Automobile Body Styles and Design

PART ONE

Automobile Body Styles

Convertible- This car has a sporty body stile with a retractable or fold-able roof. They usually have two doors and are made of plastic, steel, or aluminum. 

Estate- An Estate is a station wagon with an extended rear for luggage or cargo. It had a two-box design with four doors. They usually share the same frontal design. 

Hatchback- This is a car with a sloping back and a hinged rear door that opens upwards. It is usually much more compact and cam fit four people but it is most likely very crowded. 

Sedan- A Sedan is a passenger car with a bonnet covering the engine and a separate place for luggage and cargo. It is one of the most popular body styles and can fit at least four people. 

SUV- This vehicle is similar to a Sedan but is usually higher off the ground. It usually offers four-wheel-drive and are designed for both on and off the road driving. Some have the towing capacity of a pickup and some offer the passenger carrying of a minivan.

PART TWO

Automobile Design

1. It takes ten years to design a car and they start off with the sketching phase that is mostly done on the computer.

2. Design is called problem solving because they have to find a design that is pleasing to everyone with no flaws. 

3. The feasibility stage is when they take their sketches and make sure they can actually be done and match up with the engineering. This is the largest part to designing a car and is where all the negotiating comes in play. 

4. I don't think designing an automobile would interest me because it's a very stressful job and you need a lot of imagination to be able to create a new design. 

Careers and Certification in the Automotive Industry

PART ONE

Careers in the Automotive Industry

1. Some of the high tech systems that didn't exist 30 years ago are standard equipment on much of the nation’s fleet of vehicles: stability and traction control systems, adaptive cruise control and variable valve timing
2. Some areas that children should have skills in for an automotive technician are math, science, communications and technical skills.
3. Some advantages in obtaining an education as an automotive technicians versus other high-tech educational options are high-tech careers require four, six, or eight years of college, automotive technology careers can begin after just two years of education.
4. Repair and maintenance industry is expected to add 237,500 new jobs and have a 30 percent growth rate through 2020.
5. Automotive service and repair is fairly immune to you moving because these jobs are needed everywhere.
6. Four positions an automotive technician can do in the industry are: parts distribution and wholesaling, collision repair, painting, and damage estimating.
7. The automotive technician is sometimes called "the portal career" because so many people have started their careers in the automotive aftermarket as an auto technician.

Video Reflection

Some aspects of being a automotive technician that I think I'd enjoy would be never having to do the same thing because new technologies would be invented all the time. I think I would get bored and tired of doing the same time over and over for the rest of my life so this would be great for me. Something I found interesting about the film was how it's kind of like a puzzle when they get in an automobile and they have to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it. The notion of life-long learning is important for these workers because there will always be something new they have to learn because technology is always advancing. If people don't try to learn, they wont be able to do their job because they wouldn't know how it works and how to solve the issue. Some characteristics and skills someone should have before looking into this career would be a bright, outgoing personality because they have to talk to their clients and the clients need to be able to trust them with their vehicle. They have to always want to learn something new and be able to adapt to changes because they will always have to be ready to learn new technologies.

PART TWO

Certification in the Automotive Industry
NATEF- The purpose of this organization is to improve the quality of automotive technician training programs nationwide at secondary and post-secondary, public and proprietary schools. Their primary focus is to increase career awareness opportunities in the automotive repair industry.
SGS- Their purpose is to help every player in the automotive industry improve performance and reduce risk. They focus on the design, construction and operation of motor vehicle inspection solutions for the world.
ASE- This place is a National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. Its purpose and its primary focus is to improve the quality of vehicle repair and service by testing and certifying automotive professionals.

PART THREE

Jobs in the Automotive Industry

I think the job I would most enjoy would be the CEO or GM. I'd like this job so much because you'd be in so much power and get to run the biggest company in the world. Also, you would get payed a lot and never have to worry about not having a lot of money when you retire. A job that I would dislike the most would be an automotive journalist. I'd rather be doing things instead of writing and I think I'd get really bored from writing all the time. 

Emerging Technologies and Automobiles

Technologies in Development

Out of the six emerging technologies, I think the most unlikely thing to actually be created would be the flying car. I thing this is the most far fetched because to be able to make it compacted enough would arouse a lot of issues and making sure it is 100% safe will be very difficult. The technology that I think would have the biggest impact on society would be the Google car. This car is very intelligent and can help reduce the number of accidents happen and have less traffic jams. I also think the Google car will be a part of newer automobiles. It seems to be the most realistic and also already has a couple of its features in cars like the cars that can park your car for you and have sensors so you don't run into other cars. I think the "driver workload estimator" could help a lot of people be much safer because it is able to sense what you are feeling and react in a way that will help you through the situation until you are in a safer area. My thoughts on the flying automobile is that it will still be some time before people will be able to use it and to make sure it is safe. A benefit with the flying car would be the time it takes for you to travel to our destination because it will be reduced by at least half. A disadvantage of this vehicle is if there ever was a malfunction, the car would crash from out of the sky and probably cause life threatening injury's. I think the self-driving automobile is a great idea and would help our society a lot and if someone thinks it may rob them from the driving experience, then they don't have to buy it but they may change their mind once they see all the good change it is doing to peoples safety. 

Tech for the Sake of Tech?

I found it very surprising that ages 21-38 didn't care about having their smart phone connected to the car. I think this was a great invention and that everyone should take advantage of it. People in my generation would probably use these qualities a lot more because we use technology a lot more than the last generation and it would be safer. I do think the other technologies mentioned in the article helped address the dangers of distracting driving because people would know they wouldn't create these things unless there was a reasoning to it. It lets them think about it more and come to an understanding about how dangerous it can be. These new technologies installed into vehicles are very important to me and my family when considering buying a car because they are so useful and can help a lot. A new technology feature I like is the blind spot detector because there isn't anything you can do about them and you never know what may be in that blind spot. People probably thought the flashing turn signals weren't important because they would have been used to doing it how they did and just thought of it as an extra thing to do that wasn't necessary. It would have been hard for them to get used to it and very easy to forget about so people would just think of it as a hassle. 

Part Three and Four: Looking at The History of The Automobile

Tucker's Dream Impacts Auto Industry

• Creating the newer version of the automobile was said to be an impossible task
• Made a new window so that if you got into an accident and hit the window, the window would pop out rather than you break through it
• A middle headlight was created in between the other headlights to turn with the steering wheel so you'd always have light
• Only 50 of his cars were ever built

The Ford Edsel

• Was a big failure
• It was named after Ford's only son
• People thought it looked odd and ugly
• It was the industry's biggest flaw

Automobile Timeline

1939- The Nash Motor Company adds the first air conditioning system to cars. I selected this point because I'd imagine this would have been a big break through for car businesses because everyone would want one to be able to cool down in the hot summers. 

1950's- Ralph Teeter, a blind man, senses by ear that cars on the Pennsylvania Turnpike travel at uneven speeds, which he believes leads to accidents. Through the 1940's he develops a cruise control mechanism that a driver can set to hold the car at a steady speed. Unpopular when generally introduced in the 1950's, cruise control is now standard on more than 70 percent of today’s automobiles. I thought this was important because it makes it so much easier to drive long distances.

1911- Charles Kettering introduces the electric starter. Until this time engines had to be started by hand cranking. Critics believed no one could make an electric starter small enough to fit under a car’s hood yet powerful enough to start the engine. His starters first saw service in 1912 Cadillac's. Without this being found, we probably wouldn't have the auto start cars we have today. 

1913- Ford Motor Company develops the first moving assembly line for automobiles. It brings the cars to the workers rather than having workers walk around factories gathering parts and tools and performing tasks. Under the Ford assembly line process, workers perform a single task rather than master whole portions of automobile assembly. The Highland Park, Michigan, plant produces 300,000 cars in 1914. Ford’s process allows it to drop the price of its Model T continually over the next 14 years, transforming cars from unaffordable luxuries into transportation for the masses. This made the production of cars way faster and is why we have so much cars available today and also allowed other kinds of companies to use this method so they could have their product made a lot faster.  

Carl Benz

Carl Benz

1. Automobiles have been around since 1885.
2. A patent is a government authority or license conferring a right or title for a set period.
3. When Carl Benz obtains a patent in January of 1886 for his invention, he used the title Vehicle with Gas Engine to describe the automobile.
4. Carl's wife, Bertha drove his invention in August of 1888. From this drive, the automobile is born.
5. The so called "axial pivot steering system" helped solve the steering issues they were having.

6. The new name when the two automobile companies are merged is Mercedes Benz.

7. Benz experienced his dream come true as a pioneer in technology that many pioneers never experienced.

Henry Ford and the Model T

1. The assembly line changed from suggestions made to Henry Ford by three of his employees by making the line move to the workers and not them move to the line.
2. Worker tended to stay longer and be more committed to Ford's company than other companies at the time because he gave them a bigger wage that they were able to live off of.
3. The first Model T cost a little over $1000 and they were made for the common people.
4. The Model T price dropped dramatically to the price of $600 and then $300. I think it dropped so much because a lot of people were poor and probably couldn't afford it.
5. As the Model T became the main model of transportation, it offered people the ability to travel for pleasure and visit family without having to use the railroads.  Also transformed the way we settled the country. 

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