The Nissan Motor Company was originally founded as Kwaishinsha Company in 1911. Its first car, the DAT car, was released in 1914 named after its founders Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama, Meitaro Takeuchi last names, creating an acronym using the first letter from each. In 1921 Kwaishinsha Company merged with Jitsuyo Jidosha Co. under the name of DAT Automobile Manufacturing Co. Ltd. Ten years later DAT created the first Datsun cara few years before control was taken by Nissan (Funding Universe).
After Nissan took control of DAT they produced the Datsun car until the beginning of the Second World War.“During this war the company shifted to war production, making military trucks, and engines for fighter planes and torpedo boats.” (Beyman).Once the war was over, Nissan continued to manufacture trucks until production of the Datsun car continued two years later. In 1951 Nissan finally became a publically traded company.
Between the years of 1959-1966 Nissan produced 3 new cars, the Bluebird, the Cedric, and the Sunny. With the release of these cars Nissan’s sales rose and it helped them expand internationally due to the popularity of the cars. 1966 also marked the year that Nissan merged with Prince Motor Company Ltd. In 1959 Nissan created its subsidy in the U.S. but did not truly see its full potential in the market until the oil crisis in 1973. It was this crisis that drew customers towards their more fuel efficient vehicles leading to great success for Nissan in the U.S. market. (Answers.com)
Until 1981 the Nissan Company was still known as Datsun in the U.S.By the late 80’s Nissans direct competitors, Toyota, and Honda, were both working into the luxury car class. To keep with competition Nissan launched its Infiniti automobile lin...
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Woelfel, J. (2011, May 12). Nissan Sees Full Output by October. Retrieved May 25, 2011, from The Street: http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/11116414/1/nissan-sees-full-output-by-october.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Yahoo Finance. (2011, May 25). Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. Retrieved May 2011, 2011, from Yahoo Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NSANY.PK+Interactive#chart1:symbol=nsany.pk;range=1y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
Zhou, M. (2008, April 24). MarketWatch. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from Gasoline could hit $7 a gallon in four years: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gasoline-could-hit-7-oil-could-double-in-four-years-cibc-says
After two unsuccessful attempts to establish a company to manufacture automobiles, the Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 with Henry Ford as vice-president and chief engineer. (Editors 9.) The small company produced only a few cars a day at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. Groups of two or three men worked on each car from components ordered in by other companies. (Yenne 45)
In 1903 the Ford Motor Company came to be. Ford, along with other investors including John and Horace Dodge raised $28,000 and in the first 15 months produced 1700 Model A cars. These cars were known for their reliability, yet were still too expensive for the average American. Over the next five years Ford and his engineers produced models with the letters B through S, the most successful of which was the Model N (priced at $500) , and the least successful was the Model K (priced at $2500). It was obvious from the Model N that the key to the companies success lay in inexpensive cars for a mass market. The answer that Ford and the American consumer were looking for was the Model T.
This paper will focus on the future of the U.S. Automobile industry as the United States recovers from the worst recession we have experienced in the past 75 years. I will provide information on the following topics pertaining to the U.S. automobile industry:
Currently, the major competitors within the industry are Ford, DaimlerChrylser, General Motors (GM), Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen. A few United States (US) manufacturers produce 23% of the world’s vehicles while Japan is responsible for 21%. The tendency for the industry is to be a global producer of automobiles; parts can be made throughout the world and assembled in many different places. The trend of consolidation has continued throughout today. Presently, this is evident in the recent acquisition of Chrysler by Daimler-Benz in late 1998, thus forming DaimlerChrylser. These consolidations have proved beneficial to consumers since companies have been able to reduce costs and pass those savings on to the customers. Some of the other major examples of consolidation are Nissan selling off a controlling 37% interest to Renault; General Motor’s 49% ownership of Isuzu; and Ford’s 33% majority of Mazda. Other efforts to become more competitive have translated into the European Union dropping trade barriers and European carmakers employing cost reducing efforts. American manufacturers have seen 2-3% growth over the last few years. Some current trends are the explosion in popularity of the Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) and big luxury vehicles.
The first automobile produced for the masses in the US was the three-horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile; 425 of them were sold in 1901 and 5,000 in 1904--this model is still prized by collectors. The firm prospered, and it was noted by others, and, from 1904 to 1908, 241 automobile-manufacturing firms went into business in the United States. One of these was the Ford Motor Company which was organized in June 1903, and sold its first car on the following July 23. The company produced 1,700 cars during its first ...
Nissan was the first company to introduce a 100 percent electric car that produces zero emission and they had great hopes for this vehicle (“Nissan Product Information”). According to Michael Strong, the company believed that this car would be the future of transportation and that it would soon be responsible for 10 percent of all new vehicle sales. However, after 3 years on the market, Nissan’s CEO Ghosn admitted that the Nissan Leaf is only accountable for 4...
In the United States, modern car manufacturing has been historically dominated by the American companies including Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC, and General Motors Co. These three companies, known as the Detroit Three, controlled 95% of the market in the 1950’s and the dominance continued until the beginning of the 21st century. In the 1980’s Japanese auto manufacturers entered the United States, a decade later the Germans, and finally in 2000’s the Koreans. By the end of 2009, the Detroit Three only accounted for 45% of the total U.S. auto market. Another factor that had influence on this was constant fluctuations in gasoline prices and price sensitive consumers. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, gas prices hit record high averaging $3.07 per gallon in May 2007 and kept climbing up to $4.08 in July 2008. As gas prices kept increasing, consumer buying trends have been changing. In 2006 sales for SUVs, pickup trucks, and vans dropped 16%, while the market for compact cars rose by 3%. Unfortunately, the Detroit Three were not prepared for this since their...
The General Motors Company was founded by William Durant on September 16, 1908. Initially, “Durant was a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in Flint, Michigan before making the transition into the automobile industry”(GM). At its inception, “GM held only the Buick Motor Company, but within just a few short years they would acquire more than 20 companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Oakland, today known as Pontiac”(GM). In doing so, General Motors became an automotive manufacturing powerhouse.
The story of Toyota Motor Corporation began in September 1933 when Toyoda Automatic Loom created a new division devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda. Soon thereafter, the division produced its first Type A Engine in 1934, which was used in the first Model A1 passenger car in May 1935 and the G1 truck in August 1935. Production of the Model AA passenger car started in 1936.
In 1937, the German government founded Volkswagen to mass produce a low priced "peoples car." A Nazi organization called the German Labor Front operated the company originally. They brought in Ferdinand Porsche to design the car. He used elements from his type 32 prototype NSU that he designed in 1934. Such elements were an air cooled horizontally opposed four cylinder rear mounted engine and torsion bar suspension. Production was supposed to start at the Kdf-Stadt factory in September 1939, but this turned out to be the same month that world war two was declared and the car was put off. As the war raged on, the factory was used to produce military vehicles. By 1943 the factory had 12,000 prisoners of war repairing aircraft inside it. Near the end of the war, the factory was used to manufacture the V1 buzz bomb. For most of the war the factory was not bombed because it was so new it was not on many allied maps. However, several daylight allied attacks finally took it out. After the war, West Germany help rebuild itself with the Volkswagen. In merely a decade, nearly half the cars on the West German roads were Volkswagens.
Initially the components of the car were entirely manufactured by Mitsubishi but slowly the local parts were being used as those technologies were transferred and skills were gained.
Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Company in 1903 (“Ford Motor Company”.). In 1908 GM was founded (“Company: History and Heritage”.) and in 1937 Mopar was founded (“Evolution of a trademark”). Today, there are numerous automobile companies in competition and the automobile is the most reliable transportation in America and around the world. The invention of the automobile undoubtedly had one of the biggest impacts on American History.
In 1937, the United States was still reeling from the Great Depression, George VI sat on the throne in England, the world was still two years away from the start of World War II, and in Japan the son of the “King of Japanese Inventors,” Sakichi Toyoda, was spinning off a new company from his father’s empire. The son, Kiichiro Toyoda, founded the Toyota Motor Corporation three years after it had created its first product, the Toyota A engine, and only one year after its first automobile, the Toyota AA. Today, Toyota is the largest auto maker in the world and the fourteenth largest company overall, while employing over 300,000 employees worldwide. The original Toyota cars sold in Japan were sold under the name “Toyopet,” which was in regards to the cars small size. Upon entering the U.S. market in the late 1950’s the name was changed to the now familiar Toyota. The reasoning behind this was the name Toyopet could potentially be associated with “toys” and “pets,” two things Toyota did not want. With the advent of harsher importing tariffs on vehicles in the 1960’s and 70’s, Toyota realized the only way to fully penetrate the American market was to begin building the cars here. They broke ground on the first wave of U.S. production plants in the early 80’s. 1982 saw the creation of the narrow bodied Camry model, and by 1989 they had launched Lexus, the luxury division of Toyota. Their first truck, the T100 hit the market in 1993 and in 1997 Toyota began production of what would become the best-selling hybrid car in the world, the Prius. The 2000s saw the company enter into Formula One racing, the release of the Tundra, and awards for the Camry, Prius, and Tundra. In 2005, Toyota was ranked eighth on Forbes list of the world’s leading ...
The National steel car company was founded in the year 1912 and has existed for over 100 years, emerging as the leading freight car manufacturer company in North America. The company's commitment to the provision of quality products has earned it this reputation.
the only person other than Ford to successfully break in to the automotive industry. (Henry Ford Biography, 2015) The second car produced by Ford was the Model N, a $600 dollar four-cylinder automobile which became the bestselling car in the country. (Henry Ford Biography-Childhood, Life, Achievements & Timeline, 2015) Much of the Ford’s success was due to the assistants that Ford had. James S. Couzens, C.H.Willis, and John and Horace Dodge, the Dodge brothers who would eventually start Dodge motors learned a lot from Ford at this time. (Henry Ford Biography, 2015) In 1907 profits were over $1,100,000 dollars and the company had a worth of $1,038,822. This was substantial amount of money at this time. After the success of the first two models Ford had a vision for a better, cheaper, motorcar called the Model T which got its name due to the fact the o-s where not approved or liked by Ford. So, in 1908, the Model T was introduced to the public. (Exhibits, 2014) The Model T was easy to