Importance of mass car production

If mass production was the result of conditions specific to North America, why did it spread globally? Few observers today seem aware that this is not the only possible way to make and use cars. This is due to the fact that Budd-style car manufacturing has become closely integrated with the Fordist and Sloanist strands, although the additional, non-technological, socio-economic element of mass car markets and the resulting cultural and regulatory approaches should also be highlighted, making what some have described as a ‘socio-technical regime’ (Geels, 2002). These innovations prompted buyers to think of the car no longer as a single item bought for life, as Henry Ford had intended (Ford, 1924, 149), but as a product that needed regular updating and replacement. GM and Sloan are therefore crucial in this second, ‘consolidation’, phase. These innovations, and their manipulation of the market, allowed the supply-driven Ford-Budd manufacturing technologies at the heart of mass production to become firmly rooted for over a century.