Few industries have had more impact on American society (and workers) than the auto industry.  The famous “Big Three” of General Motors (GM), Ford, and Chrysler evolved from hundreds of small carmakers, a pattern seen in many industries to this day.  The weak are “shaken out.”  Then the big firms battle for market share, continually innovating, creating and killing brand names as they go.  All business leaders can learn from studying the auto industry’s early evolution.

If you are willing to take a whole ten minutes to learn a bit more about the key events and people which shaped the industry, try watching this graphic:

https://americanbusinesshistory.org/annual-us-auto-production-by-make-1896-1966/

For another very cool way of looking at this data, showing the ups and downs of each car make, see this animated chart, making sure to try both the rankings and the production number style – they appear very differently:

https://americanbusinesshistory.org/makes-of-american-cars-ranked-by-annual-production/

Our last one shows just the major companies data, combining all their brands:

https://americanbusinesshistory.org/market-share-percent-of-major-auto-companies/

We are using a very cool visualization tool from Flourish.studio to create these interesting animated graphics.

ENJOY!

p.s. Do you want to learn more about this subject? Click here to watch our complete video history of the US Auto Industry, presented live in front of an audience by Gary Hoover.