Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/1059

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MOTOR VEHICLES
1005


strength into the war, motor-car exports suffered a material decline, but they jumped ahead again immediately after the Armistice, an increase of 79% being shown in 1919. That year the exports of passenger cars, lorries and parts together exceeded $100,000,000 in value, yet the passenger cars exported were hardly 4% of the total production, while the exports of commer- cial vehicles amounted to 4-9 per cent.

After the war the tide of international motor-car commerce showed great fluctuations. As soon as shipping connexions be- came reestablished there was a heavy demand, particularly in the neutral countries of northern Europe. In 1919 only the United States was in a position to export large numbers of vehi- cles, because it took the motor-car industries of the European belligerents a long time to get back to a peace basis. After a short time, however, the low rates of continental exchange and temporary embargoes on motor-car imports in several countries, including Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Norway, cut down the exports from the United States. Even when the embargoes were lifted imports were restricted by high customs duties, as, for instance, 70% in the case of France.

Electric Cars. There was little progress in electric vehicles during the decade 1910-20. The electric is essentially a town car, and during the first half of the decade a good many electric passenger vehicles were in use, especially in four of the larger cities of the United States : Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago and Los Angeles, all of which are com- paratively level and have fine boulevard systems. The electric appealed particularly to lady drivers, because it dispensed with the cranking of the petrol car and was generally simpler and less trouble- some to operate. With the advent of the electric motor starter this disadvantage of the petrol car largely disappeared. The introduction of demountable rims and power tire pumps further reduced the hard work in connexion with the operation of petrol cars as compared with solid-tired electric vehicles. The electric then became more and more a luxury vehicle, built only in expensive closed-body types and used mainly for town driving by people who owned a petrol car for coun- try driving in addition. > The electric commercial vehicle industry also was more or less stationary while the petrol commercial industry forged ahead rapidly. In 1920 the electric lorries in service in _New York City formed a small portion of all the commercial vehicles, which was not the case in 1910. A new type of electric commercial vehicle, known in the United States as an industrial truck, but per- haps better described as a floor truck or a low wheel truck, came into extensive use, especially during the war period. These industrial trucks take the place of hand trucks on steamship piers and railway station platforms, in factory buildings and paved yards. Petrol industrial trucks have also been developed, but as they are not ad- mitted to steamship piers on account of the fire hazards the electric has an undisputed field there. There was great inducement in Europe during the war, when petrol was exceedingly scarce, to develop the electric vehicle for both passenger and commercial traffic. In Germany a scheme was worked out for a system of goods transport in large cities by electric lorries with interchangeable batteries, and a few sample trucks were built, but the Armistice intervened and the scheme was dropped. The steam vehicle also retrogressed as a factor in transportation. In 1920 there was only a single concern in all the world making steam-propelled passenger cars in any con- siderable numbers, the Stanley Motor Carriage Co. of Newton, Mass., which was one of the pioneers in this line of industry. Con- siderable numbers of steam lorries were still being manufactured in England, but the steam motor-buses at one time in service in London had been taken off the streets. The petrol motor had def- initely gained the ascendency over steam and electric motors, and supplies for it could be found and repairs to it had in almost every town. In the United States, for instance, there were, at the beginning of 1920, 43,643 repair shops (besides 36,227 garages), and all of these repair shops were equipped to cater to owners of petrol cars, but only a few to owners of steam and electric vehicles, giving a tremendous advantage to the former.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Arnold and Faurote, Ford Methods and the Ford Shops (1915); Blum, Etude sur les Vehicules Automobiles sur Quatre Roues Matrices (1913); Browne, Handbook of Carburetion (1915); Carles, L'Anatomie de la Voiture Automobile (1913); Carles, Les Accessoires de I' Automobile (1913); Clark, Textbook on Motor Car Engineering (2 vols., 1911, 1917); Fraser and Jones, Motor Vehicles and their Engines (1919); Hayward, Automobile Ignition, Starting and Lighting (1917); Heldt, The Gasoline Automobile, its Design and Construction (3 vols., 1920) ; Heller, Motorwagen und Fahrzeugma- schinen fur flilssigen Brennstoff (1912) ; Jaenichen, Automobil-Betrieb- stoffe (1915); Lacoin, Construction et Reglage des Moteurs a Ex- plosions (1910); Loewe, Konstruktionsberechnungen von Kraft- fahrzeugen und die Organization von Konstruktionsbiiros (1915) ; More- ton and Hatch, Electrical Equipment of the Motor Car (1918) ; Newmark, Automobile Business (1915); Norton, The Motor Truck as an Aid to Business Profits (1918); Page, The Modern Gasoline

Automobile (1920); Philllmore, Motor Road Transport for Commercial Purposes (1920) ; Riedler, The Scientific Determination of the Merits of Automobiles (1914); Schaefer, Motor Truck Design and Con- struction (1919); Strickland, Manual of Petrol Motors and Motor Cars (1914) ; Terry, Motor Body Building in all its Branches (1914) ; Valentin, Automobiltechnisches Ilandbuch (1913); Valentin, Fabri- kation von Motoren und Automobilen (1915). (P. M. H.)

TABLE III. Statistics of the Development of the American Industry.

1909*

1914*

I9i9f

Capital invested Cars and lorries pro- duced . . . Value of products Persons engaged in mf g. Wages and salaries

$173.837.000

127,731 $249,202,000

85,359 $ 58,173,000

8407,730,000

569,045 $632,831,000

145,951

$139,453,000

$1,802,302,862

1,974,016 $2,506,834,594 651,450 $ 813,731,856

  • From U.S. Census, f Based on statistics of complete car produc-

tion gathered by National Automobile Chamber of Commerce and on the assumption that the parts and accessories business grew in same proportion.

TABLE IV. Statistics of the American Industry for

Capital invested in passenger-car industry $784,660,761

Number of passenger-car factories . . 131

Number of open cars produced . . 1,496,652

Number of closed cars produced . . 161,000

Total number of passenger cars produced 1,657,652

Value of complete cars and lorries produced $1,885,112,546

Value of passenger cars produced . . $1,461,785,925

Value of passenger-car parts and accessories $62 1 ,722,048

Value of motor lorries produced . . $423,326,621

Value of repair parts produced . . $117,000,000

Number of motor-lorry factories . . 268

Capital invested in motor-lorry factories $230,782,577

Number of employees in lorry factories . 68,180

Number of lorries produced . . . 316,364

Total number of passenger cars and lorries produced 1,974,016

  • From Facts and Figures of the A utomobile Industry, published by

the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce.

TABLE V. United States Motor-car Exports (including passenger cars,

lorries and parts except motor-car engines and tires').

Exported to

1910

1914

1919

Austria-Hungary

$ 28,689

$ 202,852

Belgium

I57,3 6 6

160,659

$ 364,004

France

825,904

1,103,481

22,243,042

Germany .

275,241

1,272,600

Great Britain .

2,656,214

7,159,074

9,760,430

Italy ....

337,614

293,275

215,417

Norway

23,353

124,083

2,102,757

Russia

"4,314

917,859

8,292

Spain ....

21,184

71,024

1,426,650

Sweden

58,936

260,228

689,998

Canada

4,363,694

9-583,655

22,062,779

Argentina .

196,827

1,121,474

4,492,522

Brazil

75,489

370,043

1,033,831

Chile ....

2,487

192,342

2,606,047

British India

28,759

439,968

543,393

Dutch E. Indies

26,345

238,322

4,498,397

Japan

30,134

137,522

6,416,928

Australia .

289,807

855,637

5,358,336

New Zealand

60,386

1,089,951

2,589,166

British S. Africa

75,840

1,506,668

2,568,790

Other countries

1,541,637

6,198,089

24,715,879

Totals

$11,190,220

$33,298,806

$113,696,658

TABLE VI. United States Motor-car Imports.

I mported from

1910

1914

1919

Belgium .... France ....

$ 29,087 1,467,646

$ 144,693 814,392

Germany .... Italy ....

368,219

S87 OS2

26l,l68 2O^ Q^I


Switzerland Great Britain Canada .... Other countries .

60,554 236,015 69,737 33,136

3,103 218,932 32,815 78,346

$ 7,650 28,731 26O

Totals

$2,851,446

$1,759,380

$36,641

TABLE VII. British Motor Vehicle Imports.


1910


1915

Kf

1920

Cars Chassis Parts*

1,440,586 1,670,969 2,023,273

3,128,229 1,135,146 2,183,184

10,490,012

4,254,949 8,713.684

Totals ....

5,134,828

6,446,559

23,458,645

  • Exclusive of tires