- In the early automotive industry before World War 1, most car companies were small shops that produced a few handmade cars and soon went out of business. Two exceptions were Rolls-Royce and Ford, which were founded by engineers and businessmen.
- Electric cars were initially popular but battery limitations proved competitively fatal. Steam cars also emerged but required expensive construction and maintenance.
- The industry experienced patent disputes in its early years over claims of basic patents on gasoline-powered cars. This led to the formation of an automobile manufacturers patent licensing group.
- Mass production was pioneered by Henry Ford, while General Motors was founded in 1908 and grew to become the largest automaker through diversification and a decentralized
- In the early automotive industry before World War 1, most car companies were small shops that produced a few handmade cars and soon went out of business. Two exceptions were Rolls-Royce and Ford, which were founded by engineers and businessmen.
- Electric cars were initially popular but battery limitations proved competitively fatal. Steam cars also emerged but required expensive construction and maintenance.
- The industry experienced patent disputes in its early years over claims of basic patents on gasoline-powered cars. This led to the formation of an automobile manufacturers patent licensing group.
- Mass production was pioneered by Henry Ford, while General Motors was founded in 1908 and grew to become the largest automaker through diversification and a decentralized
- In the early automotive industry before World War 1, most car companies were small shops that produced a few handmade cars and soon went out of business. Two exceptions were Rolls-Royce and Ford, which were founded by engineers and businessmen.
- Electric cars were initially popular but battery limitations proved competitively fatal. Steam cars also emerged but required expensive construction and maintenance.
- The industry experienced patent disputes in its early years over claims of basic patents on gasoline-powered cars. This led to the formation of an automobile manufacturers patent licensing group.
- Mass production was pioneered by Henry Ford, while General Motors was founded in 1908 and grew to become the largest automaker through diversification and a decentralized
- In the early automotive industry before World War 1, most car companies were small shops that produced a few handmade cars and soon went out of business. Two exceptions were Rolls-Royce and Ford, which were founded by engineers and businessmen.
- Electric cars were initially popular but battery limitations proved competitively fatal. Steam cars also emerged but required expensive construction and maintenance.
- The industry experienced patent disputes in its early years over claims of basic patents on gasoline-powered cars. This led to the formation of an automobile manufacturers patent licensing group.
- Mass production was pioneered by Henry Ford, while General Motors was founded in 1908 and grew to become the largest automaker through diversification and a decentralized
Most early automobile companies were small shops, hundreds of which each produced a few handmade cars, and nearly all of which abandoned the business soon after going into it. Made by bicycle makers, horse carriages makers and machinery makers. Two notable exceptions to the general pattern were Rolls-Royce in Britain and Ford in the United States, both of which were founded as carmakers by partners who combined engineering talent and business skill.
For a brief period the electric automobile actually enjoyed the greatest acceptance because it was quiet and easy to operate, but the limitations imposed by battery capacity proved competitively fatal. Especially popular with women, electric cars remained in limited production well into the 1920s. One of the longest-surviving makers, Detroit Electric Car Company, operated on a regular basis through 1929. Steam power, a more serious rival, was aided by the general adoption, after 1900, of the so-called flash boiler, in which steam could be raised rapidly. The steam car was easy to operate because it did not require an elaborate transmission. On the other hand, high steam pressures were needed to make the engine light enough for use in a road vehicle; suitable engines required expensive construction and were difficult to maintain. By 1910 most manufacturers of steam vehicles had turned to gasoline power. The Stanley brothers in the United States, however, continued to manufacture steam automobiles until the early 1920s. As often happens with a new technology, the automotive industry experienced patent controversies in its early years. Most notable were two long, drawn-out court cases in Britain and the United States, in each of which a promoter sought to gain control of the new industry by filing comprehensive patents. In Britain the claim was rejected by the courts in 1901, five years after the patent application. In the United States there was a legal battle between Ford and the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers over the Selden patent, which the association claimed as a basic patent on the gasoline-powered car. In 1911 the courts held the patent “valid but not infringed” by Ford. The main consequence of the decision was the formation of the predecessor of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers to supervise an agreement for cross- licensing patents, which was ratified in 1915. Mass Production was an American innovation. 1903 –Henry Ford. In Britain, William R. Morris (later Lord Nuffield) undertook to emulate Ford as early as 1912. General Motors Corporation (GM), which ultimately became the world’s largest automotive firm and the largest privately owned manufacturing enterprise in the world, was founded in 1908 by William C. Durant. Durant developed the idea for a combination that would produce a variety of models and control its own parts producers. Alfred P. Sloan became president of the corporation in 1923 and raised it to its unchallenged first place in the industry.- General Motors Among other steps, he gave GM a staff-and-line organization with autonomous manufacturing divisions, which facilitated management of a large corporate structure and became the model for other major automotive combinations.
When the Maxwell Motor Company failed in the 1921 depression, Walter P. Chrysler, formerly of General Motors, was called in to reorganize it. It became the Chrysler Corporation in 1925 and grew to major proportions with the acquisition of the Dodge Brothers company in 1928.
After World War II there was a striking expansion of motor vehicle
production. During a 35-year period the total world output increased almost 10-fold. Although American production continued to grow, its share of world automotive production fell from about 80 percent of the total to 20 percent. In 1980 Japan, which had had little automotive manufacturing before the war, became the leading producer, with the European Economic Community (EEC) ranking second. Japan’s Nissan Motor Corporation established a plant in the early 1980s to build its popular small pickups and later added car production. Another Japanese automaker, Honda Motor Company, followed with a car manufacturing operation adjacent to its motorcycle plant. Japan’s Toyota Motor Corporation formed a joint venture with GM called New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated, which built small cars for both Toyota and GM.
In 1979 Renault of France acquired a 46 percent interest in AMC to increase
its small presence in the United States and gain access to AMC’s line of popular Jeep vehicles. Mounting financial pressures, however, prompted Renault to sell its AMC stake to a reinvigorated Chrysler in 1987.
Because of the increasingly competitive and international nature of the
industry and risk as it used to take 5 years from market survey to launch the new model, manufacturers have employed various means to shorten the time from conception to production to less than three years in many cases. This has been done at GM, for example, by incorporating vehicle engineers, designers, manufacturing engineers, and marketing managers into a single team responsible for the design, engineering, and marketing launch of the new model.
The bulk of the world’s new cars come from the moving assembly line introduced by Ford, but the process is much more refined and elaborated today.
