The American Auto Industry 美国汽车工业

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Henry Ford innovated mass-production techniques that became standard, and Ford, General Motors and Chrysler emerged as the "Big Three" auto companies by the 1920s. Manufacturers funneled their resources to the military during World War II, and afterward auto mobile production in Europe and Japan soared to meet growing demand. Once vital to the expansion of American urban centers, the industry had become a shared global enterprise with the rise of Japan as the leading auto maker by 1980.

亨利·福特创新了批量生产技术，并且成为行业标准后，福特，通用汽车和克莱斯勒在1920年代成为汽车行业的“三巨头”。第二次世界大战期间，制造商将资源集中运用到军事上，随后欧洲和日本的汽车产量猛增，以满足不断增长的市场需求。汽车行业曾经对美国城市中心的扩张发挥了至关重要的作用，到1980年随着日本成为汽车行业的领头羊，该行业成为了全球的事业。

Although the automobile was to have its greatest social and economic impact in the United States, it was initially perfected in Germany and France toward the end of the nineteenth century by such men as Gottlieb Daimler, Karl Benz, Nicolaus Otto and Emile Levassor.

尽管汽车产业是在美国产生了最大的社会和经济影响，但在19世纪末之前却是在德国和法国由戈特利布·戴姆勒、卡尔·本茨、尼古拉斯·奥托、艾米勒·勒瓦索等人完善的。

Henry Ford and William Durant 亨利·福特和威廉·杜兰特

Bicycle mechanics J. Frank and Charles Duryea of Springfield, Massachusetts, had designed the first successful American gasoline automobile in 1893, then won the first American car race in1895, and went on to make the first sale of an American-made gasoline car the next year.

马萨诸塞州斯普林菲尔德的自行车机械师J·弗兰克和查尔斯·杜里耶在1893年成功设计出了第一辆汽油车，在1895年赢得了第一届美国汽车比赛，并在次年首次销售了第一辆美国产的汽油车。

Thirty American manufacturers produced 2,500 motor vehicles in 1899, and some 485 companies entered the business in the next decade. In 1908 Henry Ford introduced the Model T and William Durant founded General Motors.

1899年，美国有三十家汽车制造商，共生产了2500辆汽车；在接下来的十年中，大约有485家公司进入了该行业。 1908年，亨利·福特推出了T型车，威廉·杜兰特则创立了通用汽车公司。

With its vast land area and a hinterland of scattered and isolated settlements, the United States had a far greater need for automotive transportation than the nations of Europe. Great demand was ensured, too, by a significantly higher per capita income and more equitable income distribution than European countries.

美国幅员辽阔，腹地零散，居民区与世隔绝，对汽车运输的需求远远大于欧洲国家。同时，与欧洲国家相比，人均收入更高，收入分配更加公平，也确保了巨大的需求。

Model T （T型车）

Given the American manufacturing tradition, it was also inevitable that cars would be produced in larger volume at lower prices than in Europe. The absence of tariff barriers between the states encouraged sales over a wide geographic area. Cheap raw materials and a chronic shortage of skilled labor early encouraged the mechanization of industrial processes in the United States. 

与欧洲相比，美国的制造传统，使得以更低的价格生产更大数量的汽车成为不可避免。美国各州之间没有关税壁垒，助长了在更广阔的地理区域内销售；廉价的原材料和长期缺乏技术工人的现实则激励美国更早实现工业流程的机械化。

This in turn required the standardization of products and resulted in the volume production of such commodities as firearms, sewing machines, bicycles, and many other items. In 1913, the United States produced some 485,000 of the world total of 606,124 motor vehicles.

反过来，这又要求产品实施标准化，并推动了枪支，缝纫机，自行车和许多其他物品等商品的批量生产。 1913年，美国生产了全世界总共606,124辆汽车中的485,000辆。

The Ford Motor Company greatly outpaced its competitors in reconciling state-of-the-art design with moderate price. Deluged with orders, Ford installed improved production equipment and after 1906 was able to make deliveries of a hundred cars a day. Encouraged by the success of the Model N, Henry Ford was determined to build an even better "car for the great multitude." The four-cylinder, twenty-horsepower Model T, first offered in October 1908, sold for $825. 

福特汽车公司在以先进的设计和适中的价格远远超过了竞争对手。订单泛滥，福特改进了生产设备，1906年后，该公司能够每天出100辆汽车。在N型车的成功鼓舞下，亨利福特决心制造一辆更好的“普罗大众的汽车”。配有四缸，二十马力的T型车于1908年10月首次推出，售价为825美元。

Its two-speed planetary transmission made it easy to drive, and features such as its detachable cylinder head made it easy to repair. Its high chassis was designed to clear the bumps in rural roads. Vanadium steel made the Model T a lighter and tougher car, and new methods of casting parts (especially block casting of the engine) helped keep the price down.

它的两速行星齿轮箱使其易于驾驶，而其可拆卸的气缸盖等特征使其易于维修。它的高底盘减少了乡村道路上的颠簸。钒钢使T型车变得更轻便，更坚固，而铸造零件的新方法（尤其是发动机的整体铸造）则降低了价格。

Committed to large-volume production of the Model T, Ford innovated modern mass production techniques at his new Highland Park, Michigan, plant, which opened in 1910 (although he did not introduce the moving assembly line until 1913-1914). The Model T runabout sold for $575 in1912, less than the average annual wage in the United States. By the time the Model T was withdrawn from production in 1927, its price had been reduced to $290 for the coupe, 15 million units had been sold, and mass personal "automobility" had become a reality.

福特致力于大批量生产T型车，他在密歇根州高地公园的新工厂创新了现代的批量生产技术，该工厂于1910年开业（尽管他直到1913-1914年才引入移动装配线）。 T型车在1912年的售价为575美元，低于当时美国的人均年收入。到1927年T型车停产时，其价格已降至290美元一俩轿跑车，总共售出了1500万辆，使得大规模的个人“机动性”成为现实。

GM Introduces "Planned Obsolescence"

通用汽车推出“内置报废”

The basic differences that distinguish post-World War II models from the Model T that were in place by the late 1920s — the self-starter, the closed all-steel body, the high-compression engine, hydraulic brakes, synchromesh transmission, and low-pressure balloon tires. The remaining innovations — the automatic transmission and drop-frame construction — came in the 1930s. Moreover, with some exceptions, cars were made much the same way in the early 1950s as they had been in the 1920s.

二战后车型与20世纪20年代后期的T型车的基本区别在于：自动启动器、全钢封闭车身、高压缩发动机、液压制动器、同步变速器和低压气球轮胎。剩下的创新 - 自动变速器和升降框架结构 - 出现在20世纪30年代，此外，除了部分不同，汽车在50年代早期的生产方式与20年代基本是相同的。

To meet the challenges of market saturation and technological stagnation, General Motors under the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., in the 1920s and 1930s innovated planned obsolescence of product and put a new emphasis on styling, exemplified in the largely cosmetic annual model change - a planned triennial major restyling.

为了应对市场饱和和技术停滞的挑战，通用汽车在小阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆的领导下，于1920年代和1930年代创新了计划性淘汰产品，并重新重视设计，这在很大程度上是年度变更车型-计划三年一次的重大改版。

The goal was to make consumers dissatisfied enough to trade in and presumably up to a more expensive new model long before the useful life of their present cars had ended. Sloan's philosophy was that "the primary object of the corporation…was to make money, not just to make motorcars." He believed that it was necessary only that GM's cars be "equal in design to the best of our competitors…it was not necessary to lead in design or to run the risk of untried experiments." Thus, engineering was subordinated to the dictates of stylists and cost-cutting accountants. General Motors became the archetype of a rational corporation run by a technostructure. 

其目的是让消费者不满意到足以以旧换新，而且很可能在他们现有汽车的使用寿命期结束之前很快就换上更贵的新车型。斯隆的哲学是“公司的首要目标……是赚钱，而不仅仅是制造汽车。”他认为，通用汽车的车只需“在设计上与我们的竞争对手的最佳水平相等……没有必要在设计上领先，也没有必要冒未经测试的风险。”因此，工程服从于设计师和削减成本的会计师的命令。通用汽车成为一个由技术结构管理的理性公司的原型。

As Sloanism replaced Fordism as the predominant market strategy in the industry, Ford lost the sales lead in the lucrative low-priced field to Chevrolet in 1927 and 1928. By 1936 GM claimed 43 percent of the U.S. market; Ford with 22 percent had fallen to third place behind Chrysler with 25 percent. Although automobile sales collapsed during the Great Depression, Sloan could boast of GM that "in no year did the corporation fail to earn a profit." GM retained industry leadership until 1986 when Ford surpassed it in profits.

随着斯隆主义取代福特主义成为该行业的主导市场战略，福特在1927年和1928年将利润丰厚的低价车领域的销售领先地位输给了雪佛兰。到1936年，通用汽车占据了美国市场43%的份额；福特以22%的份额跌至第三位，比克莱斯勒25%的份额少。尽管汽车销量在大萧条时期暴跌，斯隆可以夸耀通用汽车“公司在任何一年都不会不盈利”。通用汽车一直保持着行业领先地位，直到1986年福特的利润超过了它。

World War II and the Auto Industry 第二次世界大战与汽车工业

The automobile industry had played a critical role in producing military vehicles and war material in the First World War. During World War II, in addition to turning out several million military vehicles, American automobile manufacturers made some seventy-five essential military items, most of them unrelated to the motor vehicle. These materials had a total value of $29 billion, one-fifth of the nation's war production. 

在第一次世界大战中，汽车工业在生产军用车辆和战争装备方面发挥了关键作用。第二次世界大战期间，除了生产出数百万辆军用车辆外，美国汽车制造商还制造了约75种基本军用物品，其中大多数与汽车无关。这些材料的总价值为290亿美元，占该国战争产出的五分之一。

Because the manufacture of vehicles for the civilian market ceased in 1942 and tires and gasoline were severely rationed, motor vehicle travel fell dramatically during the war years. Cars that had been nursed through the Depression long after they were ready to be junked were patched up further, ensuring great pent-up demand for new cars at the war's end.

由于在1942年停止了为民用市场生产汽车，并执行严格的轮胎和汽油配给制，战争年代汽车的使用急剧下降。大萧条时期，在准备报废后很长一段时间内，经过保养和修理继续使用，使得战争结束时积压了对新车的巨大需求。

Detroit's Big Three carried Sloanism to its illogical conclusion in the postwar period. Models and options proliferated, and every year cars became longer and heavier, more powerful, more gadget-bedecked, more expensive to purchase and to operate, following the truism that large cars are more profitable to sell than small ones.

底特律三巨头在战后时期将斯隆主义归结为不合逻辑的结论。车型和选装件激增，并且车型每年都变得更长，更重，功能更强大，设备更复杂，购买和驾驶成本更高，这是不言而喻的事实，即大型汽车比小型汽车利润更高。

Rise of Japanese Automakers 日本汽车制造商的崛起

Engineering in the postwar era was subordinated to the questionable methods of nonfunctional styling at the expense of economy and safety. And quality deteriorated to the point that by the mid-1960s American-made cars were being delivered to retail buyers with an average of twenty-four defects a unit, many of them safety-related. Moreover, the higher unit profits that Detroit made on gas-guzzling "road cruisers" were made at the social costs of increased air pollution and a drain on dwindling world oil reserves.

战后的汽车工程学从属于以牺牲经济性和安全性为代价的非功能造型美学。质量恶化到60年代中期，美国制造的汽车送达零售商时，平均每辆有24个缺陷，且其中许多缺陷与安全有关。此外，底特律在耗油的“公路巡洋舰”上获得的更高单位利润是以增加空气污染和消耗日益减少的世界石油储备为社会代价的。

The era of the annually restyled road cruiser ended with the imposition of federal standards of automotive safety (1966), emission of pollutants (1965 and 1970), and energy consumption (1975); with escalating gasoline prices following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979; and especially with the mounting penetration of both the U.S. and world markets first by the German Volks wagen "Bug" (a modern Model T) and then by Japanese fuel-efficient, functionally designed, well-built small cars.

随着联邦汽车安全标准（1966年）、污染物排放标准（1965年和1970年）和能源消耗标准（1975年）的实施；1973年和1979年石油危机导致的汽油价格不断上涨；特别是，首先是德国大众的“Bug”（一款现代T型车），然后是日本节能、功能设计、制造精良的小型车在美国和世界市场的不断渗入，每年重新进行款式设计的巡洋舰时代终于结束了。

After peaking at a record 12.87 millionunits in 1978, sales of American-made cars fell to 6.95 million in 1982, as imports increased their share of the U.S. market from 17.7 percent to 27.9 percent. In 1980 Japan became the world's leading auto producer.

在1978年达到创纪录的1287万辆产量的峰值之后，随着进口汽车在美国市场所占份额从17.7％增至27.9％，美国制造的汽车的销量在1982年下降到695万辆。 1980年，日本成为世界领先的汽车生产大国。

U.S. Carmakers Retool 美国汽车业的管理革命

In response, the American automobile industry in the 1980s underwent a massive organizational restructuring and technological renaissance. Managerial revolutions and cutbacks in plant capacity and personnel at GM, Ford and Chrysler resulted in leaner, tougher firms with lower break-even points, enabling them to maintain profits with lower volumes in increasingly saturated, competitive markets.

为了改变现状，美国汽车工业在20世纪80年代经历了大规模的组织重构和技术复兴。通用、福特和克莱斯勒的管理革命，以及工厂产能和人员的削减，使公司更精简、更强硬，盈亏平衡点更低，使它们能够在日益饱和、竞争日益激烈的市场中，以较低的产量维持利润。

Manufacturing quality and programs of employee motivation and involvement were given high priority. The industry in 1980 undertook a five-year, $80 billion program of plant modernization and retooling. Functional aerodynamic design replaced styling in Detroit studios, as the annual cosmetic change was abandoned.

生产质量、员工激励与参与计划受到高度重视。 1980年，该行业开始了为期五年、耗资800亿美元的工厂现代化和改造计划。实用的空气动力学设计取代了底特律工作室的年度外观设计。

Cars became smaller, more fuel-efficient, less polluting and much safer. Product and production were being increasingly rationalized in a process of integrating computer-aided design, engineering and manufacturing.

汽车变得更小，更省油，更少污染，更安全。在计算机辅助设计、工程和制造一体化的过程中，产品和生产日益合理化。

Legacy of the U.S. Auto Industry 美国汽车工业的影响

The automobile has been a key force for change in twentieth-century America. During the 1920s the industry became the backbone of a new consumer goods-oriented society. By the mid-1920s it ranked first in value of product, and in 1982 it provided one out of every six jobs in the United States. In the 1920s the automobile became the lifeblood of the petroleum industry, one of the chief customers of the steel industry, and the biggest consumer of many other industrial products. The technologies of these ancillary industries, particularly steel and petroleum, were revolutionized by its demands.

汽车是二十世纪美国变革的关键力量。在20世纪20年代，这个行业成为一个以消费品为导向的新社会的支柱。到20世纪20年代中期，它的产值排名第一；1982年，它提供了美国六分之一的就业。20世纪20年代，汽车成为石油工业的命脉，钢铁工业的主要客户之一，以及许多其他工业产品的最大消费者。这些辅助产业的技术，特别是钢铁和石油，也因汽车产业的需求而发生了革命性的变化。

The automobile stimulated participation in outdoor recreation and spurred the growth of tourism and tourism-related industries, such as service stations, roadside restaurants and motels. The construction of streets and highways, one of the largest items of government expenditure, peaked when the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 inaugurated the largest public works program in history. The automobile ended rural isolation and brought urban amenities - most important, better medical care and schools - to rural America (while paradoxically the farm tractor made the traditional family farm obsolete). The modern city with its surrounding industrial and residential suburbs is a product of the automobile and trucking.

汽车激励了人们参与户外娱乐活动，激励了旅游业和旅游相关产业的增长，如加油站、路边餐厅和汽车旅馆。街道和公路建设作为政府最大的开支之一，在1956年《州际公路法》启动了历史上最大的公共工程项目时达到了顶峰。汽车结束了乡村隔离，带来了城市设施；最重要的是，给农村带来了更好的医疗保健和学校（虽然荒谬的农场拖拉机使传统的家庭农场过时）。现代城市及其周边的工业和居住郊区也是汽车和卡车运输的产物。

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