Your first goal in Car Factory Director is to sell more than 260 cars a month. To do it, upgrade the slowest station, make sure there are enough buyers for what you build, and build your own press so every car costs less. That gets you to Carmaker, which opens up new car types, export markets and fleet buyers.
What you start with
You start with $2 million and a brand score of 30, in a rented workshop building one petrol hatchback. It's already a year and a half old, so its appeal is starting to fade. You have 60 cars in a 150-car yard, five days of parts, and a fully staffed line of four stations: Body, Paint, Assembly and Test. You don't own a Press yet, so you buy your stampings in.
Time runs in real time while you play. A day takes 16 seconds at normal speed, and you can pause or play at 2× and 4×. The game pauses for reviews, events and line stops, and nothing happens while the app is closed.
Choose your home
Your home sets the difficulty.
| Home | Difficulty | Dealers at the start | Costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan | Easy | 3 | Highest of the three |
| Coventry | Medium | 8 | Slightly lower than Michigan |
| Pune | Hard | 3 | Far lower, at about 60% of Coventry's |
Start in Michigan. Your first line builds about 239 cars a month. Michigan has about 284 buyers a month for them, so you can sell every car from day one. Coventry has about 251 buyers and Pune about 242, which leaves less room for error.
Your first moves
- Upgrade Paint. The line runs at the pace of its slowest station, and at the start that's Paint, at 1.0 car an hour. Level 2 costs about $450,000 and lifts the line to 1.1 cars an hour, or about 264 a month. Assembly then sets the pace, and every later upgrade moves the bottleneck somewhere new.
- Check your buyers. More cars only help if someone will buy them. The Buyers against build card on the Sales tab shows both numbers. In Coventry and Pune you'll need another dealer to sell 260 a month. A dealer costs about $500,000, adjusted for local costs.
- Build a Press. It costs $1.6 million and takes 45 days, but making your own stampings saves about $1,600 a car before local cost differences. After crew and upkeep it pays for itself in about five to six months.
- Keep staff up. Each upgrade adds to the crew a station needs, and a short-staffed station runs slower. Hire to fill the gap after every upgrade.
- Book a service before something breaks. On one shift, stations wear down to about 60% condition in roughly three months, and worn machines break down far more often. A service stops the line for 24 hours, which beats a surprise breakdown.
Don't spend everything at once. Wages, upkeep and parts keep coming out of your account every day.
Reaching Carmaker
To become a Carmaker you need:
- a brand score of 35
- 260 cars sold last month
- 2,000 cars sold in total
You don't need a car of your own design yet. Carmaker unlocks the Saloon and Estate, Level 3 stations, the first export markets, fleet contracts and a $10 million loan.
Goals that pay
The Goals list in the Office pays cash for reaching targets, and early on it's real money:
| Goal | Reward |
|---|---|
| 100 cars sold | $20,000 |
| 1,000 cars built | $50,000 |
| Quality score of 75 | $100,000 |
| Brand score of 40 | $100,000 |
| $5 million in cash | $100,000 |
| Your own design on sale | $250,000 |
Your next car
Every car's appeal fades from launch day, so start thinking about a replacement early. A new design takes 14 months. Read how to design a hit car before you fund your first one.
If the money runs out
There is no game over. If cash goes negative, purchases stop, an overdraft charges 12% a year and your brand suffers. After two month-ends deep in the red, the bank calls: you take a rescue loan at 18%, sell equipment, or sell a stake in the company.
Common mistakes
- Running the line at 120%. It's tempting, but defects rise with the square of line speed. On the starter car, 120% pushes quality down to around 58, below the point where recalls become a risk, and adds about a third to line pay.
- Switching every part to the cheap supplier. It saves up to 6% on parts, but late deliveries and extra defects can drag quality down to around 62.
- Paying for marketing when the line is already sold out. It brings more buyers you can't serve, and it only works in your home market.
- Spending too little on a new design. For a hatchback, a design budget under about $3.2 million gives a car below appeal 60, and reviews of those cars cost you brand.
- Letting sales stop. With no buyers, the yard fills from 60 cars in about 11 days, and then the line stops too.
Next, read how to run the line and how to make money.