Automobiles have played a vital role in American culture and society. They have stimulated outdoor recreation and spawned industries such as gas stations and roadside restaurants. They have increased the population and economic growth of cities. They have eliminated rural isolation and brought urban amenities-including better schools, medical care and jobs-to rural America. They have spurred the development of highways, one of the largest items of government expenditure in modern times. The automobile has also stimulated the growth of trucking and a host of related businesses, such as auto parts outlets, repair shops and warehouses. It has shifted the country from a primarily agricultural economy to an industrial, suburban and urban one.
The first successful motor cars were 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. The 1901 Mercedes designed by Wilhelm Maybach for the German company Daimler-Motoren Gesellschaft, deserves to be considered as the first truly modern automobile in all respects.
Early media accounts of the automobiles referred to them by such names as road machine, automobile, carriage car, autocar, dredge scow, mocole, diamote and horseless carriage. George Selden obtained a patent for his motor vehicle in 1879 and the Duryea brothers patented theirs in 1895.
The automobile has played a pivotal role in American culture and society from its earliest days of production. It has served the long-standing predilection, especially in the United States, for individual freedom of movement and action and for living independently in huge suburban areas of a house surrounded by a large grass lawn.
It has also served as a symbol of the new power and freedom of America’s rapidly growing middle classes. At the same time it has been a source of social discontent, for instance, by encouraging the formation of large traffic jams in cities and consuming enormous amounts of oil.
In the postwar era, however, engineering was subordinated to questionable aesthetics and nonfunctional styling. Quality declined, as well. By the mid-1960s, Americans were buying car models that had an average of twenty-four defects a vehicle, many safety-related. And, the high unit profits Detroit made on gasoline-guzzling automobiles were being made at the cost of increasing air pollution and a drain on dwindling world oil reserves.
The automobile has been a key player in the nation’s transformation into a global power and has transformed the lives of millions of Americans. It has become the standard mode of personal transportation, with an estimated 1.4 billion vehicles in operation worldwide and most of them in the United States, where they travel over three trillion miles (five trillion kilometres) each year. The automobile is now entering a new phase of evolution, as other forms of transportation and the electronic media enter into a new age. A new generation of drivers has emerged with different priorities and values, including concern for the environment, safety, affordability and fuel efficiency.