle was produced, the military directly placed an order for another hundred of these three-wheeled vehicles. At the same time, it also modified the previous order and required that the two-wheeled vehicles ordered be added to the order.
The car provides a design interface that can be modified.
So that when necessary, a side wheel can be added simply and quickly, so that a two-wheeled vehicle can be quickly converted into a three-wheeled vehicle.
Regarding the military order, Li Yubo was happy and painful.
On the one hand, a large number of orders have been received, but now not even one of them can be mass-produced.
This is equivalent to having money right in front of you, but you still can't get it.
This feeling is very painful.
However, this situation did not last long. After major parts manufacturers began to supply supplies, Li Yubo also asked the technicians of his Qixiang Machinery Factory to start assembling the first batch of mass-produced two-wheeled gasoline vehicles.
Although the initial order for this thing was from the military, Li Yubo still had great expectations for the civilian market, so he specially asked the designers to repackage it to create a better-looking appearance, add some spare parts to increase comfort, etc.
Finally, the Qixiang brand two-wheeled vehicle was officially launched on the market.