It has only been over 130 years since the first world-recognized car was manufactured, but it has spanned three centuries.
This period of history is not long, but it is confusing. Today, it is impossible to accurately calculate how many car brands have been born and disappeared in the world in the past 100 years.
The auto market has always been "maverick": this market with a long history but fierce competition in the world has always been able to give start-ups the opportunity and space to survive, so there is never a lack of new brands entering the market; it is not surprising that new brands are born and disappear. It is also very common for an old brand to expand rapidly in a market in a few years, so the story of "exit" is also often staged.
This is a market that is open to infinite possibilities, and a market that is cruel enough to face the test of life and death at all times. For more than a century, there have been traces of every major change in the world's auto industry.
Startup: Germany lays the foundations for the automotive industry
The world recognized as the first car was a "tricycle" made by Karl Benz of Germany in 1886.
However, the car inventor didn't have the guts to drive out what was then considered a monster. It was not until 1888 that his wife Bertha drove the car from the factory to her parents' house, starting an unprecedented "self-driving tour". With a distance of 106 kilometers, she drove for a full 12 hours, and finally brought the car into the public eye. On International Women's Day 2019, Mercedes-Benz released a short film adaptation of this story, "The Journey That Changed Everything", to commemorate Bertha, the first female driver in history.
Karl Benz is one of the founders of Daimler-Benz. In fact, in the same year that he built his first car, another German engineer, Gottlieb Daimler, also installed the car engine developed in cooperation with his friend Wilhelm Maybach a few years ago in the Created the first Daimler car in a carriage bought for his wife's birthday.
Due to being slightly behind in time, in the history of the world car, it is recognized that the first car was made by Karl Benz, but Daimler made the first motorcycle in the world. Two engineers who made automotive history never met each other in their entire lives. Daimler and Mercedes-Benz merged in 1926, and all cars produced since then have been named Mercedes-Benz, which continues to this day.
In the years when the automobile was invented and manufactured, the second industrial revolution was at its peak. Electric lights and telephones came out one after another, and mankind entered the "electric age". After the reunification of Germany through the Franco-Prussian War, Germany had huge capital and rich mineral resources, which laid the foundation for the rapid development of German industry.
Even so, at the beginning of its birth, the development of the automobile industry was still not smooth. At that time, many engineers were developing automobiles, and industrially developed countries appeared one after another with their own automobile brands. But early cars were prohibitively expensive to build. Moreover, the car's performance at the time and the lack of a gas station gave it no advantage over its most formidable competitor, the horse-drawn carriage.
On the premise that efficiency and price are not dominant, the car can only find another way, relying on comfort, luxury, and speed to "overtake in corners" and become a "toy" for the rich. This laid the foundation for the German auto industry, which has developed to this day and is still the country that produces and sells the most luxury brand cars.
In the more than 20 years since the birth of automobiles, mass production has never been achieved, but a large number of capitalists, engineers and inventors are optimistic about the prospects of this market. At the same time, the large demand for ocean-going ships, aircraft, etc., promoted the development of the petrochemical industry. In 1870, the world produced about 800,000 tons of oil, and in 1900, this production soared to 20 million tons.
This paved the way for the subsequent rapid development of the automobile industry. In 1917, the one-year-old aircraft engine manufacturing company BFW began to reorganize and changed its name to BMW. After the initial production and sales of motorcycles, BMW announced its entry into the automobile manufacturing industry in 1929.
Audi, which is also one of the three major German luxury car brands, was founded by August Horch in 1909, but it was not until 1932 that Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW merged. The United Motor Company was established, and the Audi Fourth Ring came from this.
Although the car was first born in Germany, several major luxury brands are also concentrated in Germany, and people also recognize that Germany has made the best cars in the world. But the glory of the car at the beginning of the 20th century belonged to the American car brand - Ford.
Outbreak: The U.S. starts the auto industry revolution
Henry Ford was just 25 years old when Carl Benz's wife made her first "self-drive tour", eight years before he built his first car.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the massive exploitation of oil gave Henry Ford the confidence to build a "horseless carriage" dream. In 1908, the five-year-old Ford Motor produced the first Model T, allowing the car to truly fly into the homes of ordinary people and become a mass consumer product.
Before the Model T came on the market, cars cost thousands of dollars, and as soon as the Model T came out, the price was as low as $850. The world's automobile industrial revolution has begun, and the way of travel has finally ushered in a major change unseen in a century or even a thousand years.
In 1913, Henry Ford developed the first assembly line in the automobile industry, and the cost and time to manufacture a car dropped to "unimaginable". The price of the Ford Model T was reduced several times, even to $360 in 1914, a year when workers at the Ford Motor Company earned $5 a day.
Therefore, for a long time in the history of the world car, when it comes to cars, Ford is the first. By 1921, Model T production accounted for 56.5% of the world's total automobile production.
Henry Ford is therefore often mentioned in parallel with Thomas Edison, the former "putting wheels on the world" and the latter "completely liberating mankind from the confines of the night". Interestingly, the two were close friends, and Henry Ford was an engineer at the Edison Lighting Company. The two have not only been neighbors, but have also jointly developed electric vehicles. But subject to technology, electric vehicles were eliminated from the market more than a hundred years ago.
In 1927, the Model T was discontinued, leaving a cumulative sales record of 15 million units. This record was not broken until more than 40 years later by the Volkswagen Beetle. In 1928, Ford was defeated by General Motors, founded in 1908, which became the world car sales champion.
During this period, the U.S. auto industry surpassed Germany and became an automobile powerhouse. In 1929, before the Great Depression in the U.S., U.S. car sales exceeded 5 million, making it a veritable "nation on wheels".
At the beginning of the construction of the factory, Volkswagen planned the world's largest car factory with an annual output of 1.5 million vehicles, and strived to surpass Ford in one fell swoop. At that time, Americans had one car for every five people, and Germany had one for every 50 people. However, after Volkswagen produced the first batch of Beetles, it did not usher in a period of rapid development. Instead, it had to be used for armament production due to "World War II". It wasn't until 1945, after the end of World War II, that mass production of the Volkswagen Beetle began.
In 1886, Karl Benz of Germany drove his own "tricycle".
Wilhelm Maybach (front left) and Paul Daimler (front right, son of Gottlieb Daimler) and others ride in the 1886 version of the car.
In 1908, the first Ford Model T was built. This Layout/Visual China
The German auto industry, devastated by the war, almost started over. By 1960, German car production had reached 2 million a year, with an average annual growth rate of more than 20% over a decade. Even so, Germany has become the world's second largest auto producer and exporter at the time.
That was still a golden age for the U.S. auto industry. In 1972, the cumulative sales of the Volkswagen Beetle broke the cumulative sales record for the Ford Model T, which had been discontinued as early as 1927. The U.S.’s dominance in the auto industry lasted for more than half a century until the first oil crisis broke out in 1973, triggering the most serious global economic crisis since World War II, and the economies of developed countries were hit hard.
The crisis lasted for three years, and the U.S., German, and Japanese auto industries went in different directions. Japanese cars, which are known for their fuel economy, seized the opportunity and rose rapidly.
Competition: Japanese cars go global
More than 100 years after oil was exploited in large quantities, the oil crisis came as promised. After the first oil crisis broke out in 1973, there were two more oil crises in 1978 and 1990, and the entire Western economic structure changed.
In the following decades, the shadow of the oil crisis loomed, and all countries embarked on the road of seeking the development of new energy.
Two years after the production of the Ford Model T was discontinued, Kiichiro Toyoda, the eldest son of Japanese textile king Sakichi Toyoda, went to inspect the European and American auto industries. In 1933, the automobile department was established at the "Toyota Automatic Loom Works". In 1937, Toyota Motor Corporation was established. This year, the Ford Model T has been discontinued for 10 years, leaving behind a legend of cumulative sales of 15 million vehicles.
The legend after that belongs to the rising star.
At that time, Ford and General Motors in the United States were already world-famous, and they opened assembly plants in Japan. Living in a country with poor natural resources like Japan, Kiichiro Toyoda believed that the development of vehicles with high fuel consumption, reliability and durability was crucial for the Japanese auto industry, so as early as 1939, the company established a battery research institute.
In the early days, Toyota, like many start-ups, focused on imitation. However, based on the deep consideration of the founder's national conditions, Toyota was qualified to compete with European and American automobiles and win big after just over 30 years of establishment. Total victory.
In 1972, a year before the first oil crisis, Toyota's cumulative production reached 10 million. For the world auto industry, this is far from the same as Toyota, which just started to enter Europe ten years ago and whose annual output just exceeded the one million mark.
A car production line in Japan in 1968. Figure/Visual China
By 1979, after another wave of oil crises, the situation was even more dire. Japanese cars, led by Toyota, are very popular in the United States, accounting for more than 80% of the total number of imported cars in the United States. Americans even described this as "another Pearl Harbor incident". After all, in the world, Japanese car companies are too "young": Toyota Motor was established in 1937, Honda Motor was established in 1948, Nissan Motor was established in 1933...
And after the oil crisis, it formed a strong entry into Europe and the United States with Japanese cars. In stark contrast, U.S. auto production has been greatly reduced, and a large number of auto sales stores and production companies have closed down, creating a depression. After this campaign, Germany is still a gathering place for luxury brands, and only Volkswagen, which has broken out of the encirclement with small cars, has rapidly expanded in sales. The auto industry in the United States and Japan has since begun to move towards two poles.
In 1980, Japan's automobile production surpassed that of the United States to become the world's largest automobile producer. Toyota's success in the U.S. market once led U.S. auto companies to group together and demand a boycott from the government. But history has developed so far, and it is irreversible. The world automobile pattern at the beginning of the 21st century began to take shape.
After entering the 21st century, the world's top car sales, switching back and forth between Toyota and Volkswagen. The three American auto giants: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler experienced bankruptcy in 2008. The single model with the highest cumulative sales in the world is no longer the Ford Model T or the Volkswagen Beetle, but the Toyota Corolla, with cumulative sales exceeding 50 million.
However, whether it is a Japanese car with its overall fuel economy advantage, or a Toyota car that is rampant in Europe and the United States with hybrid technology, they did not enjoy the joy of victory for too long, but quickly felt another wave of irreversible development trends.
Toyota's hybrid vehicle, which was put into production in 1997, took more than 20 years to form a scale and gradually gained global recognition. It was originally expected to greatly reduce the global car's dependence on petroleum energy and greatly reduce exhaust emissions, but the sudden surge of electrification has made it still use hybrid technology to dominate the world, and plans to use hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the future. The relay Toyota was caught off guard.
Reshaping: under the tide of electrification and intelligence
The Germans invented the car, and the Americans popularized the car. But when it comes to the subsequent stage of fighting for endurance, everything will no longer follow the rules.
The growth of Japanese cars is different from that of Germany and the United States. There is no huge domestic market as a basis, and it can only constantly seek support from overseas markets. The U.S.'s dominance in the auto industry can last for more than half a century, which is not unrelated to its long-term occupation of the world's largest automobile production and sales power.
However, this advantage has gradually disintegrated in the decades of the rapid rise of China's auto industry. In 2009, China surpassed the United States in one fell swoop with an advantage of more than 3 million vehicles, becoming the world's largest country in automobile production and sales, more than five years earlier than originally expected.
Today, China has become the world's largest consumer market for many brands. The focus of the global auto industry is focused on China. Chinese consumers' demand for automobiles also affects the development trend of the global automobile industry to a large extent.
Even though many brands have put a large part of their focus on the Chinese market, Chinese auto brands are still growing rapidly amid fierce competition. According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to June this year, Chinese brand passenger cars sold a total of 4.891 million units, a year-on-year increase of 16.5%, far exceeding the overall growth rate of the passenger car market of 3.4%. In the first half of the year, Chinese brands accounted for 47.2% of the total passenger car sales.
This is not only due to the comprehensive promotion of the brand by Chinese auto brands, and gradually competes with foreign auto brands in terms of comprehensive strength; more importantly, Chinese auto brands have accurately grasped the opportunities in the early stage of the development of new energy vehicles, and accelerated the development of new energy vehicles by connecting with intelligent networks. Fusion to seize the opportunity.
In fact, "Electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing" are the mainstream trends in the future development of the global automotive industry, and the industry has long agreed. "The major changes in the automobile industry have not been seen in a century" is also an inevitable situation that has been repeatedly discussed and thought about.
However, it is obviously not an easy task for the car brands of various countries, bearing a century of history, to fundamentally overturn the original foundation and return to the starting point with a group of new brands. As a result, an even more incredible scene appeared in the auto industry: a new car company that was established less than ten years ago and whose overall sales volume was not as good as a single model of a giant car company, once surpassed the market value of each century-old car company.
In this great change, Chinese car brands have gained a real opportunity to "overtake on a curve". With the dual blessing of intelligence and electrification, in 2021, China will account for 52% of the world's new energy vehicle sales. This figure has climbed to 59% as of May this year.
With high global oil prices and the “carbon neutrality” trend, the global auto industry is being reshaped again. China's transition from an auto powerhouse to an auto powerhouse may be much shorter than expected.
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