The History of The Automobile

Carl Benz

1. For how many years has the automobile been around?
The automobile has been around for one hundred and twenty years.

2.What is a patent? The answer is not in the video, so search for an answer online.
A patent is “a government authority or license conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention”.

3. When Carl Benz obtains a patent in January of 1886 for his invention, what title did he use to describe the automobile?
In January 1886, Carl Benz used the title “vehicle with gas engine” to describe the automobile.

4. Who in his family drives his invention in August of 1888? What is "born" from this drive?
In August of 1888, his wife Berta steps in and she drives the automobile with her two eldest sons, and this drive allows the first Petro Station to be born.

 
5. What did the so called "axial pivot steering system" help solve?
Carl Benz solved the problem of steering the front two wheels simultaneously with the “axial pivot steering system”. This principle is still used today.

6. What is the new name when the two automobile companies are merged?
When to two most important German automobile companies, Benz and Co. and The Diamond Motor Company, are merged, they created the new name Mercedes Benz.

7. What did Benz experience as a pioneer in technology that many pioneers never experience?
Unlike many other pioneers in technology, Carl Benz lived to see his dream come true - the breakthrough of the automobile.



Henry Ford and the Model T

1. Explain how the assembly line changed from suggestions made to Henry Ford by three of his employees.
The original structure of the assembly line was changed from suggestions made to Henry Ford by three of his employees because they came up with an idea that instead of having the workers move down the line to their station of work and what they were good at, the line would move and the workers would stay in one place. This system allowed for the assembly line to move and whatever specific operation the employee was good at would continue to appear on the line before them rather than having to move and transport the items to the different areas of the other employees.

2. Why did workers tend to stay longer and be more committed to Ford's company than other companies at that time?
The workers of Henry Ford tended to stay longer and be more committed to his company than other companies at that time because Henry believed in treating all of his employees equally in terms of wages and they all got paid very livable wages for their work. They became more committed to the work considering how much they were making and his strong workers would usually stay for long periods of time.

3. How much did the first Model T cost? For what class of people was it manufactured?
The first Model T costed a little over $1000.00. Henry Ford created the Model T for the common man because other means of transportation like carriages were manufactured for the rich and were far more expensive.

4. The Model T price dropped dramatically. To what price did it drop? Why do you think it dropped so much?
The price of the Model T quickly dropped to only $800.00, but after he had built nearly 100,000 Model T’s, they only costed about $365.00. I think that the price dropped so much because so many of them were being manufactured and, being the first car, everyone was going to buy them anyways so even though he could have kept the price up at $1000.00, they probably wouldn’t have had as many sales.

5. As the Model T became the main mode of transportation, what did this automobile offer people?
When the Model T became the main mode of transportation, it offered people with the ability to travel wherever and whenever they wanted without having to rely on railroads. The car gave everyone a ticket to freedom because they could travel for pleasure and didn’t have to spend money on trains or carriages.



My Video Selections

The Assembly Line: Then and Now

• In the year 1910, Henry Ford introduced the first power driven assembly line for manufacturing cars.
• Before the introduction of the power driven assembly line, it took sixteen hours and a lot of workers running around with car parts to build an original Model T Ford, but the assembly line workers could make the exact same car in less than half that time.
• The power driven assembly line became the new method of manufacturing for all kinds of industries.
• The biggest issue with the power driven assembly line was that the work was extremely repetitive. The newer version of the assembly line allows robots and machines to do the most repetitive work like putting in screws, and the employees work alongside them.

The Ford Edsel

• The Ford Edsel was named after Henry Ford’s only son, Edsel Ford.
• The name Edsel is now strongly associated with failure because when the Ford Edsel was created, the public thought it was very ugly nobody really liked it at all. The name is also very ironic because the man it was named after was known for his impeccable taste and he was the same man who was the inspiration for what was considered one of the most beautiful cars of all time, the original Lincoln Continental.
• The Ford Edsel was the industry’s biggest flop because the cost for marketing and building the Edsel was somewhere between $250,000,000 and $350,000,000 and only three years after its debut, Ford pulled the Edsel from its lineup, making it nothing more than a waste.

Automobile Timeline

Four points that I found interesting about this timeline and why are:

1911: Electric starter introduced - Charles Kettering introduced the electric car starter 105 years ago and before this time, engines had to be started by hand cranking. I found this interesting because it was a very important development for every single vehicle that would be invented in the future. Starting an automobile by cranking obviously was not convenient and so this invention of an electric starter that was small enough to fit under the hood of a car but powerful enough to start the engine would have been revolutionary in the history of the automobile.

1913: First moving assembly line for automobiles developed - Ford Motor Company develops the first moving assembly line for automobiles. I found this point very interesting because without this development, the structure of the modern day assembly line would probably be different. With Ford’s development of the assembly line process, workers were able to perform a single task rather than needing to master the entire assembly of an automobile. This process also allowed Ford to drop the price of the original Model T over the next 14 years, transforming cars from unaffordable luxuries made directed at the rich into a form of transportation available for everyone.

1935: Flashing turn signals introduced - A company in Delaware invented the first flashing turn signal lights for automobiles. I think that this was a very important development because if we didn’t have them today alongside the amount of cars that are on roads everyday, there would be car accidents happening everywhere all the time. They were originally created with thermal interrupter switches but transistor circuits took over for them in the 1960s, so they have been developed into the newest form of technology that we use today over a long period of time. It’s quite interesting to think that turn signals were introduced 81 years ago and a lot of people still don’t know how to use them.

1950s: Cruise control is developed - Ralph Teeter, a blind man, sensed by ear that on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, cars travel at different speeds which he believes will lead to more accidents. I found this point very interesting because for one, the man was blind and he could tell by ear that the cars were going different speeds which alone is very impressive, but also because after Googling the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the first thing that shows up is a news article from one day ago (04/20/16) about a four-vehicle crash. So, Ralph wasn’t wrong about the accidents on the road! This development was also very important because although it was unpopular when it was introduced in the 1950s, cruise control is now standard on more than seventy percent of today’s automobiles.