Chapter 54: Knockoffs
Translated by me, edited by drpetro.
Owen’s Electric Scooter Manufacturing Inc. had been in business for more than ten years. The owner Liu Wenhu started it off with knockoff scooters. After more than ten years of dedication and hard work, he had brought the company to new heights, and had assets valued at a total of more than 30 million yuan.
Well, they made their success off of knockoffs, so naturally they needed to keep an eye on all the new scooters that hit the market.
In order to do better under competition, Liu Wenhu specially hired two people who did nothing all day but go around town looking at scooter stores. As soon as they found a new popular scooter, they would immediately buy one for ‘research’.
Last night one of them reported back saying that a new super beautiful scooter had just hit the market and its sales were simple crazy. All the nearby delivery drivers basically boasted them up to the sky, with stuff like super long mileage, quick charging, comfortable to ride and what not.
In addition, there was only one store selling it.
Today, that worker lined up for a whole afternoon before finally getting his hands on one.
As soon as the scooter was pushed into the examination room, Liu Wenhu and several technicians immediately went up and surrounded it.
The scooter’s outer appearance was simply too beautiful. It’s looks just like the structure from the Lamb scooters, yet its front end and its body were super streamlined, such that they were clearly standing still there, but when people looked at it there was an illusion that it was actually moving.
“Hahaha ~ seriously the older you are, the more you learn.” Liu Wenhu laughed out loud: “Just this outer appearance alone is worth me imitating. This is seriously better than all the models out on market.”
“Boss look, it’s even got a mobile charger.” A worker pointed at the scooter’s dashboard.
“Great idea, we’ll do it too.” Liu Wenhu looked at one of the technicians nearby to record this down.
Having seen the outer appearance, naturally he needed to break it down to and examine the inside as well as its performance.
Several technicians first walked the scooter onto an electronic scale and recorded the weight of the scooter.
Then they carefully ripped off the outer casing of the scooter, which then had its 3D coordinates recorded and was extensively photographed.
Having removed the casing, the main frame of the scooter was exposed for all to see.
As soon as Liu Wenhu and several technicians saw the main frame, they all couldn’t help but inhale a cold breath.
Any product, in experts eyes, would have all their flaws and defects exposed.
But with this frame, they just simply couldn’t find any problems with it.
Even with a dial caliper, they still couldn’t find any differences between the sides of the scooter.
The main frame, within the manufacturing cycle, was the step with the highest technical requirement.
It was just like the bones within a human body: if a bone was grown crooked, then it was very possible for it to easily break with movement.
But to create a highly precise main frame would not only increase production costs, but also go against all business ideals.
The higher the precision level, then naturally the higher the price tag.
Liu Wenhu and several technicians all looked at each other, and all thought that this scooter manufacturer was completely crazy.
Along the main frame of the scooter were the same welding marks from top to bottom. This was clearly the work of automated welding machines.
Since when has the scooter sector got to use the automated welding machines from the car production lines?
“Give me all the parameters for the main frame. This scooter’s frame was designed just too perfectly.” Liu Wenhu commented as he tried to calm himself.
The main frame had already been measured. The technicians now began operate all kinds of instruments and apparatus.
This two wheel electric scooter’s core tech wasn’t around it’s main frame. Rather it was with its long mileage and quick charging.
As the battery and electric motors were all from normal brands, then its secrets must lie with the scooter’s power control system.
Even if the batteries used were all from the same company, they still had their own electric charging parameters. Simply connecting them all together would not only create mutual interference, it would also cause a grave squander of power. As long as the batteries were operating, the larger the parameter errors were, the more power would be squandered.
There must be a specialized management system in place to detect and intelligently manage the output coefficient of each piece of battery.
Only this way could the full potential of the batteries be drawn out and achieve longer mileage.
The technicians, very carefully, connected all kinds of electronic instrument to the scooter.
Then after the scooter had been secured on the examination table, with a push of the scooter’s throttle, the wheels began to spin at astonishing speeds.
The connected instruments faithfully recorded down all of the scooter’s performance data and the situation with the battery packs.
The examination continued on all the way until there was no power left in the battery. Seeing the results, Liu Wenhu and the technicians almost had their eyes pop out.
The data showed that this scooter could easily travel 90 kilometers on a single charge. And this was all coming from a modeling program with an average person and riding with the wind.
Then came the charging examination. Yet just after 30 mintues, Liu Wenhu had the technicians turn it off.
There was no need to continue with the examination. The instruments, based off of the change in electric resistance, was easily able to predict how long it would take to reach full charge.
“Rip it apart! Give me the secrets inside!”
The technicians very carefully tore off the control system, then dismantled the outer casing of the control system to reveal the electric hardware inside. Once exposed, the control system was brought over to another examination table, and with even more precise instruments, began another round of examinations.
Except the results left Liu Wenhu quite puzzled.
The electric hardware inside the control system were all components used in regular scooters. Apart from some different power coefficients, it was no less different than any other control system on the market.
The control system was used to control the flow of power for the scooter, and to protect from abnormal fluctuations in power.
If just changing the power coefficient could make the scooter travel further, then wasn’t that saying that all scooter technicians are all incompetent?
Any mature product that has been in use for decades, have all experienced uncountable amount of experiments and modifications, so it was basically a collection of the best scientific principles and theories bunched together. If changing the coefficient alone could solve the problem of short mileage, then those technicians should all go jump off of a cliff and die.
Well, the truth was like this, but Liu Wenhu still decided to try to reverse engineer this, and had the technicians immediately make an exact imitation of the control system to try out.
Liu Wenhu hadn’t even had the chance to eat dinner yet, as he had been wait anxiously on an empty stomach, until the technicians were finally able to make an imitation copy of the control system.
With great expectation, Liu Wenhu hurriedly connected it to a trial scooter, turned the keys to switch on the power, yet the control system with bang short circuited and began to emit tons of black smoke.
“What the fk?? How?? ” The technicians were all bewildered: “The hardware inside are all regular parts on the market, how come with a change in coefficient, theirs works, but ours don’t?”
“Go make some more.” Liu Wenhu gloomy said.
The technicians worked overtime to rush out three more imitations. It was just that without any exception, as soon as they were connected to power, they all short circuited.
Having failed multiple times, Liu Wenhu was now completely confused. This was the first time he had experience this kind of peculiar situation. The clearly simple electronic hardware, even copying the original to the letter, still short circuited and crashed and burned one after another.
“Ahhhh! Fk it. Ignore this freaking control system for now, let’s get the outer casing and mainframe out first.” Liu Wenhu paced back and forth: “This kind is so popular, yet there is so little hitting the market.”
“We need to hurry up, come up with a knock off version, and steal away a share of the market.”
“Then what about the mileage? We can ignore the quick charge, but the mileage is one of this scooter’s key sell points.” A technician asked.
“We’ll also use 6 battery packs, with an ordinary control system, it’s fine as long as the mileage is somewhat better than the ordinary ones in the market.” Liu Wenhu suddenly thought of something: “This scooter, apart from its brand name, there isn’t any information at all. Not even which factory made it. Even the warranty card is from the dealer, so it’s definitely an unregistered product.
“Now they can’t even sue us. I’m going to give the mold master a call, and have him make a mold right now, so that we can try to have cases ready by tomorrow.”
“You guys go make changes to the production line so that it’s inline with this scooter’s structure.”
As soon as the scooter’s plastic casing was complete, everything else was all a piece of cake.
Owen’s Electric Scooter Manufacturing Inc., was a company that specializes in manufacturing electric scooters, so it had the whole manufacturing shebang, which includes both equipment and workers. It was even able to produce more than 300 electric scooters in a single day if in full swing.
