Q. What is the specific aim of the engineering research center?
A. The first car model entirely designed by Chinese engineers.
Q. Is this necessary?
A. Basically, this would not be done if a business makes short-term profit its only goal. But it is necessary for establishment of a more complete motor industry.
Q. How was this decision made?
A. The decision was made by Vivian Wu, president of the Yue Loong Motor Company. From the beginning, Yue Loong is not managed solely as a profit-making business: it also places emphasis on industrial development, so it decided to establish this engineering center.
Q. What about the future?
A. We have mapped out long-range plans after thorough study, but we cannot build Rome in a day. So far, we have encountered no insurmountable problems.
Q. Will you define a new model?
A. A new model refers to a car with new exterior and interior style. This involves a new body and other coordinating parts. I must emphasize, that in light of costs involved, it is impossible for us to design all the parts. We shall use whatever existing parts can be used.
Q. Do you mean this concerns design and construction of the body?
A. Yes. But this center is in charge of design, not construction. A good design must consider cost problems, so the new car can be sold at home and abroad.
Q. When General Motors develops a new model, it spends a lot of time, money and manpower. Yue Loong is a big company in the Republic of China, but is not so big in the world. Does it meet all the criteria necessary to carry out such a long-range plan?
A. This depends on how the problem is approached. True, large companies around the world engage in designing cars, but this is also done by some smaller ones. Consider Saab and Volvo of Sweden. Their annual production is only in the tens of thousands, but they design their own cars and maintain their world market. It is worth noting that Sweden's population is smaller than Taiwan's, but it still can export 80 percent of its cars, mainly because it possesses requisite technology. Saab also makes jet aircraft, and Volvo turns out tanks. In other words, their technology can also be applied to other sectors. Therefore, the size of the company is not crucial. The question is whether the company has the capability to design its cars. For the moment, we do not expect to make every model, but we hope we can do so when we want to.
Q. If we adopt the Swedish approach, what will be the manpower and technological problems involved?
A. The so-called technological problems are also human problems. We faced human factors first by retaining specialists abroad to serve as technical consultants. Because these specialists cannot stay long in Taiwan, they are not charged with carrying out major plans. We dispatch people for training in foreign countries. Also, we can buy good car models for study. We have collected all the appropriate information about cars published in the U.S. after 1965. This is very helpful.
In short, technology is carried out by specialists. When specialists come, technology is brought in. When they depart, technology departs too. So we are emphasizing the training of our own people.
The performance record of college graduates in Taiwan is not bad. They have carried out many important projects. Some foreign experts, impressed by their performance, have said they are even better than their counterparts in foreign countries. I think this may be because our college graduates have no historical burden and habits. In foreign countries, each car is designed in accordance with experience, and when the computer was adopted for designing, the designers showed the tendency of rejection. Our designers have no historical habit, so they accept computer designing readily.
Our challenge is to assure them that this work is meaningful so they can make it their career, and the technology of designing can take root.
Q. Then ... how to make them feel they are working in their own interests?
A. First, we must give them an opportunity for re-education and then charge them with responsibility. I like to hire fresh college graduates who have no experience, but are interested in cars, because they have no bad habits. After they are on the line, we give them major assignments. We ask specialists to help them only when they themselves feel their ability is insufficient.
Q. Won't there be problems if you give major assignments to inexperienced persons?
A. So far, I have not found any problems. Surprisingly, these people often possess greater ability than they themselves have suggested. After they are given an assignment, more than 80 percent of them do it well. In treating them this way, we intend to motivate them to try their best to solve the problems. They can work well only when they are challenged.
Q. When is the designing of the new model to be completed? Do you have a time schedule?
A. Certainly, but I cannot publicize it. I must admit that, compared with other companies, we move a little slowly. And moving slowly, we encounter more difficulties. If we were to extend the period to ten years, for what other companies can do in four or five years, we would have to run the risk of additional technological and market changes.
Q. You say that your company is using computers in designing. Isn't this the same method also adopted by other companies?
A. Frankly, our initial results are not as good as those of other advanced motor companies, but our plans, willingness and training are much better than theirs, because our development has started later than theirs. None of our designers make their drawings by hand. One hundred percent of them use computers.
Q. Saab and Volvo cars have reputations for quality. Can the quality of locally-made cars be controlled and maintained at the Saab or Volvo level?
A. This is our concern and our goal. Our approach is to make both very high quality and lower-quality cars. That is, to produce popular cars as well as relatively expensive models. We must take the road of international cooperation in the development of popular cars because our domestic market is small. Take Toyota of Japan for instance. Each of their cars shares only NT$1,000 of the development costs. It is impossible to reduce our costs to such a level in Taiwan, even with manufacture of a considerable number of cars for export. So we must take the road of international cooperation and become part of an international car manufacturing and distribution network.
The prospects for more expensive cars are different. Because their market prices and the profits derived are high, they can more easily share high development costs. Therefore, we can develop such cars ourselves. This is to say, if we tried to develop popular cars, we could neither control the technology nor overcome the financial difficulty; whereas in the production of higher quality cars, though we may encounter technical difficulties, we can probably recoup the cost of development.
The quality of our present cars is not satisfactory for the following reasons: 1) Our auto-industrial standards are not high enough. 2) Our sense of calling is insufficient. 3) We have no design foundation. As we have no design blueprint, we cannot set standards for the quality of our cars.