Growth of the Automobile Industry in Thailand

The automotive industry in Thailand has shown robust growth in spite of the political turmoil in the country. It has been successful in retaining its position as the “Detroit of Asia.” Ford Motors insists on opening a plant in Thailand in spite of the unrest, a clear indication of continued support from the auto industry.
Thai car sales increased 53.4 percent from 2009, further proving true that it is indeed Southeast Asia’s biggest car market. The country has a large, skilled automotive workforce besides having associated industries for auto-motive parts and components.
Thai Automotive Industry Association announced a leap in domestic demand. Also the automotive and auto parts industry was responsible for a huge increase in export revenue less than only that of computer and electronic parts. This contributed considerably towards the nation’s GDP.
The remarkable growth in the Thai automotive industry is due in part to the reduction in excise duties for small passenger cars. This reduced the price of cars and the added advantage of credit availability was instrumental in increasing demand. Arise in petroleum prices did little to dampen the automotive market growth in Thailand.
According to the Federation of Thai Industries about 38 percent of vehicles manufactured in Thailand are for export, which is witnessing upward growth. The demand for Thai-made one-ton pickup trucks grew in demand both in the domestic as well as export markets.
The reasons for Thailand’s growth in the automotive industry are many. First and foremost being the benefits it derived from agreements like the free trade agreements signed with Australia, New Zealand, China and India and the market opening opportunities in Southeast Asia created by the Asia Free Trade Agreement. The Thai-Australia Automotive trade resulted in an increase in trade between the two nations. The ASEAN countries are major export market destinations after Europe, Australia and middle-east.

Foreign Auto Majors in Thailand

Nissan Motor Co. in a recent announcement reiterated its confidence in the stability of the automotive industry in Thailand. The output from Nissan is set to double to 200,000 units in 2010. Nissan’s Thai plant makes five models of automobiles including cars and pickup trucks.
“Not one project is suspended or delayed. Everything is on track,” said Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn of Nissan. The political unrest had affected tourism and consumption in Thailand, which is Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy. The car exports scenario however remained unaffected.
Nissan sources said that the launch of the new model “March” will help increase car sales and help the company touch the magic figure of 200,000 units. Nissan strives to export vehicles to 100 countries from Thailand. The country being the third strategic export base after Japan and Mexico.
Ford Motor faced problems in Europe and North America few years back driving it to expand its operations in Asia. Finding the market in Thailand lucrative, Ford shifted its pickup truck production to the country and transferred its car production unit to Philippines. Thailand is expected to become Ford’s central base for Asia’s production, making it the second largest pickup market world wide and also ASEAN’s largest automotive market and assembler.
In Thailand, both the passenger car market and pickup truck market are led by Isuzu and Toyota, together holding around 65 percent of the vehicle market. Other contenders in the field are Mitsubishi, Nissan, Chevrolet, Ford and Mazda. Diesel powered passenger cars are also in vogue with Toyota in the leading position followed by Honda for market share. Honda has increased its production capacity in Thailand to cater to the export demands of its international market. Toyota, Honda and Ford have established research and development centers in Thailand.
Not to be left behind in leveraging exploding growth in the Thai automotive industry, General Motors has invested in setting up new ancillary units and augmenting the production capacity of its plant in Rayong. Chevrolet from GM is in great demand in the domestic market and outside.
Thai operations have helped many auto manufacturers to serve both domestic and regional demand. Indian Auto giant Tata Motors has its eyes firmly set on Thailand. Being a regional auto major, Tata Motors unveiled its Tata Xenon 1-ton pickup truck in March 2008 at the Bangkok International Motor Show. The Tata dealer network is also well in place for distributing the vehicles.
Ratan N. Tata, Chairman of Tata Motors, said, “Iam pleased that Tata Motors (Thailand) is launching the Xenon pickup in Thailand. The Xenon pickup has been developed and built in Thailand, specifically keeping the Thai customers in mind. We are hopeful that Thailand and ASEAN region will become key markets for Tata Motors in the near future.”
Tata Motors zeroed in on Thailand after studying the ASEAN region in detail. It invested 1.3 billion baht to produce the Xenon pickup truck. This only proves that Thailand is the preferred destination for pickup truck manufacture as it is home to a strong supplier base and a provider of modern technology for making high-quality products.
The Xenon is assembled at the Thonburi Automotive Assembly Plant as it is a well known destination for expe-rienced labor and craftsmanship and has a reputation for quality products.

Supporting Industry - Auto Parts and Components

Besides the craftsmanship and supplier base, the nation’s supporting network is quite extensive with respect to auto parts. This gives Thailand a competitive advantage as in most other countries there is a deficit of infrastructure, which requires parts to be imported resulting in an increase in vehicle costs. The Thai Automotive Industry Association reveals that the auto parts export of the nation will grow steadily. Thailand exports cars to markets in Belgium, Japan and Australia. Destinations for car parts are Japan, Malaysia and South Africa.
The automotive industry’s success anywhere depends on supporting industries like that of auto parts and component manufacturers. Thailand has an extensive network of auto parts manufacturers, which serves to strengthen the industry.
One such auto business is Summit Industries, which caters to the needs of the auto industry in the country. Summit Industries is a large contributor with over 30 subsidiaries and nearly 13,000 employees with auto-part factories in Malaysia and India. The supply base in Thailand is strengthened by these supporting industries, making the country a major vehicle supplier in Southeast Asia. The country boasts more than 700 OEM auto-parts suppliers and 1,000 suppliers in other support industries.
The automobile parts manufacturing sector in Thailand is considered the best in South East Asia, according to Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. The local part manufacturers supply approximately 80 percent of all parts used for assembly of pick-up trucks, approximately 55 percent percent for passenger cars and nearly 100 percent for motorcycles. The locally produced assembly parts include engines, suspension control and spring, axles, hubs, propellers shafts, brakes, clutches, steering systems, body parts, electronic parts, air conditioning, tires, wheels, internal and external trim components and glass.
Besides Japanese assemblers, U.S. companies Ford and GM have entered the fray by bringing their own suppliers into the Thai auto industry. European assemblers have fewer local part suppliers because of their limited assembling volume. The automotive industry is going through a continuous process of upgrading with ISO9000 certification, which is the standard among major producers.
The Board of Investment or BOIof Thailand and the Thailand Automotive Institute strive to attract investments to produce even the last key components that are presently not produced in Thailand. Incentives are given to support major target industries. The support activities include R&D, design activities, and human resources development. If all components and parts are available in Thailand itself, then multinational auto assemblers can reduce production and logistics costs to make Thailand a major Asian production hub.

Being the ‘Detroit of Asia’

To help Thailand retain the “Detroit of Asia” title, Thailand Automotive Institute or TAIhas come out with five key projects. On complete implementation the automotive and auto parts industry could be worth 1.3 trillion baht ($32.5 billion) by 2010, according to TAIPresident Vallop Tiasiri. The government is looking beyond pick-up truck production to include passenger cars by implementing the “Best Little Car” project.
The Thai government has set up industrial estates which offer tax incentives, lower import duties, one-stop visa and work permit advantages. Also multinational investors are not required to have a local partner which is an advantageous proposition compared to most other Southeast Asian countries. This has enabled BMW to fully-own an assembly and manufacturing plant in Amata City in Rayong.
Thai Industrial estates strive to improve lives of people and also improve the position of the country as an investment destination in the region. Thailand is fast becoming a power to contend with, considering the automotive industry. Almost all major Japanese car producers and other auto majors like BMW, Mercedes Benz, General Motors, Ford, Volvo and Peugeot assemble cars in Thailand. Along with the auto parts industry the country has become a strong production base for automobiles in South East Asia.
The auto industry is a priority sector and is looked upon as a driving force behind the country’s economy.
Before the 1997 economic crisis, the auto industry developed in Thailand for meeting domestic demand for cars. The crisis period saw excess production capacity and to tide over the times, export was considered. Thai auto exports increased significantly. The government tried to leverage the capacity and capability and drew up the Automotive Industry Master Plan to make the nation economically strong as it will augment the supporting auto parts and other industries also.
According to researchers and experts in the field, if the Thai auto industry continues to grow as envisioned in the Master Plan for automobiles - that is reaching a total production of 1.8 million units and export of 800,000 units by end of 2010 - then exports will grow around 13.5 percent steadily thereafter. If the growth continues beyond 2010, then Thailand is poised to become an export-oriented auto producing country with automobile exports far surpassing domestic use

from - www.biztechreport.com

Automobile 2011

Nineteen-ninety-nine wasn't so long ago that we've forgotten the hullabaloo over the prospect of BMW building a sport-utility vehicle -- and building it in America, no less. But the original X5 was a real BMW after all, a 5-series-based charmer that heroically set up the 3-series-based X3 that followed a few years later. Unfortunately, the X3 proved somewhat less than worthy of its BMW roundel. It wasn't bad to look at and it was difficult to fault in the powertrain department, but road manners were on the iffy side and its lackluster interior was a serious downer. The package improved with a top-to-bottom refresh for 2007, but let's just say there'll be few tears shed over the passing of the first-generation X3.

From the curb, there's no mistaking the entirely new 2011 X3 for anything but an X3, but don't hold that against it. This is a superior vehicle: swifter, more agile, and significantly more refined than its predecessor. The sheetmetal is decidedly more twenty-first-century. The car is stout and handsome from most angles, with a dramatic swoosh on its flanks and character creases all over (the hood alone has six). The kidney-shaped grille openings are larger and tipped forward, and the headlamps are smaller but just as weirdly shaped as the old model's. At the rear, the taillamps are neatly refined, although we could do without the body-color valance under the rear bumper
As a previous owner of a 2004 X3 for 6 years, I will say this, the new X3 is no longer a X3. It is essentially a baby X5.

What I loved about the old X3 is gone. It's simple interior, its stout ride (soccer moms complain all you want), its willingness to please in the corners, and most importantly A MANUAL TRANSMISSION!

BMW truly lost a niche when they dropped that. All of this new "BMW" has put a sour taste in my mouth. As result I'm done. I most likely never buy a new BMW again. In fact my X3's replacement, my E90 will be gone soon.

BMW can call me when you make cars like the E46 or E83 again, then and only then will I return.

As for the reviewers, including the ones in this article, all of the things you mentioned as not being "BMW" in the old X3, you are quite mistaken

Toyota recalls 1.7 million vehicles for fuel leaks

from -www.msnbc.msn.com

TOKYO — Toyota recalled nearly 1.7 million cars worldwide Wednesday for fuel leaks, the latest in a ballooning number of quality problems that could add another dent to its tarnished reputation in the crucial U.S. market.

Toyota's latest recalls are mostly in Japan, but they also include the IS and GS Lexus luxury models in North America, where the world's No. 1 automaker faces the biggest obstacles to winning back customer trust.

Toyota's U.S. sales lagged last year despite an industry recovery, putting General Motors Co. within reach of reclaiming its title as the world's biggest car maker by number of vehicles sold. Toyota Motor Corp. became the top-selling automaker in 2008, dethroning GM after nearly 80 years of dominance.

There were no accidents suspected of being related to the latest recall, according to Toyota. The car maker said it had received 77 complaints overseas, 75 of them in North America, and more than 140 in Japan.

Koji Endo, auto analyst with Advanced Research Japan Co. in Tokyo, said the latest recall will cost Toyota about 20 billion yen ($240 million), and that won't hurt its earnings performance by much.

"But there is that perception of here we go again, and that hurts Toyota's image, especially in North America," he said.

Toyota is likely trying to be aggressive with recalls, carrying them out quickly before they turn into bigger problems, and so the latest one is not a sign that quality is taking another plunge for the worse at the automaker, Endo said.

The biggest recall in Japan was in 2005, also by Toyota, when nearly 1.3 million Corolla cars were recalled for a faulty headlight switch and some other problems, according to the Japanese transport ministry.

The latest quality hitch comes on top of the spate of massive recalls that began in late 2009, mostly in North America and which now cover more than 12 million vehicles.

Toyota has been struggling to regain its once solid reputation among buyers for producing reliable vehicles. The biggest damage to Toyota's image has been in the U.S. where its response was seen as dallying.

The recalls since late 2009 include defective floor mats and gas pedals that get stuck, some of them suspected of causing unintended acceleration or runaway vehicles.

In one of the problems announced Wednesday, an improper installation of a sensor to measure fuel pressure may cause the sensor to loosen as a result of engine vibration over time, and possibly cause fuel leakage, the company said. That problem also affects 280,000 Lexus cars sold abroad, 255,000 of them in North America and 10,000 in Europe.

Included under that recall are the 2006 through 2007 Lexus GS300/350, 2006 through early 2009 Lexus IS250, and 2006 through early 2008 Lexus IS350 sold in the U.S.

Lexus dealers will inspect the vehicles for fuel leakage and will tighten the fuel pressure sensor with the proper torque, if nothing is leaking. If a leak is confirmed, the gasket between the sensor and the delivery pipe will be replaced, it said.

That same problem was also found in the Crown and Mark X models sold in Japan

Automobile Industry History

Automobile Industry History : In the year 1769, a French engineer by the name of Nicolas J. Cugnot invented the first automobile to run on roads. This automobile, in fact, was a self-powered, three-wheeled, military tractor that made the use of a steam engine. The range of the automobile, however, was very brief and at the most, it could only run at a stretch for fifteen minutes. In addition, these automobiles were not fit for the roads as the steam engines made them very heavy and large, and required ample starting time. Oliver Evans was the first to design a steam engine driven automobile in the U.S.

A Scotsman, Robert Anderson, was the first to invent an electric carriage between 1832 and 1839. However, Thomas Davenport of the U.S.A. and Scotsman Robert Davidson were amongst the first to invent more applicable automobiles, making use of non-rechargeable electric batteries in 1842. Development of roads made travelling comfortable and as a result, the short ranged, electric battery driven automobiles were no more the best option for travelling over longer distances.

The Automobile Industry finally came of age with Henry Ford in 1914 for the bulk production of cars. This lead to the development of the industry and it first begun in the assembly lines of his car factory. The several methods adopted by Ford, made the new invention (that is, the car) popular amongst the rich as well as the masses.

According the History of Automobile Industry US, dominated the automobile markets around the globe with no notable competitors. However, after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Automobile Industry of other technologically advanced nations such as Japan and certain European nations gained momentum and within a very short period, beginning in the early 1980s, the U.S Automobile Industry was flooded with foreign automobile companies, especially those of Japan and Germany.

The current trends of the Global Automobile Industry reveal that in the developed countries the Automobile Industries are stagnating as a result of the drooping car markets, whereas the Automobile Industry in the developing nations, such as, India and Brazil, have been consistently registering higher growth rates every passing year for their flourishing domestic automobile markets

History and Development of Automobiles

The birth of the car as we know it today took several years and the works and developments of many people. It was not until 1885 that the first car rolled down the streets; however, earlier attempts at steam powered road vehicles were successful, giving people the idea that cars as we know them today have existed for a lot longer than they have.
The first steam-powered vehicle was designed by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769 and could attain speeds of up to 6 km/hour. Two years later, he designed another, much faster steam-driven engine, which was so fast that it rammed into a wall, recording the world's first car accident. These early steam-powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. However impractical as these cars may have been, the design for these vehicles were the basis for the first self-propelled vehicles and ultimately the basis for the design of the car we know today.
The next step towards the development of the car was the invention of the internal combustion engine. Francois Isaac de Rivaz designed the first internal combustion engine in 1807, using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to generate energy. Several designs were developed for a car to run on the internal combustion engine during the early 19 th century, but with little to no degree of commercial success due to the fact that there was no known fuel that could be safely internally combusted.
In 1860, Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir, a Frenchman, built the first successful two-stroke gas driven engine. Two years later, he again built an experimental vehicle by his gas-engine, which ran at a speed of 3 kms/hour and drove it from Paris to Joinville. Both of these cars became popular and by 1865 could be frequently seen on the roads. Unfortunately, Lenoir died broke before he could ever make any money or even enjoy his invention.
After several small changes to Lenoir's design, In September of 1893, after several small changes to Lenoir's design, the first gasoline powered car, built by brothers Charles and Frank Duryear, was ready for road trials. The first run on public roads was made on September 21, 1893 in Springfield, MA.. When most people think of the first cars on the road, they think Henry Ford, but it was not until 1896 that one of Henry Ford's cars could be seen on the road. He sold his first car, which he called the Quadracycle, for 0 and used the money to build another car. With the financial backing of the Mayor of Detroit and other wealthy Detroiters, Ford formed the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. A few prototypes were built, but no production cars were ever made by this company and it was dissolved in January 1901. Ford would not offer a car for sale again until 1903.
The development of the automobile changed the face of small-town America. As time passed, cars became less of luxury and more of a necessity. However, after a century of automobiles, we are finally realizing the long-term effects of transport by internal combustion and are looking for alternative forms of fuel and transportation

from -gocurrency.com

What Was The First Car?

What Was The First Car?

Several Italians recorded designs for wind driven vehicles. The first was Guido da Vigevano in 1335. It was a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels.
A Catholic priest named Father Ferdinand Verbiest has been said to have built a steam powered vehicle for the Chinese Emperor Chien Lung in about 1678. There is no information about the vehicle, only the event. Since Thomas Newcomen didn't build his first steam engine until 1712 we can guess that this was possibly a model vehicle powered by a mechanism like Hero's steam engine, a spinning wheel with jets on the periphery. Newcomen's engine had a cylinder and a piston and was the first of this kind, and it used steam as a condensing agent to form a vacuum and with an overhead walking beam, pull on a rod to lift water. It was an enormous thing and was strictly stationary. The steam was not under pressure, just an open boiler piped to the cylinder. It used the same vacuum principle that Thomas Savery had patented to lift water directly with the vacuum, which would have limited his pump to less than 32 feet of lift. Newcomen's lift would have only been limited by the length of the rod and the strength of the valve at the bottom. Somehow Newcomen was not able to separate his invention from that of Savery and had to pay for Savery's rights. In 1765 James Watt developed the first pressurized steam engine which proved to be much more efficient and compact that the Newcomen engine.
The first vehicle to move under its own power for which there is a record was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769. A replica of this vehicle is on display at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in Paris. I believe that the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D. C. also has a large (half size ?) scale model. A second unit was built in 1770 which weighed 8000 pounds and had a top speed on 2 miles per hour and on the cobble stone streets of Paris this was probably as fast as anyone wanted to go it. The picture shows the first model on its first drive around Paris were it hit and knocked down a stone wall. It also had a tendency to tip over frontward unless it was counterweighted with a canon in the rear. the purpose of the vehicle was to haul canons around town.
The early steam powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. A road thus made out of iron rails became the norm for the next hundred and twenty five years. The vehicles got bigger and heavier and more powerful and as such they were eventually capable of pulling a train of many cars filled with freight and passengers.
As the picture at the right shows, many attempts were being made in England by the 1830's to develop a practical vehicle that didn't need rails. A series of accidents and propaganda from the established railroads caused a flurry of restrictive legislation to be passed and the development of the automobile bypassed England. Several commercial vehicles were built but they were more like trains without tracks.
The development of the internal combustion engine had to wait until a fuel was available to combust internally. Gunpowder was tried but didn't work out. Gunpowder carburetors are still hard to find. The first gas really did use gas. They used coal gas generated by heating coal in a pressure vessel or boiler. A Frenchman named Etienne Lenoir patented the first practical gas engine in Paris in 1860 and drove a car based on the design from Paris to Joinville in 1862. His one-half horse power engine had a bore of 5 inches and a 24 inch stroke. It was big and heavy and turned 100 rpm. Lenoir died broke in 1900.
Lenoir had a separate mechanism to compress the gas before combustion. In 1862, Alphonse Bear de Rochas figured out how to compress the gas in the same cylinder in which it was to burn, which is the way we still do it. This process of bringing the gas into the cylinder, compressing it, combusting the compressed mixture, then exhausting it is know as the Otto cycle, or four cycle engine. Lenoir claimed to have run the car on benzene and his drawings show an electric spark ignition. If so, then his vehicle was the first to run on petroleum based fuel, or petrol, or what we call gas, short for gasoline.
Siegfried Marcus, of Mecklenburg, built a can in 1868 and showed one at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. His later car was called the Strassenwagen had about 3/4 horse power at 500 rpm. It ran on crude wooden wheels with iron rims and stopped by pressing wooden blocks against the iron rims, but it had a clutch, a differential and a magneto ignition. One of the four cars which Marcus built is in the Vienna Technical Museum and can still be driven under its own power.
In 1876, Nokolaus Otto patented the Otto cycle engine, de Rochas had neglected to do so, and this later became the basis for Daimler and Benz breaking the Otto patent by claiming prior art from de Rochas.

History and Development of Automobiles

The birth of the car as we know it today took several years and the works and developments of many people. It was not until 1885 that the first car rolled down the streets; however, earlier attempts at steam powered road vehicles were successful, giving people the idea that cars as we know them today have existed for a lot longer than they have.
The first steam-powered vehicle was designed by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769 and could attain speeds of up to 6 km/hour. Two years later, he designed another, much faster steam-driven engine, which was so fast that it rammed into a wall, recording the world's first car accident. These early steam-powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. However impractical as these cars may have been, the design for these vehicles were the basis for the first self-propelled vehicles and ultimately the basis for the design of the car we know today.
The next step towards the development of the car was the invention of the internal combustion engine. Francois Isaac de Rivaz designed the first internal combustion engine in 1807, using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to generate energy. Several designs were developed for a car to run on the internal combustion engine during the early 19 th century, but with little to no degree of commercial success due to the fact that there was no known fuel that could be safely internally combusted.
In 1860, Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir, a Frenchman, built the first successful two-stroke gas driven engine. Two years later, he again built an experimental vehicle by his gas-engine, which ran at a speed of 3 kms/hour and drove it from Paris to Joinville. Both of these cars became popular and by 1865 could be frequently seen on the roads. Unfortunately, Lenoir died broke before he could ever make any money or even enjoy his invention.
After several small changes to Lenoir's design, In September of 1893, after several small changes to Lenoir's design, the first gasoline powered car, built by brothers Charles and Frank Duryear, was ready for road trials. The first run on public roads was made on September 21, 1893 in Springfield, MA.. When most people think of the first cars on the road, they think Henry Ford, but it was not until 1896 that one of Henry Ford's cars could be seen on the road. He sold his first car, which he called the Quadracycle, for 0 and used the money to build another car. With the financial backing of the Mayor of Detroit and other wealthy Detroiters, Ford formed the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. A few prototypes were built, but no production cars were ever made by this company and it was dissolved in January 1901. Ford would not offer a car for sale again until 1903.
The development of the automobile changed the face of small-town America. As time passed, cars became less of luxury and more of a necessity. However, after a century of automobiles, we are finally realizing the long-term effects of transport by internal combustion and are looking for alternative forms of fuel and transportation.
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Automobile History

were up and running. They were the technological marvels of the 19th century-- setting the stage for the 20th century. Yet the invention that would spark a revolution in transportation was a simple two-wheeler. The bicycle. Its popularity in the 1880s and 1890s spurred interest in the nation's roads.
On October 3, 1893, General Roy Stone, a Civil War hero and good roads advocate, was appointed Special Agent in charge of the new Office of Road Inquiry (ORI) within the Department of Agriculture. With a budget of $10,000, ORI promoted new rural road development to serve the wagons, coaches, and bicycles on America's dirt roads.
At this same time, two bicycle mechanics in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Duryea Brothers, built the first gasoline-powered "motor wagon" to be operated in the United States. Lacking any brakes on its historic first run in September 1893, the vehicle was brought to a stop by simply driving it into a curb. The Duryea Brothers' success was little noted at the time, but it got the wheels turning for the introduction of the automobile, which would literally change the landscape of America. (Two other bicycle mechanics, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, would launch the aviation revolution at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December 1903.)
In 1908, Henry Ford introduced his low-priced, highly efficient Model T. Its widespread popularity created pressure for the federal government to become more directly involved in road development. With rural interests adding to the battle cry of "Get the farmers out of the mud!" Congress passed the Federal- Aid Road Act of 1916. It created the Federal-Aid Highway Program under which funds were made available on a continuous basis to state highway agencies to assist in road improvements. But before the program could get off the ground, the United States entered World War I.
Things took off again in the Roaring 20s when the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), as ORI was then called, was authorized by the Federal Highway Act of 1921 to provide funding to help state highway agencies construct a paved system of two-lane interstate highways. During the 1930s, BPR helped state and local governments create Depression-era road projects that would employ as many workers as possible. When America entered World War II in 1941, the focus turned toward providing roads that the military needed. After the war, the nation's roads were in disrepair, and congestion had become a problem in major cities. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed legislation authorizing a network of rural and urban express highways called the "National System of Interstate Highways." Unfortunately, the legislation lacked funding. It was only after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that the Interstate program got under way.
From the start, the Interstate System was hailed as the "Greatest Public Works Project in History"--a challenge embraced by several generations of highway engineers. But even more challenges were forthcoming. In the 1960s, BPR began to focus increasingly on environmental concerns and on creating urban road networks that tied into other land-use plans and transportation options, including mass transit. By 1966, the changing times prompted legislation to establish the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). When the new department opened in April 1967, BPR, renamed the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), was one of the original components.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, FHWA worked with the states to open 99 percent of the designated 42,800-mile Interstate System--now officially called the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
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Automobile History

Automobile History
In terms of the lives of average people, there is little doubt that the automobile is the most revolutionary invention in the history of transportation since the wheel. The basic premise of the automobile is simple; choose a wheeled vehicle from the many types typically pulled by horses or oxen, add a motor and create a self-propelled, personal transportation vehicle.The earliest ancestor of the modern automobile is probably the Fardier, a three-wheeled, steam-powered, 2.3-mph vehicle built in 1771 by Nicolas Joseph Cugnot for the French minister of war.  This cumbersome machine was never put into production because it was much slower and harder to operate than a horse-drawn vehicle  Amedee Bollee, also a Frenchman, built an improved 12-passenger steam car in 1873, but the steam engine proved impractical for a machine that was intended to challenge the speed of a horse-and-buggy.  The invention of the practical automobile had to await the invention of a workable internal combustion engine The milestone vehicle was built in Germany in 1889 by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach.  Powered by a 1.5 hp, two-cylinder gasoline engine, it had a four-speed transmission and traveled at 10 mph.  Another German, Karl Benz, also built a gasoline-powered car the same year. The gasoline-powered automobile, or motor car, remained largely a curiosity for the rest of the nineteenth century, with only a handful being manufactured in Europe and the United States The first automobile to be produced in quantity was the 1901 Curved Dash Oldsmobile, which was built in the United States by Ransom E. Olds. Modern automobile mass production, and its use of the modern industrial assembly line, is credited to Henry Ford of Detroit, Michigan, who had built his first gasoline-powered car in 1896.  Ford began producing his Model T in 1908, and by 1927, when it was discontinued, over 18 million had rolled off the assembly line

Automobile History

Automobile History

The automobile as we know it was not invented in a single day by a single inventor. The history of the automobile reflects an evolution that took place worldwide. It is estimated that over 100,000 patents created the modern automobile. However, we can point to the many firsts that occurred along the way. Starting with the first theoretical plans for a motor vehicle that had been drawn up by both Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton
In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle was a military tractor invented by French engineer and mechanic, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot (1725 - 1804). Cugnot used a steam engine to power his vehicle, built under his instructions at the Paris Arsenal by mechanic Brezin. It was used by the French Army to haul artillery at a whopping speed of 2 1/2 mph on only three wheels. The vehicle had to stop every ten to fifteen minutes to build up steam power. The steam engine and boiler were separate from the rest of the vehicle and placed in the front (see engraving above). The following year (1770), Cugnot built a steam-powered tricycle that carried four passengers
In 1771, Cugnot drove one of his road vehicles into a stone wall, making Cugnot the first person to get into a motor vehicle accident. This was the beginning of bad luck for the inventor. After one of Cugnot's patrons died and the other was exiled, the money for Cugnot's road vehicle experiments ended.
Steam engines powered cars by burning fuel that heated water in a boiler, creating steam that expanded and pushed pistons that turned the crankshaft, which then turned the wheels. During the early history of self-propelled vehicles - both road and railroad vehicles were being developed with steam engines. (Cugnot also designed two steam locomotives with engines that never worked well.) Steam engines added so much weight to a vehicle that they proved a poor design for road vehicles; however, steam engines were very successfully used in locomotives. Historians, who accept that early steam-powered road vehicles were automobiles, feel that Nicolas Cugnot was the inventor of the first automobile
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