Although a few expensive items, such as pianos and sewing machines, had been sold on time before , it was installment sales of automobiles during the twenties that established the purchasing of expensive consumer goods on credit as a middle-class habit and a mainstay of the American economy. Market saturation coincided with technological stagnation: In both product and production technology, innovation was becoming incremental rather than dramatic.
The basic differences that distinguish post-World War II models from the Model T were in place by the late s—the self-starter, the closed all-steel body, the high-compression engine, hydraulic brakes, syncromesh transmission and low-pressure balloon tires.
The remaining innovations—the automatic transmission and drop-frame construction—came in the s. Moreover, with some exceptions, cars were made much the same way in the early s as they had been in the s. To meet the challenges of market saturation and technological stagnation, General Motors under the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. The goal was to make consumers dissatisfied enough to trade in and presumably up to a more expensive new model long before the useful life of their present cars had ended.
Thus engineering was subordinated to the dictates of stylists and cost-cutting accountants. General Motors became the archetype of a rational corporation run by a technostructure. As Sloanism replaced Fordism as the predominant market strategy in the industry, Ford lost the sales lead in the lucrative low-priced field to Chevrolet in and By GM claimed 43 percent of the U.
During World War II, in addition to turning out several million military vehicles, American automobile manufacturers made some seventy-five essential military items, most of them unrelated to the motor vehicle. Because the manufacture of vehicles for the civilian market ceased in and tires and gasoline were severely rationed, motor vehicle travel fell dramatically during the war years.
Models and options proliferated, and every year cars became longer and heavier, more powerful, more gadget-bedecked, more expensive to purchase and to operate, following the truism that large cars are more profitable to sell than small ones.
Engineering in the postwar era was subordinated to the questionable aesthetics of nonfunctional styling at the expense of economy and safety. And quality deteriorated to the point that by the mids American-made cars were being delivered to retail buyers with an average of twenty-four defects a unit, many of them safety-related. The era of the annually restyled road cruiser ended with the imposition of federal standards of automotive safety , emission of pollutants and , and energy consumption ; with escalating gasoline prices following the oil shocks of and ; and especially with the mounting penetration of both the U.
After peaking at a record In response, the American automobile industry in the s underwent a massive organizational restructuring and technological renaissance. Managerial revolutions and cutbacks in plant capacity and personnel at GM, Ford and Chrysler resulted in leaner, tougher firms with lower break-even points, enabling them to maintain profits with lower volumes in increasingly saturated, competitive markets.
Manufacturing quality and programs of employee motivation and involvement were given high priority. Functional aerodynamic design replaced styling in Detroit studios, as the annual cosmetic change was abandoned. Cars became smaller, more fuel-efficient, less polluting and much safer. Product and production were being increasingly rationalized in a process of integrating computer-aided design, engineering and manufacturing.
The automobile has been a key force for change in twentieth-century America. During the s the industry became the backbone of a new consumer goods-oriented society. Tesla Motors began development and production on a luxury all-electric car that would travel more than two hundred miles on a single charge in with the first model released in The Chevrolet Volt , released in , was the first available plug-in hybrid that used the gasoline engine to extend the range of the automobile when the battery was depleted.
Today, nearly every major and many smaller automobile companies are developing their own electric and hybrid models. Karl Benz gets the credit for inventing the automobile because his car was practical, used a gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine and worked like modern cars do today. Benz was born in in Karlsruhe, a city in southwest Germany. His father was a railway worker who died in an accident when Benz was 2 years old.
Although poor, Benz's mother supported him and his education. He was admitted to the University of Karlsruhe at age 15 and graduated in with a mechanical engineering degree. Benz's first venture of an iron foundry and sheet-metal workshop flopped. However his new bride, Bertha Ringer, used her dowry to fund a new factory to build gas engines.
With the profits Benz was free to start building a horseless, gas-powered carriage. Benz had built three prototypes of his Motor Car in private by , when Bertha decided it was time for some press. What he did create was a much improved and bigger version of the assembly line, based on conveyor belts, which much reduced both production costs, and build times, for motor vehicles, soon making Ford the biggest car manufacturer in the world.
By , a staggering 15 million Model Ts had been built, and our modern infatuation with the motor vehicle was well and truly under way. We Australians have a long and proud history of punching above our collective The good news is, while your money might be buying you a smaller car, it will Home Car Advice. Who invented the first car and when was it made? Car Advice. Henry Ford generally gets the credit for the first assembly line and the production of cars en masse, with the Model T, in Apply market research to generate audience insights.
Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Table of Contents Expand. The Importance of Nicolaus Otto. Karl Benz. Gottlieb Daimler. Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor. Charles and Frank Duryea. Ransome Eli Olds. Henry Ford. Mary Bellis. Inventions Expert. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Bellis, Mary. A History of the Automobile. Biography of Automobile Inventor Gottlieb Daimler.
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