Henry Martyn Leland (1843-1932) is one of the most outstanding figures in automotive history. Best known for developing the Cadillac and the Lincoln, Leland was among the pioneers who set Detroit on its course as the automobile capital of the world. Master of Precision is the fascinating first hand account of Leland's life and work during the early days of the automobile industry. Trained in New England factories known for their precision manufacturing, Henry Leland was an expert machinist before he began to reshape automobile production. Affectionately called "Uncle Henry" and the "Grand Old Man of Detroit," he was a demanding but highly-respected employer who set new standards of precision, quality, and performance. First published in 1966 by Wayne State University Press, Master of Precision was re-released in 1996 in celebration of the centennial of automobile manufacturing in North America.

In Comeback, Pulitzer Prize-winners Paul Ingrassia and Joseph B. White take us to the boardrooms, the executive offices, and the shop floors of the auto business to reconstruct, in riveting detail, how America's premier industry stumbled, fell, and picked itself up again. The story begins in 1982, when Honda started building cars in Marysville, Ohio, and the entire U.S. car industry seemed to be on the brink of extinction. It ends just over a decade later, with a remarkable turn of the tables, as Japan's car industry falters and America's Big Three emerge as formidable global competitors.

Comeback is a story propelled by larger-than-life characters -- Lee Iacocca, Henry Ford II, Don Petersen, Roger Smith, among many others -- and their greed, pride, and sheer refusal to face facts. But it is also a story full of dedicated, unlikely heroes who struggled to make the Big Three change before it was too late.

This book bring together the basic documents needed for reaching an informed judgment on the central ethical question in the Pinto case: did Ford Motor Company act ethically in designing the Pinto fuel system and in deciding not to upgrade the integrity of that system until 1978? The five parts of this book cover the case, cost-benefit analysis, whistle blowing, product liability, and government regulations.

This study is about the struggle for survival among the assembler and components firms which constitute the European automobile industry. The book describes and explains the competitive, structural, organizational and technological changes being made and outlines the spatial and economic effects of these changes. The empirical core of the book is a study of the number of technology fields in automobile components. These sections draw on up-to-date research carried out by the authors in Europe, through which they evaluate the extent to which lean production techniques have permeated the assemblers and components industry.

Japanese carmaker Honda has pioneered a new breed of multinational enterprise - true manufacturing at the global scale. Honda has been a leader in confounding predictions that Japan's carmakers would and could never transfer their success abroad, and that a wholesale 'Japanization' of the west would be provoked if they did. The book covers manufacture, research and development, sourcing of components, human resources and labour relations, collaboration with western firms, political controversy, and the role of concepts and ideas, in Japan, North America, and Europe.

The presence of Japan Inc. looms larger than ever for millions of American managers and workers, as hundreds of Japanese companies open plants and offices in local communities across the United States. What is it like to work for the Japanese? Can Americans, with their strong tradition of individualism, adjust to a Japanese "team system" that emphasizes harmony and close cooperation? How do Americans and Japanese resolve the misunderstandings that arise from differences in language and culture? Journalists Joseph and Suzy Fucini sought the answers by studying relations between Americans and Japanese at the Mazda plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, the first wholly-owned Japanese auto plant to employ a unionized American workforce. For three years, the Fucinis followed events at the plant, interviewing more than one hundred workers, managers and outside suppliers. The authors conclude that for all its strengths, the team system requires the sacrifice of individual interests to the good of the group, and that no matter how hard an individual tries to become part of the Mazda team, advancement for both managers and workers will be limited by the fact that they are not Japanese.

Despite the economic and political importance of the U.S.-Japan relationship and the extensive attention paid to automotive trade, few American scholars or policy makers are familiar with the history of Japanese government-business relations, either generally or for specific industries such as passenger cars. This book hopefully helps in a small way to fill that gap in our knowledge and, thus, to help strengthen the foundation from which we make public policy decisions about bilateral trade. [ix]

In studying the impact of industry on class organization, social scientists have assumed that the effects of technological advance increase with time and that, as technology molds, dehumanizes, and alienates workers, the pressure mounts to change the system through political action. William H. Form tests these assumptions in his study. The author considers whether workers have more to do with one another as societies industrialize, whether they become more involved in organizations, and whether these involvements become distinctively similar, creating an organizational basis for a solidary working-class movement. To examine these questions, he chooses four countries (India, Argentina, Italy, and the U.S.) that vary in the extent of their industrial development. He then compares samples of skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled workers in order to ascertain how specific technologies to which they have been exposed affect their behavior in systems such as the work group, union, party, neighborhood, and nation. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The automotive sector represents more than a simple industry. It embodies the economic and technological power of nations, the lifestyle and consumption patterns of societies, the dynamics of urban and territorial development, and acts as a national barometer of economic success and failure. This book explains how the car industry works and analyses the challenges both for the sector and for the economies that rely on the industry for jobs, growth and innovation. It explores an industry that has been under severe pressure in industrialized countries for many years - factories have closed, jobs have gone and brands and manufacturers have disappeared - yet world production has never been higher, reaching new peaks annually. The authors investigate how western and Japanese manufacturers still dominate the market, despite the challenge posed by Korean, Chinese and Indian competitors. They examine how changing environmental policies and consumer preferences are moving the industry towards electric vehicles; how usage patterns are evolving, favouring car-sharing; and how advances in electronics and digitalization are set to further reshape the sector with autonomous and self-driving vehicles. The book offers readers a short, non-technical guide to the workings of a fast-moving industry that remains of huge importance to both national and global economies.

One of the world's largest tire makers and an international corporation with interests in countries around the world, Michelin is also a uniquely French company, one that throughout its history has closely identified itself with the country's people and culture. In the process, it has helped shape the self-image of twentieth-century France. In "Marketing Michelin," Stephen Harp provides a provocative history of the company and its innovative advertising campaigns between 1898, when Bibendum--the company's iconic "Michelin Man"--was first introduced, to 1940, when France fell to the Nazis and the company's top executive, Edouard Michelin, died. Both events indelibly changed the company and the national context in which it operated.

Harp uses the familiar figure of Bibendum and the promotional campaigns designed around him to analyze the cultural assumptions of "belle-epoque" France, including representations of gender, race, and class. He also considers Michelin's efforts to promote automobile tourism in France and Europe through its famous Red Guide (first introduced in 1900), noting that, in the aftermath of World War I, the company sold tour guides to the battlefields of the Western Front and favorably positioned France's participation in the war as purely defensive and unavoidable. Throughout this period, the company successfully identified the name of Michelin with many aspects of French society, from cuisine and local culture to nationalism and colonialism. Michelin also introduced Fordism and Taylorism to France, and Harp offers a nuanced understanding of how the firm effected Americanization and modernization despite the protests of the French public. Through its marketing efforts, Harp concludes, Michelin exerted a profound impact on France's cultural identity in the twentieth century. His ambitious study offers a fresh perspective on both French social history in these years and the relationship between corporate culture and popular culture in the twentieth century.

A shocking expose of Volkswagen's fraud by the New York Times reporter who covered the scandal. Updated with a New Afterword by the Author. When news of Volkswagen's clean diesel fraud first broke in September 2015, it sent shockwaves around the world. Overnight, the company long associated with quality, reliability and trust became a universal symbol of greed and deception. Consumers were outraged, investors panicked, the company embarrassed and facing bankruptcy. As lawsuits and criminal investigations piled up, by August 2016 VW had settled with American regulators and car-owners for $15 billion, with additional fines and claims still looming. In Faster, Higher, Farther, Jack Ewing rips the lid off the scandal. He describes VW's rise from "the people's car" during the Nazi era to one of Germany's most prestigious and important global brands, touted for being "green." He paints vivid portraits of Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piech and chief executive Martin Winterkorn, arguing that their unremitting ambition drove employees, working feverishly in pursuit of impossible sales targets, to illegal methods. With unprecedented access to key players and a ringside seat during the course of the legal proceedings, Faster, Higher, Farther reveals how the succeed-at-all-costs culture prevalent in modern boardrooms led to one of corporate history's farthest-reaching cases of fraud-with potentially devastating consequences. As the future of one of the world's biggest companies remains uncertain, this is the extraordinary story of Volkswagen's downfall.

In 1996, Darius Mehri traveled to Japan to work as a computer simulation engineer within the Toyota production system. Once there, he found a corporate experience far different from what he had expected. Notes from Toyota-land, based on a diary that Mehri kept during his three years at an upper-level Toyota group company, provides a unique insider's perspective on daily work life in Japan and charts his transformation from a wide-eyed engineer eager to be part of the "Japanese Miracle" to a social critic, troubled by Japanese corporate practices.Mehri documents the sophisticated "culture of rules" and organizational structure that combine to create a profound control over workers. The work group is cynically used to encourage employees to work harder and harder, he found, and his other discoveries confirmed his doubts about the working conditions under the Japanese Miracle. For example, he learned that male employees treated their female counterparts as short-term employees, cheap labor, and potential wives. Mehri also describes a surprisingly unhealthy work environment, a high rate of injuries due to inadequate training, fast line speeds, crowded factories, racism, and lack of team support. And in conversations with his colleagues, he uncovered a culture of intimidation, subservience, and vexed relationships with many aspects of their work and surroundings. As both an engaging memoir of cross-cultural misunderstanding and a primer on Japanese business and industrial practices, Notes from Toyota-land will be a revelation to everyone who believes that Japanese business practices are an ideal against which to measure success.

The Commer Story charts the evolution and history of one of Britain's principal commercial vehicle manufacturers. This fascinating book is not just the history of one vehicle marque, but the story of a company that underwent several name changes, as it acquired and was acquired by several other companies, whilst creating some of the world's most innovative commercial vehicles over a continuous ninety-year manufacturing period. Truly a history of the company and its people, as well as its products, The Commer Story provides this famous firm at last with a well-deserved tribute. Well researched and lavishly illustrated, no commercial vehicle enthusiast will want to be without it.

Founded in 1895 under the aegis of R.H. Lea, the company originally built cycles and motorcycles but, by the 1920s, was established as a manufacturer of high quality sporting cars. From the 1930s to the 1960s, Lea-Francis specialized in medium-sized cars built with care and the best quality components. Successful in motorsports, "Leaf" was an innovative company, but a lack of regard for good business principles led to fluctuating fortunes throughout the company's long life. This text tells the story of the firm.

Substantial federal assistance allowed GM and Chrysler to restructure their costs and improve their financial condition. Through federally-funded restructuring, GM and Chrysler reported lowering production costs and capacities by closing or idling factories, laying off employees, and reducing their debt and number of vehicle brands and models. These changes enabled both companies to report operating profits and reduce costs enough to be profitable at much lower sales levels than ever before. Nevertheless, to remain profitable, both companies must manage challenges affecting both their costs, including debt levels, and vehicle demand, such as launching products that are attractive to consumers amid rising fuel prices. This book examines the role of TARP assistance in the restructuring of the U.S. motor vehicle industry with a focus on unwinding the government stake in GMAC and Chrysler.

The United States is one of several countries encouraging production and sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to reduce oil consumption, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided federal financial support to develop a domestic lithium-ion battery supply chain for electric vehicles. President Obama has called for 1 million fully electric vehicles to be on U.S. roads by 2015. In making a national commitment to building electric vehicles and most of their components in the United States, the federal government has invested $2.4 billion in electric battery production facilities and nearly $80 million a year for electric battery research and development. This book examines the nascent battery manufacturing industry and considers efforts to strengthen U.S. capacity to manufacture batteries and battery components for hybrid and electric vehicles.

Before the Big Three," even before the Model T, the race for dominance in the American car market was fierce, fast, and sometimes farcical. Car Crazy takes readers back to the passionate and reckless years of the early automobile era, from 1893, when the first US-built auto was introduced, through 1908, when General Motors was founded and Ford's Model T went on the market. The motorcar was new, paved roads few, and devotees of this exciting and unregulated technology battled with citizens who considered the car a dangerous scourge, wrought by the wealthy, that was shattering a more peaceful way of life.Among the pioneering competitors were Ransom E. Olds, founder of Olds Motor Works and creator of a new company called REO Olds' cutthroat new CEO Frederic L. Smith William C. Billy" Durant of Buick Motor Company (and soon General Motors) and inventor Henry Ford. They shared a passion for innovation, both mechanical and entrepreneurial, but their maniacal pursuit of market share would also involve legal manipulation, vicious smear campaigns, and zany publicity stunts,including a wild transcontinental car race that transfixed the public. Their war on wheels ultimately culminated in a courtroom battle that would shape the American car industry forever.Based on extensive original research, Car Crazy is a page-turning story of popular culture, business, and sport at the dawn of the twentieth century, filled with compelling, larger-than-life characters, each an American original.

Focusing on how cities have been torn down and remade based on the needs of the automobile and wars are fought to keep fuel tanks filled, this consideration looks closely at the country's obsession with cars. The argument contends that the automobile's ascendance is inextricably linked to several factors--from capitalism and involved corporate malfeasance to political intrigue, backroom payoffs, and media manipulation. The discussion also cites the elements of racism, academic corruption, third world coups, secret armies, environmental destruction, and even war, stating that when the domination of cars is challenged, capitalism is as well. Comparing studies in more than a dozen U.S. cities, this gritty, anti-car, road-trip story provides a unique observation for all those who wish to escape the clutches of auto insanity.

Like it or not, the automobile industry is now and will remain an overwhelming factor in the lives of most people - if not an owner and driver, then as a pedestrian or a breather of air, which is being polluted by the gas-guzzling and vile-air belching monsters created for our individual hedonistic pleasure. This book presents issues of current interest to those who cannot ignore their presence.

Cordoba is Argentina's second-largest city, a university town that became the center of its automobile industry. In the decade following the overthrow of Juan Peron's government in 1955, the city experienced rapid industrial growth. The arrival of IKA-Renault and Fiat fostered a particular kind of industrial development and created a new industrial worker of predominantly rural origins. Former farm boys and small-town dwellers were thrust suddenly into the world of the modern factory and the multinational corporation. The domination of the local economy by a single industry and the prominent role played by the automobile workers' unions brought about the greatest working-class protest in postwar Latin American history, the 1969 Cordobazo. Following the Cordobazo, the local labor movement was one characterized by intense militancy and determined opposition to both authoritarian military governments and the Peronist trade union bureaucracy. These labor wars have been mythologized as a Latin American equivalent to the French student strikes of May-June 1968 and the Italian "hot summer" of the same period. Analyzing these events in the context of recent debates on Latin American working-class politics, Brennan demonstrates that the pronounced militancy and even political radicalism of the Cordoban working class were due not only to Argentina's changing political culture but also to the dynamic relationship between the factory and society during those years. Brennan draws on corporate archives in Argentina, France, and Italy, as well as previously unknown union archives. Readers interested in Latin American studies, labor history, industrial relations, political science, industrialsociology, and international business will all find value in this important analysis of labor politics.

Since the early seventies, the development of the automobile has been characterized by a steady increase in the deployment of onboard electronics systems and software. This trend continues unabated and is driven by rising end-user demands and increasingly stringent environmental requirements. Today, almost every function onboard the modern vehicle is electronically controlled or monitored. The software-based implementation of vehicle functions provides for unparalleled freedoms of concept and design. However, automobile development calls for the accommodation of contrasting prerequisites - such as higher demands on safety and reliability vs. lower cost ceilings, longer product life cycles vs. shorter development times - along with growling proliferation of model variants. Automotive Software Engineering has established its position at the center of these seemingly conflicting opposites. This book provides background basics as well as numerous suggestions, rare insights, and cases in point concerning those processes, methods, and tools that contribute to the surefooted mastery of the use of electronic systems and software in the contemporary automobile.

In 1926, the Carriage Builders' National Association met for the last time, signaling the automobile's final triumph over the horse-drawn carriage. Only a decade earlier, carriages and wagons were still a common sight on every Main Street in America. In the previous century, carriage-building had been one of the largest and most dynamic industries in the country. In this sweeping study of a forgotten trade, Thomas A. Kinney extends our understanding of nineteenth-century American industrialization far beyond the steel mill and railroad. The legendary Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company in 1880 produced a hundred wagons a day--one every six minutes. Across the country, smaller factories fashioned vast quantities of buggies, farm wagons, and luxury carriages. Today, if we think of carriage and wagon at all, we assume it merely foreshadowed the automobile industry. Yet., the carriage industry epitomized a batch-work approach to production that flourished for decades. Contradicting the model of industrial development in which hand tools, small firms, and individual craftsmanship simply gave way to mechanized factories, the carriage industry successfully employed small-scale business and manufacturing practices throughout its history.

"The Carriage Trade" traces the rise and fall of this heterogeneous industry, from the pre-industrial shop system to the coming of the automobile, using as case studies Studebaker, the New York-based luxury carriage-maker Brewsters, and dozens of smallerfirms from around the country. Kinney also explores the experiences of the carriage and wagon worker over the life of the industry. Deeply researched and strikingly original, this study contributes a vivid chapter to the story of America's industrial revolution.

Safety has been ranked as the number one concern for the acceptance and adoption of automated vehicles since safety has driven some of the most complex requirements in the development of self-driving vehicles. Recent fatal accidents involving self-driving vehicles have uncovered issues in the way some automated vehicle companies approach the design, testing, verification, and validation of their products. Traditionally, automotive safety follows functional safety concepts as detailed in the standard ISO 26262. However, automated driving safety goes beyond this standard and includes other safety concepts such as safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF) and multi-agent safety. Characterizing the Safety of Automated Vehicles addresses the concept of safety for self-driving vehicles through the inclusion of 10 recent and highly relevent SAE technical papers. Topics that these papers feature include functional safety, SOTIF, and multi-agent safety. As the first title in a series on automated vehicle safety, each will contain introductory content by the Editor with 10 SAE technical papers specifically chosen to illuminate the specific safety topic of that book.