Design

The design of modern cars is typically handled by a large team of designers and engineers from many different disciplines. As part of the product development effort the team of designers will work closely with teams of design engineers responsible for all aspects of the vehicle. These engineering teams include: chassis, body and trim, powertrain, electrical and production. The design team under the leadership of the design director will typically comprise of an exterior designer, an interior designer (usually referred to as stylists), and a color and materials designer. A few other designers will be involved in detail design of both exterior and interior. For example, a designer might be tasked with designing the rear light clusters or the steering wheel. The color and materials designer will work closely with the exterior and interior designers in developing exterior color paints, interior colors, fabrics, leathers, carpet, wood trim, and so on.

In 1924 the American national automobile market began reaching saturation. To maintain unit sales, General Motors instituted annual model-year design changes (also credited to Alfred Sloan) in order to convince car owners they needed a replacement each year. Since 1935 automotive form has been driven more by consumer expectations than engineering improvement.

There have been many efforts to innovate automobile design funded by the NHTSA, including the work of the NavLab group at Carnegie Mellon University.[8] Recent efforts include the highly publicized DARPA Grand Challenge race.

Acceleration, braking, and measures of turning or agility vary widely between different makes and models of automobile. The automotive publication industry has developed around these performance measures as a way to quantify and qualify the characteristics of a particular vehicle. See quarter mile and 0 to 60 mph.

History of the automobile

Vehicles that can be considered automobiles were demonstrated as early as 1769. 1885 marked the introduction of gasoline powered internal combustion engines. Automotive history is generally divided into a number of eras based on the major design and technology shifts.

Eras of Invention

Steam-powered self propelled vehicles were devised in the late 17th century. A Flemish priest, Ferdinand Verbiest, demonstrated in 1678 a small steam car. The car was made for the Chinese emperor. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot successfully demonstrated such a vehicle on a real scale as early as 1769. Cugnot's invention initially saw little application in his native France, and the center of innovation passed to Great Britain, where Richard Trevithick was running a steam-carriage in 1801. Such vehicles were in vogue for a time, and over the next decades such innovations as hand brakes, multi-speed transmissions, and improved speed and steering were developed. Some were commercially successful in providing mass transit, until a backlash against these large speedy vehicles resulted in passing a law, the Locomotive Act, in 1865 that self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom must be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This effectively killed road auto development in the UK for most of the rest of the 19th century, as inventors and engineers shifted their efforts to improvements in railway locomotives. The law was not finally repealed until 1896 although the need for the red flag was removed in 1878.

Veteran era

The first production of automobiles was by Karl Benz in 1888 in Germany and under licence to Benz, in France by Emile Roger. By 1900 mass production of automobiles had begun in France and the United States. The first company to form exclusively to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France. Formed in 1889, they were quickly followed by Peugeot two years later. In the United States, brothers Charles and Frank Duryea founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1893, becoming the first American automobile manufacturing company. However, it was Oldsmobile who would dominate this era of automobile production. Its large scale production line was running in 1902. Within a year, Cadillac (formed from the Henry Ford Company), Winton, and Ford were producing cars in the thousands.

Throughout the veteran car era, however, automobiles were seen as more of a novelty than a genuinely useful device. Breakdowns were frequent, fuel was difficult to obtain, and rapid innovation meant that a year-old car was nearly worthless. Major breakthroughs in proving the usefulness of the automobile came with the historic long-distance drive of Bertha Benz in 1888 when she traveled more than fifty miles (106 km) from Mannheim to Pforzheim to make people aware of the potential of the vehicles her husband, Karl Benz, manufactured, and after Horatio Nelson Jackson's successful trans-continental drive across the United States in 1903.

Brass or Edwardian era

Named for the widespread use of brass in the United States, the Brass or Edwardian era lasted from roughly 1905 through to the beginning of World War I in 1914. 1905 was a signal year in the development of the automobile, marking the point when the majority of sales shifted from the hobbyist and enthusiast to the average user.

Within the decade and a half that make up the Brass or Edwardian era, the various experimental designs and alternate power systems would be marginalized. Although the modern touring car had been invented earlier, it was not until Panhard et Levassor's Système Panhard was widely licensed and adopted that recognizable and standardized automobiles were created. This system specified front-engined, rear-wheel drive internal combustion cars with a sliding gear transmission. Traditional coach-style vehicles were rapidly abandoned, and buckboard runabouts lost favor with the introduction of tonneaus and other less-expensive touring bodies.

Vintage era

The vintage era lasted from the end of World War I (1919) through the stock market crash at the end of 1929. During this period, the front-engined car came to dominate, with closed bodies and standardized controls becoming the norm. Development of the internal combustion engine continued at a rapid pace, with multi-valve and overhead cam engines produced at the high end, and V8, V12, and even V16 engines conceived for the ultra-rich.

Pre-War era

The pre-war part of the classic era began with the Great Depression in 1930 and ended with the recovery after World War II, commonly placed at 1948. It was in this period that integrated fenders and fully-closed bodies began to dominate sales, with the new sedan body style even incorporating a trunk at the rear for storage. The old open-top runabouts, phaetons, and touring cars were phased out by the end of the classic era as wings, running boards, and headlights were gradually integrated with the body of the car.

Post-War era

Automobile design finally emerged from the shadow of World War II in 1949, the year that in the United States saw the introduction of high-compression V8 engines and modern bodies from General Motors' Oldsmobile and Cadillac brands. The unibody/strut-suspended 1951 Ford Consul joined the 1948 Morris Minor and 1949 Rover P4 in waking up the automobile market in the United Kingdom. In Italy, Enzo Ferrari was beginning his 250 series just as Lancia introduced their revolutionary V6-powered Aurelia.

Modern era

The modern era is normally defined as the 25 years preceding the current year. However, there are some technical and design aspects that differentiate modern cars from antiques. Without considering the future of the car, the modern era has been one of increasing standardization, platform sharing, and computer-aided design.

Some particularly notable advances in modern times are the wide spread of front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive, the adoption of the V6 engine configuration, and the ubiquity of fuel injection. While all of these advances were first attempted in earlier eras, they so dominate the market today that it is easy to overlook their significance. Nearly all modern passenger cars are front wheel drive unibody designs with transversely-mounted engines, but this design was considered radical just 20 years earlier.

The modern era has also seen rapidly rising fuel efficiency and engine output. Once the automobile emissions concerns of 1970s were conquered with computerized engine management systems, power began to rise rapidly. In the 1980s, a powerful sports car might have produced 200 hp (150 kW)—just 20 years later, average passenger cars have engines that powerful, and some performance models offer three times as much power.

Automobile

An automobile (or motor car) is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to seven people, typically have four wheels and be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods. However, the term is far from precise.

As of 2002, there were 590 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car for every eleven people), of which 140 million were in the U.S. (roughly one car for every two people).