Shield machine is an indispensable professional equipment for a country to speed up infrastructure construction. However, before 2008, only the United States, Germany and Japan mastered shield machine construction technology. In order not to be restricted by these countries, China finally chose to speak with strength for five years, China's shield machine with independent intellectual property rights has been successfully developed. From 2017 to 2019, China's shield machine won and gained nearly 65% of the world's market share, and the 30 western countries can only pay honestly.
Although the shield machine was first invented by a French engineer in 1825, it was Britain that first applied it. In the construction of the Thames Tunnel project, the shield machine successfully helped Britain build a complete tunnel. With the spread of this news, the shield machine began to enter people's vision, but limited by the technology at that time, The shield machine in this period was still hand dug, so it was not very convenient. However, countries did not give up. After decades of development, they finally produced a modern shield machine that can truly realize automatic tunnel excavation.
So what is a shield machine? Generally speaking, it is a kind of equipment specially used to excavate the tunnel. It can build the tunnel while excavating. Its internal structure is composed of four parts: shield shell, propulsion system, assembly system and excavation system. In the working state, it is like an earthworm, excavated by the cutter head in front, and then discharged the soil from the back through the internal conveyor belt, At the same time, it will also secrete a foam to soften the soil, so as to speed up the excavation of shield machines. Some people say, is this what the excavator is? Why should we give it the name of a shield machine? In fact, this is because for the shield machine, its biggest function is not to dig, but to lay the supporting pipes into the tunnel synchronously in the process of excavation, which is the origin of the word "shield" in its name.
Because of this unique working mode, shield machine has become more and more important in the construction of subway in recent years. Especially in the process of building subway, it can not only ensure the safety of workers, but also greatly reduce manpower. Most importantly, it improves the construction efficiency of subway by 8 to 10 times, Moreover, in the process of construction, it will not have any impact on the normal production and life on the ground. Over the years, why China can become a capital construction maniac is the foundation!
However, why does China not sell the shield machine at 80% of the price of similar foreign products, but at 10% of the price? Many people think it's a pity that we can make more money. For example, if we sell at 50% of the price of similar foreign products, the profit can be doubled many times. We sell too cheaply.
I personally think that the reason why our shield machine sells "cabbage price" is not that our products can not sell at a high price, nor that we deliberately set the price very low. There are many objective reasons.
Before discussing the specific reasons, let's briefly talk about the development history of shield machines in China, so as to better understand the pricing strategy of our products.
First, what is the technical content of shield machine? Due to high technology and the number of countries in the world that can make it with one hand, it is definitely a sophisticated industrial product. The shield machine is an underground aircraft carrier composed of more than 30000 confidential parts and more than 2000 control points, covering dozens of fields such as machinery, mechanics, hydraulics, electricity and so on. Shield machine can improve the construction efficiency of tunnel and subway ten times and one hundred times.
Before China entered this field, shield machines made in the United States, Germany and Japan were the most advanced in the world, among which Germany was the leader.
In 1997, an advanced shield machine in Germany was sold for 700 million yuan. Yes, you are right. It was 700 million yuan. This is 23 years ago. The current estimated value of 700 million yuan is 2 billion yuan. At that time, the price of shield machine was no lower than that of current top lithography machine.
In order to speed up the construction of domestic infrastructure, China bought two shield machines from Germany. At the beginning, we didn't have the ambition to make our own shield machine. After all, this thing is too high-end and complex. Then something happened. Let's make up our mind to develop our own shield machine.
At the beginning, the purchased German shield machine failed, and the domestic engineers could not repair it. They had to invite experts from Germany to China. It is exaggerated that the German expert will start charging from the moment he goes out. Chinese personnel are prohibited from the scene during maintenance, so as to prevent us from learning technology. We were so oppressed by this matter that we simply paid for it. It is reasonable to say that the after-sales service attitude must be very good when selling such expensive products. How can you be so arrogant and rude like an uncle. But at that time, I had no choice. If I didn't buy Germany, would Japan and the United States have a good attitude?
At the end of last century and the beginning of this century, China's economy began to grow rapidly, with great investment in infrastructure, and a large number of Railways and highways need to be built. As China is a country with many mountains and hills, it is common to dig caves, not to mention that shield machines are also needed to build subways in so many cities.
Therefore, at that time, there was a great demand for shield machines in China in the future. If you buy them from foreign countries, you need to pay an astronomical fee. In the future, the annual maintenance and repair is also a huge expense. Therefore, the country is determined to study its own shield machine.
Starting from scratch, after more than 20 years of efforts, China has become the country with the largest number of shield machines in the world. At present, domestic shield machines have occupied more than 90% of the domestic market share, and have been exported to 21 countries and regions in the world, accounting for two-thirds of the international market, becoming the No. 1 in the world, and our No. 1 has been maintained for four years. At present, the most sophisticated shield machines in China can be sold for 180 million yuan, while ordinary shield machines can be sold for 50 million or even 25 million yuan, which is indeed the "cabbage price" compared with more than 20 years ago.
Now let's talk about why our price of shield machine is so low.
At the beginning, when we produced the first batch of shield machines, we only solved the problem of whether or not. At that time, the quality of those shield machines could not be compared with that of Germany and Japan. They were not competitive in the international market and it was impossible to set a high price. Then, with the progress of our technology, the quality of shield machine gradually caught up with similar products in Japan and Germany. Why not raise the price to 300-400 million?
Because manufacturing shield machine is not a separate task of a domestic enterprise, but a national project. The development of domestic shield machine is a project in the national "863 Plan", which is the result of the country's mobilization of resources and joint efforts. In 2002, Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Co., Ltd. undertook the development of the project with strong competitiveness.
In September 2004, after more than two years, China's first subway shield tunneling machine - "advance number" was successfully offline, but some mature components were also imported. In 2008, with the unremitting efforts of numerous experts and scholars, China Railway No. 1, the first composite earth pressure balance shield machine with independent intellectual property rights in China, was successfully offline.
The development of shield machine in China is a national strategy. The purpose is not to be subject to foreign countries, for national security and economic construction efficiency. After the mass production of domestic shield machines, it is necessary to support domestic infrastructure projects. Therefore, it is impossible to sell at a high price. Only a reasonable profit can be added to the cost price. Otherwise, how many infrastructure projects can afford to sell so expensive as in foreign countries.
To put it bluntly, the purpose of manufacturing domestic shield machines is not to make money, but to serve domestic economic construction. Later, the production capacity went up, the domestic supply was enough, and naturally exported abroad to make money.
In 2020, China's 1000th shield machine will be offline in Changsha. From the current market data, our leading advantage will continue.
In fact, we are catching up with China from 1 to 100 in the field of shield machine, high-speed railway, large aircraft and current lithography machine. At this time, the country focuses on tackling key problems, realizes domestic substitution, and turns monopoly high-tech into Pratt & Whitney technology through scale advantages, which improves social welfare. This is known as "developed country crusher".
