General Motors

“ The power car carries two gasoline engines of a hundred and twenty-five horse-power each which drive a dynamo installed in the center. The current is transmitted to the electric motors, actuating each of the wheels of the power car and the trailers. The General Electric Company has perfected a similar car for use on the suburban branches of street railroads in this country. Most of them are equipped with a two hundred horse-power gasoline engine directly connected to a dynamo from which power is generated and transmitted to the motors, which are located on the car axles. ”

“ For the general development of the gasoline engine, it is only necessary for a boy to look about him. 331 Everywhere motors built on the same ideas as laid down in earlier inventions, but improved in every detail, are in use. Not only do we see them on fine pleasure automobiles, motor boats, and aeroplanes, but on our biggest trucks, fire engines, and in business establishments where light machinery is to be run. ”

“ Most of the leading engine works in Europe have taken up the construction of the Diesel motor in all sizes. A large number of middle-sized ships and various municipal power plants are already driven by it. In the United States a powerful company has just been organized for the purpose of constructing these motors, and the General Petroleum Company in California is going to erect a plant in San Franciso for the construction of motor ships for the coastwise trade, which, of course, will force the owners of steamers to follow. ”

“ Such companies will be in an exceptionally favourable position to organize storage and repair for the motors of the general public on profitable terms, and possibly to co-operate in various ways with the manufactures of special types of motor machines. ”

“ Much enlargement or rebuilding of works is already proceeding, while manufacturers who have hitherto devoted their attention mainly or exclusively to pleasure motors are now adapting their plant, etc., to the making of commercial motors either instead or in addition. The demand for pleasure motors is limited; that for public service motors and motor-vehicles for traders is illimitable. ”

“ But within the limits of such radius the substitution of commercial motors for horse-drawn vehicles is undergoing an expansion which seems to be restricted only by the extent of the motor-car manufacturers' powers of production, while already the use of so many commercial motors is accentuating certain changes in commercial conditions which—as it is one of the objects of the present work to show—have ever been powerfully influenced by the transport facilities of the day. ”

“ I never imagined that there were so many processes through which all parts of a machine have to be put to perfect them, or that literally thousands of men do some one little thing to every machine turned out. We stood and gazed at men who were polishing the lacquered sides of automobile bodies with their thumbs, dipping them in oil and so rubbing down certain rough places; or at others hovering over automobile motors attached in rows to gasoline tanks and being driven at an enormous rate of speed for days at a time without ever stopping, to test their durability and speed capacity. ”

“ All these varied and ever-extending uses to which motor-vehicles are being put would seem almost to foreshadow the time when the horse is likely to be found only at the Zoological Gardens, as a curious survival of a bygone age in traction.
Definite statistics as to the extent to which automobilism, in its manifold phases, constitutes an industry in itself are not available; but the activities now employed on or in connection with motors, motoring, and motor transport are manifold and widespread. ”

“ The expert will judge of the condition of a motor by the wear that has occurred in the bearings rather than by any exhibition of temporary power that it may develop in a short test, and it is for this reason that the "general public" runs a risk whenever it buys a second-hand car that has not been thoroughly overhauled by a reputable factory or inspected by a competent engineer. ”

“ That it will be awakened I cannot doubt, when motor-cars become cheaper, when the prejudice against them has died out completely, and when men find, as they soon will, that it is more economical to keep a motor-car, not only than a carriage and pair, but than a horse and trap. ”

“ It was quite natural that when the rubber cushion and pneumatic tires rounded the pleasure of easy and noiseless riding in vehicles that Motor vehicles should be revived and improved. So we have the Automobiles in great variety. Invention has been and is still being greatly exercised as to the best motive [Pg 436] power, in the adaption of electric motors, oil and gasoline or vapour engines, springs and air pumps, in attempts to reduce the number of complicated parts, and to render less strenuous the mental and muscular strain of the operator. ”

“ Real expansion of the home industry came with the Heavy Motor-car Order of 1904, although even then no great degree of progress followed immediately thereon. Traders generally were reluctant to acquire commercial motors for themselves until the success of the new vehicles had been assured, and some early failures, due to faulty construction, gave commercial motors a bad name at the start. With the adoption of improved methods, their utility was fully established, and the expansion of the industry during the last four or five years has been remarkable in the extreme. ”

“ A case frequently occurring in practice and attracting more and more the attention of engineers is the transmission of large powers at considerable distances. In such a case the power is very likely to be cheap, and the cardinal requirements are then the reduction of the cost of the leads, cheapness of construction and maintenance of machinery and constant speed of the motors. ”

“ When one adds to these considerations the fact that traders not only in the United Kingdom but in the colonies, in every European country, and even as far away as Japan, are looking to English and Scotch manufacturers to supply them with motor-traction vehicles, the impression is conveyed that the further great development of the motor industry in the United Kingdom will be far less in pleasure motors, or even in the motors used by doctors and others for professional purposes, than in commercial motors ”

“ Compared with the resources of America, the Italian motor industry is not large; but the product is uniform and practically all of the factories are conveniently located for distributing the machines to the army on the frontier and readily providing repairs and parts. The physical conditions of the country necessitated the use of certain types of trucks and motors and the dropping of some of the practices of other countries in motor usage. ”

“ Car [2]
to-day as it was in 1896, and my six-horse Daimler, though only two years old, has done an enormous amount of rough work, and is in every respect as good as on the day it was made. My steam-engines have given me some trouble, though improvements are being devised with great rapidity; but in the smaller types the necessity of taking water, nominally every fifty miles but in reality much oftener than that, their fragility of construction and difficulty of management in a high wind, render them at present only useful to those who thoroughly enjoy a mechanical task. ”

“ Once we have installed a sufficiently powerful dynamo and a steam or other engine to drive it, we can place motors just where they are required, either close to the dynamo or miles away, driving them simply by means of a connecting cable. In factories, motors can be placed close to the machines they are required to drive, anywhere in the building, thus doing away with all complicated and dangerous systems of shafting and belts. ”

“ It would be grossly unfair to many excellent makers if I attempted only to support the Daimler and De Dion types of engines. Other good ones are in existence, and the next few years will doubtless see further developments. ”

“ The fact that will assert itself directly we have a proper supply of easy, quick, and comfortable motor-cars available, is the fact just named—i.e. that we live on roads and do not live on railways. The circumstance that a motor-car can stop at the garden gate if we live by a highway, or drive up the carriage-drive and draw up level with the porch if we live within lodge-gates, and take a man direct to the door of his office, or of his friend, or wherever he wants to go to, is bound to make the motor-car beat the train for all short-distance work. ”

“ They diligently fostered the efforts of the leading motor-car companies, especially the Sunbeam and Rolls-Royce, and so were instrumental in the production of very efficient engines of high horse-power. ”

“ The chief advantage of this "composite" system of power transmission is that the engine is kept running at a constant speed, while the power it develops at the electric motors is regulated by switches which control the action of the armature and field magnets. When heavy work must be done the engine is supplied with more gaseous mixture, and the generators are so operated as to develop full power. In this manner all the variable speed gears and clutches necessary when the petrol motor is connected to the driving-wheels are done away with. ”

“ A motor, with gearing and cranks, is fixed to the sleepers at each pair of points, the power is conveyed from the cabin by underground wires, the locking is of common mechanical types, and, in general, the system is similar to pneumatic systems except in the source of power. By using accumulators, charged by dynamos run by gasoline engines, or by a travelling power-car, the cost of power is reduced to a very low figure, so that power-interlocking becomes economical at small as well as large stations. ”

“ Irrespective of its bearing on economy, this tendency which is, to a degree, common to motors of the above description, is of special advantage in the operation of large units, as it affords a safeguard against running away and destruction. ”

“ As regards the latter we may be good imitators, and may be well able to keep on equality with competition. As regards the former we can do more, and we have shown ourselves able to lead the world and to produce finer industrial motors than can be obtained in any other country. ”

“ To-day my own experience teaches me that in the year 1902 a good petrol engine is infinitely the best for all-round work. That is to say, if one intends to own a single motor-car only, and desires occasionally to travel for long journeys, there can in my judgment be no doubt that a petrol engine, with a Daimler or some similar type of motor, is the wisest purchase. The point is a contentious one; but I selected this type of engine as the best for use five years ago, and since then time has brought almost every motor manufacturer to my side. ”

“ America’s war associates had developed a multiplicity of types of both planes and engines, with much resulting loss of economy both in production and in the training of the fliers to operate them and of the mechanics necessary for their upkeep. Profiting by this mistake, the Air Service of the United States endeavored to simplify types. The primary need was a standardized, high-powered motor that could be produced in quantity. ”

“ In that way they are able to admit that the war has been a great48 blessing to the motor truck feature of the industry. “All a part of the great scheme of economics that makes for the approach of the complete automobilization of the country,” is the way one manufacturer puts it.
The automobile industry is set—it is fourth in importance in the United States. It will handle itself, so to speak. The makers know they must give value for every car and truck they build, and the people have become ready to continue in the industry every maker who plays the industry as it should be—not as a “game.” ”

“ This was difficult because a gasoline motor is essentially a delicate instrument and there is a wonderful opportunity for any one who has a mind that way to mess it up. I adopted this slogan:
"When one of my cars breaks down I know I am to blame."
From the day the first motor car appeared on the streets it had to me appeared to be a necessity. It was this knowledge and assurance that led me to build to the one end--a car that would meet the wants of the multitudes. All my efforts were then and still are turned to the production of one car--one model. ”

“ Assuming a vehicle with running gear complete and motors mounted and geared to the driving-wheels, the motors have to be fed with energy in order that the car may be propelled— that is to say, we must in addition to the motors have a source of electric current present. A car with body, running gear, and motors geared in position, is a potentiality only. ”

“ That the motor-car has come to stay is a commonplace, but few can foresee what a change it will make in our economic, political, and social life. I believe that the revolution worked by railways is a small thing compared with the revolution to be produced by the motor-car. ”

“ First, we want to help bring down the price of high-efficiency cars for every American. Earlier this month, Ford, GM, and Chrysler unveiled prototypes of advanced-technology cars that get more than twice the mileage of today's models with no sacrifice in comfort, safety, or performance. ”