Critical Turning Points in American Automotive History

 There are five:

1) 1907-1909 -- the introduction of the Ford Model T, mass production, and the coming of the mass market.

2) 1924 - 1926 The emergence of the mass and class market.

    a) Widespread installment purchases -- buying on time becomes dominant.

    b) The widespread practice of trade-ins and used car sales

    c) The closing of the car -- the automobile becomes more like a home and open cars henceforth are labeled convertibles. A large majority of cars become closed, first pioneered in 1921 by Hudson and the Essex.

    d) While it took a while to be fully adopted, the practice of the late summer/early fall annual model change. Incremental change was supplanted by planned obsolescence.

    e) The development of a national system of roads -- 2 lane, undivided highways.

3) The High Point of the Golden Age of the Automobile (1955-1957)

    a) The 1955 Chevy and a V-8 for the masses

    b) Car Culture Dominance -- Rock and Roll, Film, Literature.

    c) The Interstate Highway Act (1956)

    d) Tail fins, Speed, and California Dreaming

4) Oil Shocks I (1973-74) and II -- especially II, 1979-1981.

    a) The Federal Government now has a major say in the automobile industry. Concerns over safety, emissions, energy consumption.

    b) Foreign competition becomes very significant.

    c) Pickup trucks and SUVs initially avoid CAFE standards and emissions regs.

    d) The automobile is not longer seen by many as a progressive element in American Life; rather a social and environmental problem.

    e) The decline of Rust Belt automotive assembly centers -- Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Dayton, Flint

5) Climate Change, Financial Collapse, and the Revenge of the Electric Car

    a) Concerns over CO2 and Climate going back to the 1990s

    b) Financial collapse

    c) GM and Chrysler Bankruptcy

    d) Elon Musk, Tesla, and the genesis of a new industry