Car Costs Research Articles

Car Costs

Car Costs

An evaluation of non‐aqueous dispersion

Of the mass production industries, the Automobile Industry is perhaps the leader in demanding a high standard of finish appearance and finish performance for its product. This is to be expected, considering the prestigious nature of the product and cost of the motor car, and the increasing impact of consumerism in all the major markets of the world.

The Energy Cost of Automobiles

One of the consequences of the energy crisis has been a heightened interest in the amounts of energy we use for industrial processes. A conspicuous one is the manufacture of automobiles. How much free energy is harnessed in the manufacture of a motor vehicle? Are there ways of reducing the amount of energy used in auto production?This report is based on a study by R. Stephen Berry and Margaret F. Fels of the department of chemistry, University of Chicago. The immediate purpose of the study was to provide the Institute of Environmental Quality of State of Illinois with assistance in making decisions on the disposal of automobile hulks and of solid waste in general. In a larger context, the analysis examines one aspect of how we use materials and energy from a thermodynamic point of view.The study is a pioneering effort in a new field of energy analysis. Its significance is illustrated by only one of its conclusions-that recycling junked autos which scarify our landscape and reusing the scrap in the manufacture of new ones would achieve dramatic reductions in total power consumption.

£10 to stop the rot

Use of a new rust‐resistant steel would add less than £10 to the cost of an average car. Yet most of Britain's motor industry refuse to use it, claiming that advanced painting methods now in operation offer better protection against corrosion. Furthermore, they say the public is more interested in style and speed than durability. Alan Hamilton reports.

Bottom line compliance for biotechnology: Six secrets

Biotechnology executives frequently short-shrift one of the key indicators of return on investment when negotiating pharmaceutical partnerships, support or licensing: a compliance and quality system. Given the increasingly tight financial markets biotechnology executives must operate within, can a good quality system be established for less than the cost of an average car?

Automobile Collisions on Purpose

This paper presents a brief discussion of some of the findings from forty-eight full-scale automobile collision experiments conducted at UCLA during the past ten years. These experiments have provided critically needed data on physical factors relating to vehicular collision dynamics and attending motorist injuries. Use of both human subjects and anthropometric dummies facilitate procurement of critically needed data on the relation of design to injury causation. Specific data derived from these experiments include deceleration patterns for different locations on the motorist and car structure, the relation of impact speed to car deformation and repair costs, the performance of motorist restraining devices and the interaction of human and dummy motorists with their cars' interior and external environment during collisions.

Cost of a New Car

Cost of a New Car

Contamination and Corrosion in Rail Tank Cars

Despite improvements in tank cars since their invention in 1870, a major problem has always remained—the problem of corrosion and contamination control. Although aluminium and stainless‐steel cars seem to offer the ideal solution to this problem in some applications, the initial cost of such tank cars makes their utilisation impracticable for most users. It has been estimated that less than 2% of the 174,000 tank cars now in service in the U.S.A. are so constructed. However, close to 10%, or more than 17,000 interiors or tank cars at present in use, are treated with protective coatings or linings designed to ensure adequate protection for the cars and the products they carry. Customer demand for high standards of product purity is continuing to raise this figure at a rapid rate. Because of this trend towards the use of more and better protective linings, the ever‐increasing diversification of chemical products, and the once‐again rising use of railroad tank cars, Metalweld Inc., of Philadelphia, have recently conducted an extensive study of the problems encountered in the protection of tank‐car interiors and exteriors and the effect of such protection on the purity of the products carried. The results of the research indicated that, in practically every problem situation, protection of car and product can be achieved by one of the many protective coating systems available to industry today.

Multiple-unit car equipment for a-c electrified railways

This description of the latest a-c multiple-unit car equipment to go into service on the Pennsylvania Railroad reviews the features which have been incorporated to provide motors and control at a reasonable cost, with adequate margin for the service, and which are expected to result in major economies in operation over the years. The possibility of reducing costs of multiple-unit cars by the use of Ignitron-rectifier motive power to effect standardization of traction also is discussed in this article.

Social and Economic Adjustments in a Democratic World

THIE YEAR, just passed, will no doubt go down as one of the most significant, thus far, in statistical history. It will be remembered by this generation of statisticians, not so much because of the value and importance of the output of statistical material, but rather by the fact that figures-statistical data-were the central point of economic and social controversy through the greater part of the year. Indeed, the battle of statistics was well under way before the year 1946 began. It came to the forefront in the automobile wage controversy; in the contention of the Automobile Workers Union that wage rates could be raised by a certain amount without necessarily increasing the cost of cars to the public. When this contention was denied and the union undertook to modify its demands, if management could prove by actual evidence that the wage increase could not be granted without an appreciable rise in production costs and hence in the price of its products, management, according to press dispatches, stood by its constitutional rights to refuse to make such data available. There followed one of the longest and costliest strikes in the annals of the automobile industry, a strike that was finally resolved after granting a wage increase of fairly considerable proportions. It is not intended here to question the right of management, as reported in the press, to refuse to reveal the details of its costs. That is an issue of public policy that is an integral part of our concept of the nature of private rights, and our concept of under what conditions an industry comes within what has been defined as a public utility. Nor are we here concerned with the circumstances or the manner in which an agency of the federal government concluded that an increase of 191 cents was justifiable. Nor are we concerned with the circumstances that finally led the management to grant the increase it made. What we are concerned with is the fact that we, you and I, do not know, and perhaps never will know, whether wages could have been increased 25 cents, 184 cents, 16 cents, or even 10 cents, without appreciably raising the labor cost of making automobiles-had the controversy been amicably settled with-

Control Tests of Uniformity in the Manufacture of Carbon Black

Abstract Twenty-five years ago, a pneumatic tire for an automobile cost twenty-five dollars and gave service of about 3500 miles. Today a pneumatic tire costs only one-half as much and can be relied upon to give service of about 25,000 miles. These improvements are the result of various factors, such as the use of cord fabric, organic accelerators, antioxidants, and other carefully chosen raw materials. Among these latter, it is safe to say that carbon black is unquestionably the raw material which has contributed most of all to the increased mileage of pneumatic tires. Years ago when the reënforcing properties imparted to rubber by carbon black first became recognized, this product was furnished without any particular requirements other than freedom from impurities. Later, as the percentage of carbon black incorporated in rubber mixtures continued to increase, certain measures were taken to control the grit content. Ultimately, with the aim of furnishing the rubber industry with a product of the highest quality and greatest uniformity, the most important producers of carbon black, in coöperation with the laboratories of rubber factories, proceeded to develop a series of check tests and various other tests, which have led in turn to the development of the present-day specifications of carbon black.

Automobile Cost in Rural Health Work: Report on Operation of Automobiles in Cooperative Rural Health Work in Virginia

Automobile Cost in Rural Health Work: Report on Operation of Automobiles in Cooperative Rural Health Work in Virginia