事业 · 创业者自述

亨利·福特:我的生活与工作·补录 32

亨利·福特《我的生活与工作》· My Life and Work · 领导

In 1879--that is, about four years after I first saw that Nichols-Shepard machine--I managed to get a chance to run one and when my apprenticeship was over I worked with a local representative of the Westinghouse Company of Schenectady as an expert in the setting up and repair of their road engines. The engine they put out was much the same as the Nichols-Shepard engine excepting that the engine was up in front, the boiler in the rear, and the power was applied to the back wheels by a belt. They could make twelve miles an hour on the road even though the self-propelling feature was only an incident of the construction. They were sometimes used as tractors to pull heavy loads and, if the owner also happened to be in the threshing-machine business, he hitched his threshing machine and other paraphernalia to the engine in moving from farm to farm. What bothered me was the weight and the cost. They weighed a couple of tons and were far too expensive to be owned by other than a farmer with a great deal of land. They were mostly employed by people who went into threshing as a business or who had sawmills or some other line that required portable power.

出处: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7213
定位:Additional excerpt 32 · 核对日期:2026-10-19 · 核验:短摘录

白话

核心是:福特早年接触蒸汽机,发现它又重又贵,普通人用不起。1879年他有机会操作这种机器,后来在西屋公司做安装修理。这种发动机能跑每小时12英里,但重达两吨,价格高昂,只有大地主或搞脱粒、锯木生意的人才买得起。这让他意识到,机器要轻、要便宜,才能普及。

上下文

福特在自传中讲述自己早年做机械师时对蒸汽机的观察。

今日一问

你做的产品,是不是也又重又贵,只有少数人用得起?

公版传记;原文逐字取自 Project Gutenberg,仅摘录段落并附全书链接。

本文本为公版;底本与原文链接见上。 版权

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