Automobiles may not have been born in the 20th century, but they were not yet out of diapers when it began. Even after Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz introduced their improved fourstroke internal combustion engine, autos in both the United States and Europe were still poking along at a few miles an hour (a sizeable proportion of them still running on electricity or steam). They could boast no battery starter, roof, or windows and were priced only for the rich. Then Henry Ford fine-tuned the mass production of his Tin Lizzie and the world drove off into the age of affordable transportation—forever altering our notions of place, distance, and community.
| 1901 |
The telescope shock absorber developed C. L. Horock designs the "telescope" shock absorber, using a piston and cylinder fitted inside a metal sleeve, with a one-way valve built into the piston. As air or oil moves through the valve into the cylinder, the piston moves freely in one direction but is resisted in the other direction by the air or oil. The result is a smoother ride and less lingering bounce. The telescope shock absorber is still used today. |
|
| 1901 |
Olds automobile factory starts production The Olds automobile factory starts production in Detroit. Ransom E. Olds contracts with outside companies for parts, thus helping to originate mass production techniques. Olds produces 425 cars in its first year of operation, introducing the three-horsepower "curved-dash" Oldsmobile at $650. The car is a success; Olds is selling 5,000 units a year by 1905. |
|
| 1902 |
Standard drum brakes are invented Standard drum brakes are invented by Louis Renault. His brakes work by using a cam to force apart two hinged shoes. Drum brakes are improved in many ways over the years, but the basic principle remains in cars for the entire 20th century; even with the advent of disk brakes in the 1970s, drum brakes remain the standard for rear wheels. |
|
| 1908 |
William Durant forms General Motors William Durant forms General Motors. His combination of car producers and auto parts makers eventually becomes the largest corporation in the world. |
|
| 1908 |
Model T introduced Henry Ford begins making the Model T. First-year production is 10,660 cars. |
|
| 1911 |
Electric starter introduced Charles Kettering introduces the electric starter. Until this time engines had to be started by hand cranking. Critics believed no one could make an electric starter small enough to fit under a car’s hood yet powerful enough to start the engine. His starters first saw service in 1912 Cadillacs. |
|
| 1913 |
First moving assembly line for automobiles developed Ford Motor Company develops the first moving assembly line for automobiles. It brings the cars to the workers rather than having workers walk around factories gathering parts and tools and performing tasks. Under the Ford assembly line process, workers perform a single task rather than master whole portions of automobile assembly. The Highland Park, Michigan, plant produces 300,000 cars in 1914. Ford’s process allows it to drop the price of its Model T continually over the next 14 years, transforming cars from unaffordable luxuries into transportation for the masses. |
|
| 1914 |
First car body made entirely of steel
|
|
| 1919 |
First single foot pedal to operate coupled four-wheel brakes The Hispano-Suiza H6B, a French luxury car, demonstrates the first single foot pedal to operate coupled four-wheel brakes. Previously drivers had to apply a hand brake and a foot brake simultaneously. |
|
| 1922 |
First American car with four-wheel hydraulic brakes The Duesenberg, made in Indianapolis, Indiana, is the first American car with four-wheel hydraulic brakes, replacing ones that relied on the pressure of the driver’s foot alone. Hydraulic brakes use a master cylinder in a hydraulic system to keep pressure evenly applied to each wheel of the car as the driver presses on the brake pedal. |
|
| 1926 |
First power steering system Francis Wright Davis uses a Pierce-Arrow to introduce the first power steering system. It works by integrating the steering linkage with a hydraulics system. |
|
| 1931 |
First modern independent front suspension system Mercedes-Benz introduces the first modern independent front suspension system, giving cars a smoother ride and better handling. By making each front wheel virtually independent of the other though attached to a single axle, independent front suspension minimizes the transfer of road shock from one wheel to the other. |
|
| 1934 |
First successful mass-produced front-wheel-drive car The French automobile Citroën Traction Avant is the first successful mass-produced front-wheel-drive car. Citroën also pioneers the all-steel unitized body-frame structure (chassis and body are welded together). Audi in Germany and Cord in the United States offer front-wheel drive. |
|
| 1935 |
Flashing turn signals introduced A Delaware company uses a thermal interrupter switch to create flashing turn signals. Electricity flowing through a wire expands it, completing a circuit and allowing current to reach the lightbulb. This short-circuits the wire, which then shrinks and terminates contact with the bulb but is then ready for another cycle. Transistor circuits begin taking over the task of thermal interrupters in the 1960s. |
|
| 1939 |
First air conditioning system added to automobiles The Nash Motor Company adds the first air conditioning system to cars. |
|
| 1940 |
Jeep is designed Karl Pabst designs the Jeep, workhorse of WWII. More than 360,000 are made for the Allied armed forces. |
|
| 1950s |
Cruise control is developed Ralph Teeter, a blind man, senses by ear that cars on the Pennsylvania Turnpike travel at uneven speeds, which he believes leads to accidents. Through the 1940s he develops a cruise control mechanism that a driver can set to hold the car at a steady speed. Unpopular when generally introduced in the 1950s, cruise control is now standard on more than 70 percent of today’s automobiles. |
|
| 1960s |
Efforts begin to reduce harmful emissions
|
|
| 1966 |
Electronic fuel injection system developed An electronic fuel injection system is developed in Britain. Fuel injection delivers carefully controlled fuel and air to the cylinders to keep a car’s engine running at its most efficient. |
|
| 1970s |
Airbags become standard Airbags, introduced in some models in the 1970s, become standard in more cars. Originally installed only on the driver's side, they begin to appear on the front passenger side as well. |
|
| 1970s |
Fuel prices escalate, driving demand for fuel-efficient cars
|
|
| 1980s |
Japanese popularize "just in time" delivery of auto parts The Japanese popularize "just in time" delivery of auto parts to factory floors, thus reducing warehousing costs. They also popularize statistical process control, a method developed but not applied in the United States until the Japanese demonstrate how it improves quality. |
|
| 1985 |
Antilock braking system (ABS) available on American cars The Lincoln becomes the first American car to offer an antilock braking system (ABS), which is made by Teves of Germany. ABS uses computerized sensing of wheel movement and hydraulic pressure to each wheel to adjust pressure so that the wheels continue to move somewhat rather than "locking up" during emergency braking. |
|
| 1992 |
Energy Policy Act of 1992 encourages alternative-fuel vehicles Passage of the federal Energy Policy Act of 1992 encourages alternative- fuel vehicles. These include automobiles run with mixtures of alcohols and gasoline, with natural gas, or by some combination of conventional fuel and battery power. |
|
| 1997 |
First American carmaker offers automatic stability control Cadillac is the first American carmaker to offer automatic stability control, increasing safety in emergency handling situations. |
Of the 10,000 or so cars that were on the road by the start of the 20th century, three-quarters were electric or had external combustion steam engines, but the versatile and efficient gas-burning internal combustion power plant was destined for dominance. Partnered with ever-improving transmissions, tires, brakes, lights, and other such essentials of vehicular travel, it redefined the meaning of mobility, an urge as old as the human species.
The United States alone—where 25 million horses supplied most local transportation in 1900—had about the same number of cars just three decades later. The country also had giant industries to manufacture them and keep them running and a vast network of hard-surfaced roads, tunnels, and bridges to support their conquest of time and distance. By century's end, the average American adult would travel more than 10,000 miles a year by car.
Other countries did much of the technological pioneering of automobiles. A French military engineer, Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot, lit the fuse in 1771 by assembling a three-wheeled, steam-powered tractor to haul artillery. Although hopelessly slow, his creation managed to run into a stone wall during field trials—history's first auto accident. About a century later, a German traveling salesman named Nicholaus Otto constructed the first practical internal combustion engine; it used a four stroke cycle of a piston to draw a fuel-air mixture into a cylinder, compress it, mechanically capture energy after ignition, and expel the exhaust before beginning the cycle anew. Shortly thereafter, two other German engineers, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, improved the design and attached their motors to various vehicles.
These ideas leaped the Atlantic in the early 1890s, and within a decade all manner of primitive cars—open topped, bone-jarring contraptions often steered by tillers—were chugging along the streets and byways of the land. They were so alarming to livestock that Vermont passed a state law requiring a person to walk in front of a car carrying a red warning flag, and some rural counties banned them altogether. But even cautious farmers couldn't resist their appeal, memorably expressed by a future titan named Henry Ford: "Everybody wants to be somewhere he ain't. As soon as he gets there he wants to go right back."
Behind Ford's homespun ways lay mechanical gifts of a rare order. He grew up on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan, and worked the land himself for a number of years before moving to Detroit, where he was employed as a machinist and then as chief engineer of an electric light company. All the while he tinkered with cars, displaying such obvious talents that he readily found backers when he formed the Ford Motor Company in 1903 at the age of 40.
The business prospered from the start, and after the introduction of the Model T in 1908, it left all rivals in the dust. The Tin Lizzie, as the Model T was affectionately called, reflected Ford's rural roots. Standing seven feet high, with a four-cylinder, 20-horsepower engine that produced a top speed of 45 miles per hour, it was unpretentious, reliable, and remarkably sturdy. Most important from a marketing point of view, it was cheap—an affordable $850 that first year—and became astonishingly cheaper as the years passed, eventually dropping to the almost irresistible level of $290. "Every time I lower the price a dollar, we gain a thousand new buyers," boasted Ford. As for the cost of upkeep, the Tin Lizzie was a marvel. A replacement muffler cost 25 cents, a new fender $2.50.
What made such bargain prices possible was mass production, a competitive weapon that Henry Ford honed with obsessive genius. Its basis, the use of standardized, precision-made parts, had spun fortunes for a number of earlier American industrialists—armaments maker Samuel Colt and harvester king Cyrus McCormick among them. But that was only the starting point for Ford and his engineers. In search of efficiencies they created superb machine tools, among them a device that could simultaneously drill 45 holes in an engine block. They mechanized steps that were done by hand in other factories, such as the painting of wheels. Ford's painting machine could handle 2,000 wheels an hour. In 1913, with little fanfare, they tried out another tactic for boosting productivity: the moving assembly line, a concept borrowed from the meat-packing industry.
At the Ford Motor Company the assembly line was first adopted in the department that built the Model T's magneto, which generated electricity for the ignition system. Previously, one worker had assembled each magneto from start to finish. Under the new approach, however, each worker performed a single task as the unit traveled past his station on a conveyer belt. "The man who puts in a bolt does not put on the nut," Ford explained. "The man who puts on the nut does not tighten it."
The savings in time and money were so dramatic that the assembly line approach was soon extended to virtually every phase of the manufacturing process. By 1914 the Ford factory resembled an immense river system, with subassemblies taking shape along tributaries and feeding into the main stream, where the chassis moved continuously along rails at a speed of 6 feet per minute. The time needed for the final stage of assembly dropped from more than 12 hours to just 93 minutes. Eventually, new Model Ts would be rolling off the line at rates as high as one every 10 seconds.
So deep-seated was Henry Ford's belief in the value of simplicity and standardization that the Tin Lizzie was the company's only product for 19 years, and for much of that period it was available only in black because black enamel was the paint that dried the fastest. Since Model Ts accounted for half the cars in the world by 1920, Ford saw no need for fundamental change.
Nonetheless, automotive technology was advancing at a rapid clip. Disk brakes arrived on the scene way back in 1902, patented by British engineer Frederick Lanchester. The catalytic converter was invented in France in 1909, and the V8 engine appeared there a year later. One of the biggest improvements of all, especially in the eyes of women, was the self-starter. It was badly needed. All early internal combustion engines were started by turning over the motor with a hand crank, a procedure that required a good deal of strength and, if the motor happened to backfire, could be wickedly dangerous, breaking many an arm with the kick. In 1911, Charles Kettering, a young Ohio engineer and auto hobbyist, found a better way—a starting system that combined a generator, storage battery, and electric motor. It debuted in the Cadillac the following year and spread rapidly from there.
Even an innovation as useful as the self-starter could meet resistance, however. Henry Ford refused to make Kettering's invention standard in the Model T until 1926, although he offered it as an option before that. Sometimes buyers were the ones who balked at novelty. For example, the first truly streamlined car—the 1934 Chrysler Airflow, designed with the help of aeronautical engineers and wind tunnel testing—was a dud in the marketplace because of its unconventional styling. Power steering, patented in the late 1920s by Francis Davis, chief engineer of the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company, didn't find its way into passenger cars until 1951. But hesitantly accepted or not, major improvements in the automobile would keep coming as the decades passed. Among the innovations were balloon tires and safety-glass windshields in the 1920s; frontwheel drive, independent front suspension, and efficient automatic transmissions in the 1930s; tubeless and radial tires in the 1940s; electronic fuel injection in the 1960s; and electronic ignition systems in the 1970s. Engineers outside the United States were often in the vanguard of invention, while Americans continued to excel at all of the unseen details of manufacturing, from glass making and paint drying to the stamping of body panels with giant machines.
Brutal competition was a hallmark of the business throughout the 20th century. In 1926 the United States had no fewer than 43 carmakers, the high point. The fastest rising among them was General Motors, whose marketing strategy was to produce vehicles in a number of distinct styles and price ranges, the exact opposite of Henry Ford's road to riches. GM further energized the market with the concept of an annual model change, and the company grew into a veritable empire, gobbling up prodigious amounts of steel, rubber and other raw materials, and manufacturing components such as spark plugs and gears in corporate subsidiaries.
As the auto giants waged a war of big numbers, some carmakers sold exclusivity. Packard was one. Said a 1930s advertisement: "The Packard owner, however high his station, mentions his car with a certain satisfaction—knowing that his choice proclaims discriminating taste as well as a sound judgment of fine things." Such a car had to be well engineered, of course, and the Packard more than met that standard. So did the lovingly crafted Rolls-Royce from Great Britain and the legendary Maybach Zeppelin of Germany, a 1930s masterpiece that had a huge 12-cylinder engine and a gearbox with eight forward and four reverse gears. (The Maybach marque would be revived by Mercedes seven decades later for a car with a 550-horsepower V12 engine, ultra-advanced audio and video equipment, precious interior veneers, and a price tag over $300,000.)
At the other extreme was the humble, economical Volkswagen—literally, "people's car"—designed by engineer Ferdinand Porsche. World War II delayed its production, but it became a runaway worldwide hit in the 1950s and 1960s, eventually eclipsing the Model T's record of 15 million vehicles sold. Japan, a leader in the development of fuel-efficient engines and an enthusiastic subscriber to advanced manufacturing techniques, also became a major global player, the biggest in the world by 1980.
The automobile's crucial role in shaping the modern world is apparent everywhere. During the 19th century, suburbs tended to grow in a radial pattern dictated by trolley lines; the car has allowed them to spring up anywhere within commuting distance of the workplace—frequently another suburb. Malls, factories, schools, fast-food restaurants, gas stations, motels, and a thousand other sorts of waystops and destinations have spread out across the land with the ever-expanding road network. Taxis, synchronized traffic lights, and parking lots sustain modern cities. Today's version of daily life would be unthinkable without the personal mobility afforded by wheels and the internal combustion engine.
Not surprisingly, the automobile remains an engineering work in progress, with action on many fronts, much of it prompted by government regulation and societal pressures. Concerns about safety have put seatbelts and airbags in cars, led to computerized braking systems, and—on the cutting edge of technology—fostered interest in devices that can enhance night vision or warn of impending collisions. Onboard microprocessors reduce polluting emissions and maximize fuel efficiency by controlling the fuel-air ratio. New materials—improved steels, aluminum, plastics, and composites—save weight and may add structural strength.
As for the motive power, engineers are working hard on designs that complement or may someday even supplant the internal combustion engine. One avenue of research involves electric motors whose power is generated by fuel cells that draw electrical energy from an abundant substance such as hydrogen. Already at hand are hybrid cars, powered by both gasoline and electricity. Unlike all-electric cars, hybrids don't have to be plugged in to be recharged; instead, their battery is charged by either the gasoline engine or the electric motor acting as a generator when the car slows. Finally, manufacturing has seen an ongoing revolution that would dazzle even Henry Ford, with computers greatly shortening the time needed to design and test a car, and regiments of industrial robots doing machining and assembly work with a degree of speed, strength, precision, and endurance that no human can match.
Back in 1923 a national magazine declared that the automobile had "outrun the dreamers, confounded the prophets, and amazed the world." True enough—and that was just the beginning.
Donald E. Petersen
President and Chairman/CEO
Ford Motor Company
1980-1990
Through continuous improvement and the ingenious application of new technology, the automobile reconfirmed and updated its status as a triumph of engineering throughout the 20th century. I was fortunate to witness and participate in one of the most significant stages of this ongoing transformation. When I joined the industry in 1949, automobiles were still literally just mechanical objects. By the time I retired 40 years later they had become complex electronic devices on wheels.
The first semiconductor computer chip went onboard in the mid-1970s. Before long, microprocessors were improving just about every aspect of the vehicle—emissions, fuel economy, safety, security, engine and transmission performance, ride and handling, even seat positioning. Electronics also transformed cars and trucks into mobile entertainment and communication centers.
During my years in the industry, there were other profound changes that challenged the engineering community. Government regulations in the 1960s mandated cleaner, safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles in a rapid time frame. In the 1970s increasing global competition brought a surge of high-quality, low-cost competitive products from overseas into the United States.
American manufacturers were painfully reminded of the fundamental importance of quality and took on the challenge of making our vehicles world class once again. We had to relearn some of the lessons of manufacturing excellence, such as the critical need for standardized, precision-made parts, that we had taught the world at the beginning of the century.
Shortly after I became president of Ford Motor Company I saw a television program—If Japan Can, Why Can't We?—that described Toyota's success in improving quality and gave W. Edwards Deming major credit for Toyota's success. I met with Ed Deming and liked his ideas for improving quality and his emphasis on the importance of people. Peter Drucker also was involved in the Japanese resurgence and emphasized people. For me personally these two men were a major help in forming the ways we worked together to improve product quality.
We began engaging people at all levels and in all functions in what became known as the employee involvement movement in the 1980s. Encouraging everyone to participate and channeling individual and team efforts toward well-defined common goals produced remarkable results. As measured by owner-reported "things gone wrong," vehicle quality improved more than 60 percent from 1980 to 1987 models. Breakthrough products such as the radically aerodynamic 1986 Ford Taurus helped convince consumers that American manufacturers could not only decrease defects but also increase design and engineering attributes that maximized product appeal.
Today the automobile remains the most voracious consumer of new technology of any product in the marketplace. And promising new technological developments, such as the use of fuel cells as a power source, will undoubtedly keep the automobile on the leading edge of technology in the 21st century. But whatever shape the technology takes and wherever it leads us, we would do well to remember the lesson we learned in the 1980s to honor and encourage the people behind new ideas.