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| | After years of ceding much of the car market to Asian competitors, Detroit's Big Three are preparing to roll out an array of new cars that they hope will bring buyers back to their showrooms to look for something besides trucks.
General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. plan to unveil new versions of aging or unpopular models at the North American International Auto Show, which begins later this month in Detroit. DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group will show off a concept car that likely will be the replacement for the once hot-selling Chrysler 300.
The new cars, most of which won't debut until next fall, are critical to the survival of their makers, which have lost billions of dollars this year as consumers shifted away from trucks and sport utility vehicles to more fuel efficient cars made by the competition.
Perhaps the most important new car model is the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu, which many industry analysts predict will be good enough to take on the gorillas of the key mid-sized segment -- Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.
It's designed to take a chunk of the market from Camry, the perennial top-selling car in America. Through November, Toyota sold 408,906 Camrys, a 2.6 percent increase over strong sales numbers for the first 11 months of 2005.
The Malibu shows signs of GM returning to its roots, producing distinctly American cars that touch buyers' emotions rather giving them cheap copies of Toyotas or Hondas.
GM also says the Malibu will compete with Camry on price, but won't reveal how much it will cost yet. The lowest-price Camry stickers at $18,720.
The problem for GM is that Toyota and Honda aren't standing still. Honda is readying a new, futuristic looking Accord, while the redesigned Camry looks far sleeker than its predecessors.
History of the car invention:
There were hundreds of designs, which could fulfill transportation functions and which quite often named as first in history. Long disputes regarding priority among different countries, inventors and designs have forced to develop four necessary and sufficient conditions for definition of a priority. The first - promotion of idea of the transport vehicle with the purpose mentioned above. The second - preparation of the legal document, which give copyright to the inventor or inventors on the given idea. The third condition - realization of an efficient pre-production model based on this idea and completion of tests marked periodically in mass media and certificates. And the fourth - launching the item in production for its sale to the consumers independent of the founder of a product. The conditions specified here are equally applied both to the automobile as a whole, and to its component parts and sub-assemblies.
These phrases sounding a little bit formal (in case of acceptance of conditions formulated here) allow to eliminate applicants inappropriate to them and to name the founder of proto-automobile. This name is German engineer Charles Benz.
Benz, having since 1871 own factory for producing the gas engines, has got patent DRP 22256 on the high-speed two-stroke engine on 25th October 1882. In 1885, he made the three-wheeled automobile with internal combustion engine of his own design, but he did not go beyond the limits of factory on this automobile. When on 29th January 1886, he applied for patent DRP 37435 on self-mobile crew as such, then it become possible to demonstrate its child to public. Its departure took place on 3rd July 1886, and the local newspaper “Noiye Badishe Lindestsaitung” has written about this event and has stated even its estimation.
Thus, Benz fulfilled first three conditions of priority. He demonstrated his automobile at exhibitions, but there was no demand for it. Emil Rozhe from Paris became the first buyer in 1887. This case has forced the inventor to start the production of the batch of same vehicles for sale. That model was called “Model III”. From 1886 to 1894, Benz has produced 25 such automobiles. Thus he fulfilled the fourth condition, and already at this stage he got a position of the pioneer of the first automobile.
Further the inventor could stop the work in this direction. But he developed his business, and in 1926, his factory was united with firm "Daimler" founded by other inventor "Gotlib Daimler". Firm “Daimler-Benz” exists even now by producing the automobiles "Mercedes-Benz".
Many engineers and the inventors worked in the field of automobile industry, rather easily satisfied the first three conditions of the priority. But execution of the fourth condition quite often was possible after some decades when the situation for use of the design offered by them in a batch production ripened. For example, the disk brake mechanism suggested by English engineer Frederick Lanchester on a pre-production model of the automobile of his own design, was claimed after half-century, when "chain reaction" of his application began.
At the end of 19th century, the automobile industry was still in embryo. There were wide variety of designs, and there was an active search of initial engineering decisions. Important among them was assembly scheme put forward in 1891 by the factory "Panar-Levassor" (France): the engine - ahead, driving wheels - back. Invention of spraying carburetor in 1892 by V. Maibahom (Germany) also became a turning point in the automobile history. And it is necessary to consider the pneumatic tire offered in 1895 by rubber manufacturer E. Michelin (France) as third major innovation of this period. All three for many years have defined the common concept of the automobile. |
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This year at Detroit auto show, American and German car manufacturers are showing their new cars
in hopes to win back the auto market from Asian car manufacturers.
New American-German car is a hybrid between Hummer and BMW and is known as Bummer.
