I was there...

• Sequel 300 Mile Drive
• 1966, Working On The First Fuel Cell Vehicle

Tell us your story >

In today’s era of electronics, computer-aided design, and cellular phones, it’s hard to imagine such basic features as a car’s ignition system, its roof, or even its paint being major limitations to its performance or convenience. Regular product innovations have made today’s car only remotely similar to its predecessors. And General Motors has been at the vanguard of that innovation process.

Safety and the environment were not of concern to most people when General Motors was created a hundred years ago. Today, of course, they are very much on drivers’ and passengers’ minds. But General Motors was doing pioneering research in both areas long before they became public or even regulatory issues—in fact, GM was responsible for numerous safety and environmental innovations that have now become standard across the industry.

GM’s record of innovation also goes beyond the automobile itself. In its early years, the company took a chance on several business and marketing ideas that have since been adopted by all kinds of businesses.

From the electric self-starter to rigorous vehicle testing; from brakes, to transmissions and propulsion systems; and from organizational structure to marketing — General Motors has been responsible for more innovations than any other automaker. Most of the milestone GM “firsts” are still available on today’s vehicles.

Today, with environmental and energy concerns more important than ever, GM’s commitment to innovation is even stronger as the company enters its second century. GM’s goal is nothing less than to remove the automobile itself from the environmental equation with such revolutionary vehicles as the Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell vehicle.

The following list is just a sampling of top GM safety, environmental, product, and business innovations.

2010: Chevrolet Volt, The First Extended Range Electric Vehicle with no Traditional Internal Combustion Power

A car that plugs into a common electric outlet to get its power? A car whose gasoline engine powers only a generator rather than its wheels? Yesterday, both were a dream. Today, the Chevrolet Volt’s revolutionary E-Flex propulsion system is unique among all others.

The Chevrolet Volt concept car has already made headlines around the world. With gasoline prices reaching $4 a gallon in the spring of 2008, GM CEO Rick Wagoner confirmed that the Chevrolet Volt will go into production and be in Chevrolet dealerships by the end of 2010. The production Volt will use a common 110-volt or 220-volt household plug for charging its lithium-ion battery. For drivers traveling fewer than 40 miles a day, it mayuse zero gasoline and produce zero tailpipe emissions. For longer trips, its range-extending engine, fueled by gasoline, recharges the battery as the car travels and extends its driving range to that of a typical car. Unlike other hybrids, its small internal combustion engine is used solely to maintain the battery’s charge rather than directly power the vehicle. Building on many technologies and innovations developed in the earlier EV1 electric car, the Chevrolet Volt represents the most radical departure yet from the internal combustion engine that has been the core of the automobile for more than a century.

2006: GM Opens First Ever LEED-Gold Certified Automobile Manufacturing Facility

In August of 2006, GM's Lansing Delta Township Assembly Plant received a gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. It was the first automobile manufacturing plant in the world to ever receive any level of LEED certification. LEED certification is the building industry's well-respected recognition of superior energy and environmental design and construction. Over the plant's first ten years of operations, it is expected to save more than 40 million gallons of water and 30 million kilowatt hours of electricity.

2004: The First Hybrid Propulsion System for Buses

While news media attention focused on automakers’ efforts to develop hybrid cars in the early 2000s, GM was also working on hybrid transit buses, where the immediate fuel savings potential was greater than for cars. In June 2004, Seattle, Washington, became the first city to put the unique GM hybrid propulsion system for transit buses in service. Within a year, more than 40 cities and communities in the U.S. had adopted it. The GM hybrid bus technology offers up to 60 percent greater fuel economy and 90 percent cleaner emissions than traditional bus propulsion systems. It is estimated that if America’s 9 largest cities replaced their conventional diesel transit bus fleets (some 13,000 buses) with GM’s hybrid system, those cities together would save 40 million gallons of fuel a year — a greater fuel savings than 500,000 small hybrid vehicles. Today, GM's hybrid portfolio is expanding. By the end of 2008, GM is expected to offer up to eight hybrid models. The vehicles will come equipped with either the GM Hybrid System or GM's 2-Mode Hybrid System which helps to maximize fuel economy in both city and highway driving conditions. And by 2012, GM expects to offer 20 hybrid models.

1999: Child Resistant Trunk Kits

To combat the safety issue of children becoming entrapped in car trunks, GM worked with the National SAFE KIDS campaign to learn more about the problem. The solution: a child-resistant trunk kit that featured a modified trunk latch with a lever that had to be manually reset before the trunk lid would close. The kit also contained an escape handle and lighting to allow children who might become trapped in the trunk to easily see their way out. More than 100 children contributed input into the development of the escape handle. The final escape handle design was simple, functional and fit the thinking of young children.

1996: EV1: the First Modern-day Electric Propulsion System

Rising concerns over the environment and energy availability and cost led GM to re-examine a technology that had been abandoned by the auto industry long ago. Based on a concept car called Impact, the EV1 was the first commercial test of the feasibility and appeal of electric vehicles in nearly a century. Powered by batteries that could be recharged overnight in the driver’s home, it produced zero emissions, didn’t even have a tailpipe, and burned no gasoline — didn’t even have a fuel tank. The cars were offered for lease rather than for purchase through select Saturn dealerships in California and Arizona as a test of electric cars’ viability. Just over a thousand EV1s were built but the lessons learned about battery technology and drivers’ reaction to a car with no transmission and no fuel tank were invaluable in pushing the technology envelope to develop other types of alternative propulsion vehicle, including GM’s hybrid lineup and the Chevrolet Volt. The EV1 program ended in 2003 but one model is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

1996: OnStar, the First Automotive Telematics System

Remember when you had to stop and either ask for help or phone someone whenever you needed driving directions? That would have been before 1996, when GM launched OnStar, the world’s first in-vehicle, hands-free voice communication system — a technology known as telematics. Plans for the system were announced at the Chicago Auto Show in February 1996. Just 11 months later, OnStar was available on the 1997 model year Cadillac lineup. That was the beginning of what has since become a rapidly expanding telematics industry. Using global positioning and satellite telecommunications, the system links the vehicle driver to 24-hour OnStar advisers ready to provide a host of services ranging from driving directions to emergency assistance. OnStar’s unique Turn-by- Turn Navigation feature gives the driver audio directions to a specific destination and precise instructions where and when to turn or stop as he or she proceeds to the destinations, without the driver ever having to move eyes from the road or hands from the wheel. Other OnStar features include automatic notification of emergency services whenever an air bag is deployed; remote unlocking of the car if the keys are accidentally locked inside; and a monthly e-mail report of the vehicle’s maintenance status. Today, OnStar is available on the vast majority of vehicles GM sells in North America and remains the largest telematics service in the auto industry, with a base of more than 5 million subscribers.

1974: The Catalytic Converter

General Motors Research had begun developing catalytic converter technology throughout the 1960s as a way to achieve significant reductions in vehicle emissions. The major obstacle to its effectiveness was the lead contained in all gasoline at that time. Development accelerated after 1970, when GM became the first automaker to introduce engines capable of running on low-lead or no-lead gasoline. Unlike other proposed solutions to the emissions problem, the GM catalytic converter employed a three-way catalyst using rhodium, platinum, and palladium instead of base metals. The use of these rare metals in the form of pellets allowed harmful emission vapors to be absorbed inside the catalytic converter itself rather than emitted into the air. Catalytic converters became standard equipment on all 1975 model GM cars sold in the U.S. and Canada. At the time, this was the largest breakthrough ever in reducing harmful vehicle emissions, and all of today’s cars and trucks are still equipped with catalytic converters.

1972: The Hybrid II Crash Dummy

How do you test the impact of vehicle collisions on the human body without using live people or animals? The simple answer is to use dummies instead, but there are two problems: first, develop a dummy that reacts like the human body; and second, develop ways to scientifically record and measure all the reactions that occur during the crash. After years of research and testing, General Motors developed the Hybrid II series of crash test dummies, which were immediately recognized as the most sophisticated and reliable ever used. They proved to be such a durable and repeatable assessment tool that the U.S. government made it the standard for all frontal crash testing for compliance with regulations governing restraint systems. As GM scientists continued working to develop even more sophisticated and human-like crash dummies, its Hybrid III series was declared in 1997 by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to be the only official frontal impact test device for occupant restraint compliance testing. The following year, Hybrid III also became the official test device for frontal impact restraint regulation compliance across Europe.

1970: Engines Capable of Running on Low-lead or No-lead Gasoline

When GM developed tetra-ethyl lead gasoline in the 1920s (see separate story on product performance and convenience innovations), it was hailed as the long-awaited breakthrough that would allow development of more powerful high-compression engines. No one at the time was concerned about air pollution, but by the 1960s, GM scientists had proven that lead in gasoline was the major obstacle to developing an effective catalytic converter to reduce harmful vehicle emissions. GM engineers then proceeded to develop engines that could run as efficiently on low-lead or no-lead gasoline as they could on lead gasoline. For the 1971 model year, GM took the bold step of introducing engines that could run on low-lead or no-lead gasoline on all its U.S. and Canadian car and light truck models: the first automaker to do so. To accommodate the new fuel, engines were re-engineered with lower compression ratios without major sacrifice of performance. This paved the way for development of the catalytic converter, the historic breakthrough in reducing emissions, as well as the complete phase-out of lead gasoline.

1966: The World’s First Fuel Cell Vehicle

Try to picture a chemical laboratory on wheels and you get an idea of the challenges GM scientists and engineers took on in building the world’s first fuel cell vehicle, the Electrovan. The energy potential of fuel cells had long been known in the scientific community but no one had tried to apply it to automotive transportation. A team of 250 GM researchers spent 2 years before the fuel cell Electrovan took its first successful road test. It had a top speed of 70 miles per hour and a range of 120 miles but inside were more than 550 feet of pipes and two huge hydrogen tanks, with barely enough room for two passengers. Costs and safety concerns at the time prevented further development but the Electrovan proved that a vehicle powered by fuel cells and producing no emissions other than clean water was not just a dream. In the 1990s and 2000s, GM went on to develop fuel cell vehicles like the HydroGen 3 (based on the Opel Zafira minivan platform) and the AUTOnomy concept vehicle that are no different in appearance or interior space than models powered by internal combustion engines. The advancement continued in 2007 when the Chevy Sequel became the first electrically-driven fuel cell vehicle to achieve 300 miles on one tank of hydrogen while producing zero emissions. Today, GM is testing fuel cells for commercial use with a program called Project Driveway — the world's largest market test of fuel cell vehicles, where consumers test-drive Chevy Equinoxes and provide feedback to GM.

1963: The PCV Valve

Back in the 1960s, environmental issues in general and automobile emissions in particular had yet to appear on the radar screen as major concerns. But GM researchers had been studying the nature and composition of emissions for years. After discovering that the smog-forming potential of individual hydrocarbons varied by as much as a factor of 1,000, they established the first hydrocarbon rating system. With this, they were then able to determine the effectiveness of smog control devices. After identifying engine blow-by gas as a major source of emissions from the vehicle’s engine, they developed the Positive Crankcase Ventilation valve, commonly known as the PCV valve, to cap the gas. Made standard on all GM cars in the U.S. beginning in the 1964 model year and adopted by the rest of the industry soon afterwards, this was the auto industry’s very first vehicle emissions control device.

1940: The Fully Automatic Transmission

Remember how raspy, awkward, and down-right difficult it used to be to shift gears in a car? If you don’t, chances are your grandparents would. General Motors was working on a smoother and simpler transmission as early as the 1920s. Several prototypes were developed, including infinitely-variable transmissions, hydraulic transmissions, and synchromesh gearshift, but none proved reliable under extensive driving in test cars. In 1934, a special team called the Transmission Development Group was formed to develop a semiautomatic transmission with some step-ratio gear shifts done by hand shifting and others automatically selected. It was offered on 1938 Buick and Oldsmobile models but still required a clutch pedal for starting and stopping. That same year, the Transmission Development Group discovered that both the clutch and its pedal could be eliminated by building a fluid coupling within the transmission assembly. Thus was born the first fully automatic transmission. Called Hydra-Matic, it appeared first on the 1940 Oldsmobile lineup and then on the 1941 Cadillac lineup. With America’s entry into World War II, the Transmission Development Group turned its attention to automatic transmissions for large vehicles such as trucks and tanks but after the war, the Hydra-Matic’s simplicity and convenience made its popularity soar with the car-buying public. Like so many other GM innovations, the Hydra-Matic’s technology was soon adopted by the entire industry and automatic transmissions quickly outnumbered manual transmissions in cars on the road in North America.

1934: The One-piece All-steel Roof

Can you envision your car roof with a hole in the middle covered with canvas? Not that many years ago, it was impossible not to. Before GM engineers and designers created the first once-piece all-steel roof, car roofs were flat and boxy in appearance, with a center portion made of either canvas or a rubber compound because it was impossible to make a single metal stamping as large as required for the entire roof. These roofs did not have high durability, especially in severe climates, and limited designers’ horizons. When the steel industry first demonstrated that sheet steel could be produced in high-speed strip mills in widths up to eighty inches, GM’s Fisher Body Division proceeded to experiment with ways to stamp a car roof from a single sheet of steel: the largest single stamping ever produced, requiring the largest presses ever made. After several different designs and extensive testing, GM introduced the first all-steel one-piece roof, called the “Turret Top” because of its shape, on 1935 model year Chevrolet lineup and on all cars built in North America shortly thereafter. Soon adopted by the rest of the industry, this was a major breakthrough not only in manufacturing technology but design and safety. It allowed designers to add shape to the roof and led to a new era of streamlined styling and at the same time enhanced the vehicle roof’s structural integrity.

1933: Independent Front Wheel Suspension

Imagine what your derriere would feel like if your body absorbed the full impact of every rut and hole that every wheel of your car encountered. That’s what it felt like before GM came up with independent front wheel suspension. Engineers throughout the industry had been struggling with how to soften the car’s ride for decades. Balloon tires and coil springs helped, but the impact of even small ruts or bumps in the road was still jarring to driver and passengers because the springs were mounted on a solid axle. In 1933, GM engineers developed the first independent front wheel suspension system. It allowed only the impacted wheel (rather than the entire axle and both front wheels) to absorb the brunt of the shock when it hit a bump or hole. Called “knee-action” suspension because of the way it interacted with the axle, it made the car safer as well as more comfortable. After Alfred Sloan took a personal test ride, it was introduced on all North American GM cars in the 1934 model year.

1928: Safety Glass

How would you like to be driving or riding in a car whose windshield and windows were all made of the same fragile glass you’d find in an old picture frame? Not a pleasant thought if you’re concerned about safety. Before GM introduced safety glass on its Cadillac and LaSalle models in 1928, that easily-shattered and jagged-edge glass was typical for most cars. A new technology developed by the glass firm PPG made it possible to place a laminated film between two thin sheets of glass. When used on car windshileds and windows, it held the shards in place if the glass shattered, greatly reducing cuts and injuries. GM’s Cadillac and LaSalle models were the first to use this new safety glass in all windows as well as windshields, and the rest of the industry soon followed suit.

1924: Market Segmentation

By the time Durant left the company he had created, in 1920, General Motors was the closest rival to Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company, which dominated America’s booming car market with its low-price, high-volume Model T. Under Durant’s successor, Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., (often called the father of the modern corporation), GM adopted the ground-breaking strategy of “a car for every purse and purpose,” which divided the market into distinct price segments ranging from low-price to luxury and offered distinctive brands and models in each segment. GM thus offered customers clear and distinct choices that reflected both their aspirations and their budgets — and soon overtook Ford as the sales leader. Today, all major automakers around the world still use this core strategy of multiple brands and models targeted at different market segments.

1924: The Auto Industry’s First Proving Ground

Can you imagine buying a new model car that had never been scientifically tested for safety or reliability? Before GM established the industry’s first proving ground in Milford, Michigan, vehicles were tested only with a few drives on public roads and under far less than scientific conditions. The Milford Proving Ground introduced standardized test procedures covering a variety of driving, road, and weather conditions. Other manufacturers soon followed GM’s lead and established their own proving grounds. Today, the Milford Proving Ground encompasses 4,000 acres and its test roads cover the equivalent of 132 miles of two-lane highway. Vehicles are test-driven a total of more than 15,000,000 miles annually. Milford also houses the GM Safety Research and Development Laboratory, where 450 full scale crash barrier tests and 1,250 sled crash tests are conducted each year.

1923: Decentralized Operations with Coordinated Control

Like most companies, the young General Motors had a less than rigorous process and structure for measuring operating units’ performance and coordinating their activities. That all changed when Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., became president of the company in 1923. Sloan had been appalled by the lack of structure in the growing company and had actually drafted a new organization chart in 1919. He called his structure “decentralized operations with coordinated control.” The idea was to give field and business unit management optimum independence in making decisions but to hold them accountable for performance by allocating capital and setting targets through committees in which all units of the company were represented. Management theorist Peter Drucker called it “the concept of the corporation” and it was soon adopted by all kinds of large companies in all kinds of business.

1923: Duco Paint

Henry Ford liked to quip that you could get his Model T in any color you wanted as long as it was black. General Motors had a different idea. Actually, the paint process was one of the biggest problems in early vehicle assembly. Each vehicle required separate coats of varnish and lacquer and the drying time was two weeks. GM’s “Boss” Kettering saw the possibility for a new formula after interviewing the manufacturer of a lacquer for pin trays who said that his product wouldn’t work on cars because it dried too fast. After extensive experimenting, Kettering and his GM research team hit upon what became known as Duco paint, which was developed for commercial use in a joint project between GM and the DuPont Company. First offered on GM’s Oakland models in 1923, Duco not only cut the drying process to a matter of hours: it also made possible a broad array of new colors and shades and was soon adopted not only by the entire auto industry but the appliance industry as well. Duco paint revolutionized both the assembly process and the customer’s choice of colors.

1919: Modern Retail Finance

In 1919, General Motors again revolutionized the auto industry by creating the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), allowing consumers to finance their vehicles at the dealership. Before this, car buyers had to either pay the full purchase price in cash or get a bank loan — and banks were reluctant to issue car loans at that time. This new concept of an internal retail finance arm was eventually adopted by the rest of the auto industry and all kinds of other businesses. Today, it remains one of the most common methods used by consumers to purchase “big ticket” items.

1914: The V-8 Engine

Early production car engines were not known for speed and performance. This all changed in 1914, when Cadillac introduced the industry’s first V-type, water-cooled eight-cylinder engine. This 314 cubic engine produced 70 horsepower and was the auto industry’s first major step in developing high-speed, high-compression engines. It was made standard on all Cadillac models in 1915. In the 1920s and 1930s, the development of tetraethyl lead gasoline allowed the development of even higher compression, more powerful engines without sacrificing weight. GM led the way in developing smoother and more reliable high compression V-8 engines after World War II, perhaps most notably with the famous Oldsmobile “Rocket V-8.” Beginning in the 1950s, GM’s small block V-8 (introduced in 1954) became renowned for its performance and durability. The small block V-8 remained in production for more than four decades.

1911: The Electric Self-starter

Can you imagine having to worry about breaking an arm or shoulder every time you tried to start your car? That was at the top of every driver’s mind before the self-starter made the procedure both simple and safe. Invented by Charles “Boss” Kettering in a barn near Dayton, Ohio, the electric self-starter is still widely considered the most important automotive innovation after the internal combustion engine itself. It replaced the cumbersome and dangerous hand crank with a small battery-powered motor under the car’s hood that applied a quick burst of power to spark ignition of the car’s engine. The power surge was automatically reduced once the engine started and the power was diverted from the starter to a generator that also powered electric headlamps and recharged the starter’s battery while the car was in operation. After seeing a demonstration in February 1911, Cadillac executives made Kettering’s self-starter standard on all 1912 model cars and marketed the Cadillac brand as “The Car with No Crank.” By 1916, Kettering had put the barn behind him and had 1,600 employees building self-starters for the entire industry at a plant in Dayton. In 1918, his company, DELCO, became part of General Motors and Kettering soon became head of General Motors Research. Today, the same core technology of Kettering’s original electric self-starter is featured on every car and truck on the road in all countries.

1908: A Family of Brands

General Motors’ founder, William C. (Billy) Durant, had the innovative and visionary idea that several carmakers combined under one company would have more growth potential than one brand on its own. When General Motors was born on 1908-September-16, Durant’s vision was dismissed by most of the business and financial community. Yet by 1918, the General Motors family included the legendary Chevrolet, Oakland (later Pontiac), GMC, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac brands. Under Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., Durant’s successor, the focus and target market of each brand was made distinct (see separate item, “Market Segmentation”). Since then, the concept of having several brands and versions of a core product within a single company has been adopted in all kinds of consumer product businesses.

Tag Cloud