WEBVTT - General Motors Gets Up To Speed 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.080 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.279 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.919 a love of all things tech, and previously on tech 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.439 Stuff before we had the unintended break due to my 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.240 lack of WiFi, I covered the founding of General Motors, 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.160 which officially began as a company in nineteen o eight. 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.920 I talked about how WILLIAMS. C. Durant, founder of GM, 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.800 acquired companies like Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland, which was later known 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:48.520 as Pontiac and Cadillac. I explained that his acquisition DASH 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.159 made his investors nervous, to say the least, and how 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.160 they responded by removing Durant as head of GM in 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.560 nineteen ten, and then how Durant went and co founded 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.560 a new car company called cheval Lay, bought up shares 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.760 of General Motors with his earnings, got the backing of 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.920 the DuPont family as well, and eventually returned to GM 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.080 in nineteen sixteen. So today we're going to learn a 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.720 bit more about the early days of GM, and then 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.560 we'll cover some more of its evolution. Now, originally I 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.280 had planned on just kind of covering a little bit 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.920 more about the early history of GM and then skipping 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:27.800 forward like nearly a century to talk about what led 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.320 it to get into financial trouble in the two thousand's. 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.320 But as it turns out, there's a lot more interesting 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:38.440 history and important stuff in the automotive industry and the 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:42.920 the labor movement as well that took place in the 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:47.119 early decades of General Motors. So we're gonna be sticking 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.280 with a little longer than I had intended. Al Right, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.720 So one thing I won't be doing. I will not 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.920 be covering every single car that was produced off of 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.640 General Motors assembly lines. That would just be ludicrous. I 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.200 might mention a couple of standouts, but I'm not going 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.760 to go through each and every car making model. That 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.720 would just it would be ludicrous. Now, one thing I 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.560 did not go into detail in the last episode was 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.519 to talk about what was going on at GM between 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:23.320 nineteen ten and nineteen sixteen during Durant's first exile when 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.519 he was off founding you know, or co founding Chevrolet 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.600 and plotting his revenge, i mean return. Well, the banks 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.520 helped keep the company afloat while the various acquired car 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:38.839 companies were manufacturing automobiles, and even with all those acquisitions, 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.639 General Motors was still well behind the Ford Motor Company 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.280 when it came to the largest automakers in the United States. 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.799 Ford was focused on producing one type of car, the 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.680 Model T, and it would do so for another more 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.440 than another decade. Now. A big thing to come out 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:02.040 during Durant's first exile was the trick starter. This was 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.680 a huge development, and it helps if we go back 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.519 to something I talked about in the previous GM episode. 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.800 So in that episode I described the four stroke process 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.640 with car engines, in which a piston in a cylinder 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:20.200 draws in air and gasoline in a little mixture, compresses 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.640 that mixture. Then a spark plug strikes a spark that 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.600 ignites that mixture, which pushes the piston outward and provides 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:29.760 the energy needed to make the car move. And then 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.560 the piston comes back up through the cylinder and pushes 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:35.880 out the exhaust and the whole process starts again. But 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.000 how does that process get started? I mean that once 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.000 you get it going, it can sustain itself for as 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.120 long as you have fuel and you're operating the engine. 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.640 But how do you get it started in the first place. Well, 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:54.480 these days, internal combustion engines have ignition starters that engage 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.000 an electric motor to turn a flywheel. That fly wheel 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.000 is in turn connected to the c inank shaft of 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.880 the engine, and that electric motor provides the force needed 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.080 to turn the crank shaft and get those pistons moving, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.080 and that starts that process of pulling in air and fuel, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.280 assuming you've got the throttle open and you can get 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.039 the combustion cycle going that way. But in the early 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.520 days that was not an option. So in the old 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.600 old old days, the earliest automobiles had what was called 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.039 a crank wheel, and the crank wheel connected to the 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.840 crank shaft of the automobile, and the ones I've seen 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.479 were horizontal wheels that were mounted on the engine, and 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.279 the engine was typically mounted on the back of the vehicle. 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:43.120 So giving the crank wheel a spin manually, as in, 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.120 you know, actually gripping it with your hands and turning 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.560 it in the correct direction would rotate the crank chaft. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.360 This was not necessarily easy to do. By the way, 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.200 the piston in the cylinder is typically a single cylinder 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.800 engine connects to the crank shaft, so as the crank 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:05.880 shaft turns, it provides the the energy needed, the force 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.559 needed rather to move the piston up and down, because 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.919 the piston is connected to the crank shaft and that 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.599 rotation uh motion of the crank shaft gets converted into 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.400 the reciprocal motion of a piston going up and down 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.040 inside the cylinder. So spinning the wheel at the right 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.479 speed could get the crank shaft spinning and move the 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.120 piston and start the process similar to what it described 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.279 a second ago with the electric motor, except in this 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.000 case you're doing it by hand. The piston begins to 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:38.120 draw air into the cylinder, but that's obviously not enough 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.159 for ignition. To ignite an engine, you also have to 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.839 prime it a bit by allowing that mix of air 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.840 and fuel into the piston. It can't just be air, 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.320 or it would be like striking a match in a 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:55.360 normal room. You don't get explosions, assuming you're not filling 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.240 that room with you know, explosive fumes or something. So 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.120 in order to do that, you do have to have 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.280 the throttle open just a little bit, not necessarily all 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.080 the way open, but a little open to allow fuel 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.719 to go into the piston as well as air. You 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.880 also typically would have something called the choke that you 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.560 needed to open when. As the name suggests, the choke 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.479 controls whether or not air can flow into the system 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:27.360 through the carburetor. UH. These old vehicles had carburetors. This 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.000 creates a mix that can then be ignited once you're 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.440 ready to actually start the vehicle. So with the handbrake on, 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.680 which is a very important step with these old cars, 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.520 you would engage the method for the spark plugs to spark. UH. 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.240 Many early automobiles had a control kind of like a 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.440 lever to advance the frequency of the spark plugs sparking, 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:52.160 sometimes called a spark advance. Interesting thing is that because 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.120 this was not an automated system, it wasn't all working together. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:02.240 You had to manually changed the spark advance. So once 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.000 you've got an engine running, you would actually need to 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.599 move the spark advance a bit to kind of find 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.440 a sweet spot where the spark frequency is hitting it 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:17.160 just the right point in the four stroke process. And 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.040 you could tell you could just hear it in the 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.880 engine when it hit that that sweet spot, because otherwise 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.880 it was kind of chugging along and it did mean 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.440 that you were actually manually adjusting how frequently the spark 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.000 plugs were sparking. But where did the electricity come from 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.320 to create those sparks. Well, again, in the early days, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.480 you were typically talking about a magneto, which isn't just 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:45.440 a villainous mutant in the Marvel universe, although it's that too. 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:49.200 A magneto works on the principles of electro magnetic interactions, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.200 something I've talked about a lot on episodes of tech Stuff. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.200 A magneto is kind of like an electro magnet in reverse. 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.920 But here's the gist. Let's say you take a conduct 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.200 of material, typically we're talking about copper wire, and you 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.120 wrap that copper wire around an iron core, and then 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.240 you pass that copper wire around the core through a 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.360 magnetic field. Well, passing it through that magnetic field would 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.280 mean that the field would induce a current to flow 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.480 through the copper wire, but this would only last a 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.440 moment as the copper wire encountered this magnetic field, as 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.640 long as there was some sort of fluctuation there. If 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.000 you put copper wire into a magnetic field and then 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.760 just let it stay, you sit in the stable magnetic 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.640 field that flow of current would stop. You would have 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.600 a kind of equilibrium. But if you were to change 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.000 the magnetic field, if you were to create a fluctuating field, 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.200 you could continue to induce current to flow in the 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:52.200 copper wire and make it even change direction. Now, changing 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.280 the magnetic field is not actually that hard. If you 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.560 flip a magnet so that the north and south poles 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.320 of the magnet change position over and over and over again, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.800 that's enough to do the trick. So if you have 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.400 a spinning permanent magnet and you put that spinning permanent 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.800 magnet next to a coil of copper wire wrapped around 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.040 an iron core, you're going to induce an electric current 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.560 to flow through that copper wire. So if you set 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.040 up a system in which you either rotate a coil 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.199 of wire between the poles of a permanent magnet, or 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.719 you rotate magnets around a stationary coil of wire. There 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.720 are systems that use one of the two ways and 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:32.880 others that use the other way. But the system will 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:36.400 subject that coil to a fluctuating magnetic field when the 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.440 apparatus is in motion, and that induces current to flow 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.160 through it. Now, ignition magnetos and early automobiles were a 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.720 bit more complicated than this, just as a you know, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.000 kind of reverse electro magnet. That's because to create a 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.960 spark you need a really high voltage. So the analogy 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.120 everyone uses when they talk about voltage is with plumbing. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.240 Voltage is kind of like water press. Sure, a spark 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:05.239 plug is essentially a pair of electrodes that are separated 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.800 from one another with a little air gap in between them. Now, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.560 the voltage in a spark plug is high enough, meaning 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.920 the electric potential between those two electrodes becomes great enough, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.880 there will be a brief electric arc connecting those two electrodes. 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.320 That's the spark. So it's electricity that can travel a 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.920 short distance through the air. You know, the air is 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:32.000 not a really good conductor of electricity, which is honestly 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.720 a pretty good thing. At least the air down where 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.160 we live is not a good conductor of electricity. If 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.560 you go out to the ionosphere, it's a different story. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.320 So you have to get the voltage high enough to 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.560 allow this to happen. But if it's not high enough, 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.679 then you don't get any spark. So your standard magneto 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.160 actually doesn't produce enough voltage to do this all on 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:55.880 its own. So to manage this, the ignition magneto first 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.880 uses two coils of copper wiring. The first coil, or 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:04.320 a primary coil, tends to be thicker copper wire wrapped 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.160 around an iron core a certain number of times or turns. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.360 We call it turns of copper wire. So let's say 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.680 it has just for the sake of argument, it's got 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:18.280 ten turns, and the secondary coil is typically thinner copper 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.400 wire that's wound many many many more times than the 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.040 primary coil. So for the sake of this example, let's 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.840 say it's got a thousand turns. So you have ten 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.440 of the thicker copper wire and a thousand of the 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.040 thinner one. Now, if you know about transformers, not the 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.679 robots in disguise, but electrical transformers, this is all going 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.920 to start to sound really familiar, because if you induce 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.600 current to flow through one coil of a conductive wire 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.760 wrapped around an iron core, you also create a magnetic field. 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.280 This is an electro magnet. If you ever made one 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.400 of these in school, I remember wrapping a piece of 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:59.240 copper wire around uh an iron nail, for example, and 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.760 then connecting the copper wire to a battery and then 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.440 using the nail to pick up like iron filings and stuff. 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.040 That's your basic electro magnets. So, in other words, just 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.040 as a magnetic field induces current to flow through a conductor, 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.880 current flowing through a conductor produces a magnetic field. So 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.440 let's say you're using alternating current, being the direction of 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.160 the current changes many times a second through a coil 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.319 of copper wire wrapped around an iron core. The changing 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.120 direction of the current also means the polls of the 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.240 magnetic field are switching many times a second as well, 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.600 So you're creating a fluctuating magnetic field by using alternating 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.000 current through a coil of wire. If you were to 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:43.200 bring a second coil of copper wire within that fluctuating 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.280 magnetic field that was generated by current flowing through the 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:53.000 primary coil of copper wire, then that magnetic field will 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.800 induce electric current to flow through the secondary coil. There 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.280 doesn't need to be any connection between the two copper 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.560 wires in this case, so you've got electric current flowing 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.680 through primary coil or coil number one. You bring coil 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.280 number two close enough to be within the magnetic field 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:12.960 that's generated as a result, Now you're going to have 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.280 a current flowing through coil number two because of induction. 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.839 What's more, the ratio of the number of turns or 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.360 coils between the primary and the secondary coil determines the 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.040 change in voltage from one to the other. The thickness 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.720 of the conductor wire also matters, but we're just gonna 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.640 focus on turns for now. So if the secondary coil 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.320 has more turns than the primary coil, the voltage in 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.719 that secondary coil will be stepped up compared to the 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.880 primary coil, So you can increase the voltage this way. 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.960 That's what transformers do. They change the voltage of transmission 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.199 by using these different coils. But if the secondary coil 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:57.640 has fewer turns than the primary coil does, the voltage 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.960 gets stepped down. So trans rumors are why the world 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.000 adapted to alternating current for the purposes of transmitting electricity 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.520 great distances. You could use a transformer to boost the 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.720 voltage way up and thus push the electricity much further 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.720 out from the point of generation, and then once it 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:17.480 got to where it needed to be, you could step 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:21.200 down the voltage using another transformer and then feed that 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.960 electricity into homes. And businesses. But I'm getting off track 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.920 and I know it, and I'm sorry for our purposes. 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.400 This pairing of windings meant that there was a step 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.000 up effect going on with ignition magnetos. But there are 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.640 also a couple of other components at play, with a 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:41.440 control unit that consists of a breaker and a capacitor. 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.000 That's the job of this control unit to disrupt the 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.520 magnetic field and to channel the electric current from the 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.800 magneto to the spark plug. The capacitor is kind of 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.080 like a temporary storage for electric charge. It releases an 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:59.040 electric charge all at once, unlike a battery, which is 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.200 a constant, steady source of electric charge as long as 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.600 the battery still has you know, electrochemicals reactions going on 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.880 inside of it. Capacitors are used for all sorts of purposes, 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.280 like the flash bulb and a classic camera flash. Also, 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.080 I should mention that capacitors can hold onto electric charge 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.400 even if the device that they're part of isn't attached 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.440 to a battery or plugged in or whatever. That's why 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.480 you should never just bust up an old CRT television set. 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.840 You could get a serious shock because of capacitors in there. 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:31.960 Now to get the whole operation of spark plugs and 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.600 magnetos would really take a long time for me to 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.600 describe in detail. It's complicated by the fact that this 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.640 is obviously an audio podcast. I can't really illustrate what 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.120 I'm talking about. But the important thing to remember is 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.920 that with this system there wasn't necessarily a need for 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.600 a battery, although many early cars would also have batteries. 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.960 The magneto ignition is used in lots of stuff today, 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.080 including power and lawnmowers, so it's not like it's an 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:02.800 obsolete technology now. A rotor connected to the engine provided 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.200 the rotational force to operate the magneto, so turning a 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.800 crank wheel or a crank handle would mean the magneto 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.680 would spin as well as you know the piston going 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.800 up and down. So with enough voltage built up and 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.880 the engine primed, the spark plugs could spark and get 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:24.520 things going. Later vehicles replaced the crank wheel with a 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.000 hand crank that one would insert into the vehicle, typically 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:30.600 near the front of the automobile. It engaged with the 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.240 crankshaft and served the same purpose as the older crank wheels. 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:38.000 Both types of manual starters had major drawbacks. For one, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.200 they required a good deal work and could be pretty 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.120 exhausting for those who weren't, you know, all musk lely 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.520 and stuff. If you've ever tried to start a stubborn 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.960 poll start lawnmower, you kind of know the feeling of 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.880 trying to get one of those to turn over and engage. 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.520 For another, Sometimes engines kick back, and that kind of 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.160 means that the rank shaft immediately turns in the opposite 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.800 direction with a very sudden and powerful motion. This could 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.440 happen if the fuel mixture in the cylinder ignited before 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.080 the piston had reached the top of its stroke, which 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.439 is a classic backfire situation. The piston goes down and 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.760 reverses the rotational direction of the crank shaft. It's like 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.480 it suddenly got thrown into reverse. And that would mean 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.160 that suddenly that very heavy hand crank that someone had 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:30.840 been turning a particular direction changes direction and could potentially 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.800 injure the person doing the cranking, like you could break 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.960 a risk that way. Another drawback was that until engineers 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.960 started building in systems that would disconnect the crank from 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.719 the crank shaft upon ignition, started engine might start spinning 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.240 that hand crank pretty darn quickly once things got going. 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.120 Engineers did develop safety systems to disengage the handle from 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.159 the crank shaft upon starting an engine. But the development 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.640 of an electric starter, where all this work shifted over 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.240 to an electric mode her made the hand crank stuff 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.320 moot over time, but did take a while. A lot 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.320 of early cars actually had both an electric starter and 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.240 a backup hand crank system in case the electric starter 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.560 wasn't working. Also, I should mention that while GM began 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.680 introducing cars with electric starters in nineteen twelve, the invention 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.440 of the electric starter predated GM's use of it. Still, 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.560 the design GM created would lead to a second Dwar 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.040 trophy for pushing the automotive industry forward. If you listen 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.960 to my first episode, you know the company had previously 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.280 earned one for having interchangeable parts. Now, that's a lot 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.520 about starters, and we've only just begun. When we come back, 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:41.800 we'll talk a bit more about what happened as William 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.440 Durant made his return to General Motors. But first let's 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:56.080 take a quick break. All right, we're back, So, as 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.920 I mentioned in the previous GM episode, William Durant's investor 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.320 didn't like how Durant was spending truckloads of cash buying 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.439 up various car companies to become part of GM, and 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.919 thus amassing a huge amount of debt in the process. 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.960 Depending on the source. GMS holding company ended up bringing 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.400 in between twenty and thirty companies in just those first 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.080 two years. But buying stuff costs money, and Durant was 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.840 spending cash he didn't actually have then, not for the 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.080 first time. His pre automobile carriage business kind of started 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.800 out the same way, so he had a method, is 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.840 what I'm saying. The company had accrued somewhere around a 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.479 million dollars of debt in nineteen ten, which would be 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.359 closer to about twenty eight million dollars of debt in 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:43.040 today's money once we had just for inflation. So he 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.919 gets the boot. The banks essentially take over GM for 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.480 the time being. And I talked about last time about 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.720 how Durant co founded the Chevrolet car company. He used 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:53.879 that wealth that he built up to buy shares of 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.440 General Motors, and he essentially bought his way back into 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.000 the company around nineteen fifteen or nineteen six exteen. Now 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.600 I get wishy washy with the dates, because different sources 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.399 have slightly different accounts of this, and I have no 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.800 magical way of deciding which one is the most accurate, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.399 so I like to give ranges. In that case, the 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:17.760 company reorganized and reincorporated. It became General Motors Corporation. At 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.919 that point. Durant oversaw the acquisition of Chevrolet into General 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.919 Motors a couple of years later, and sure enough it 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:29.359 was right back into acquisitions for Durant, which meant accruing 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:34.160 more debt again. See William C. Durant was a man 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.000 who could really learn from his mistakes because he could 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:41.440 repeat them almost exactly. I stole that joke, by the way, 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:46.000 from Peter Cook. In nineteen seventeen, the United States entered 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.400 World War One. Of course, back then people didn't call 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.400 it World War One. They called it the Great War, 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.120 because to name something part one before there's a part 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.680 two is a bit fatalistic, though accurate. In this case, GM, 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.080 like many companies in the States, began to produce material 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.760 for war efforts, so they were supporting the war effort 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.080 for the United States. Now, according to the Encyclopedia of Detroit, 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:13.560 around of all of GM's truck production was dedicated to 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:18.800 wartime production. Despite this guaranteed revenue, things weren't going so 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.640 great over at General Motors. Durant, as I had mentioned, 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.199 received support from the DuPont family and his efforts to 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.600 regain control of General Motors. The DuPonts made their fortune 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.920 a century earlier in the gunpowder business, which was really booming, 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.920 had explosive growth thanks to the Civil War. Yeah, those 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:42.760 those were gunpowder punts. But by nine this support from 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.720 the DuPonts had waned, and I assumed they had come 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.600 to the same conclusion as Durant's previous investors, that Durant 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:54.560 was overreaching his capabilities and the capabilities of the company 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.600 with these various acquisitions, and that maybe he was not 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:03.520 the responsible type that should oversee the operations of a company. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.919 And so in nineteen twenty Durant was kicked out of 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:12.000 General Motors again. So the guy who founded the company 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.840 got removed from it twice. Now we'll stick with Durant 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.600 just a bit longer. His story is an interesting one. 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:21.840 He went on to found a new company. Some sources 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:23.919 say he did it the day after he got the 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.800 boot from GM, but others give a little bit more 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.400 time between his getting sacked and him picking himself back 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.760 up again. The new company was called Durant Motors. While 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:37.520 he was able to clause way back with the success 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.879 of Chevrolet earlier, the same could not be said of 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:45.080 Durant Motors. He had some initial interest because he had 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.040 really built a name for himself in the automotive industry. 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.480 But while Durant Motors produced several cars, I don't think 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:54.800 you would call any of them a household name today. 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.120 There was the Flint, the Star, which was also known 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.119 as the Rugby, and the Durant, as well as a 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:05.080 couple of others that Durant's engineers kind of design but 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.840 never actually put into production. The company did manufacture cars, 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.120 it wasn't just a company on paper, and there are 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:15.560 collectors out there who owned some of these very rare vehicles. 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:18.320 But it wasn't to last. The market at this point 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:22.320 was already too competitive, anchored by Ford, and of course 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:28.680 Durant's old company, General Motors by n Durant Motors was insolvent. 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:34.240 Durant himself was pretty much bankrupt by that time because 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:36.679 he lost all of his fortune in the fallout of 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:40.000 the stock market crash in nineteen nine, one of the 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:43.520 events that precipitated the Great Depression. The story goes that 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:46.359 after the stock market crashed, he poured even more money 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:48.920