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.
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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
