efficiently, and with various sensors feeding infor-
mation back to the computer, optimal efficiency be-
came the rule for even the least-expensive vehicles
by the early 1990’s.
Impact For nearly a century, the American auto-
mobile industry has been the economic engine that
has driven the nation’s economy. The automobile
industry is connected to the steel, petroleum, petro-
chemical, textile, computer, glass, and rubber indus-
tries. At the end of the 1990’s, this sector was directly
responsible for more than 3 percent of the Ameri-
can workforce, with a payroll of approximately $10
billion. Furthermore, more than eight million work-
ers indirectly owe their jobs to this industry.
Further Reading
Bradsher, Keith.High and Mighty: SUVs—The World’s
Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way.
New York: PublicAffairs, 2002. An exposé of safety
issues connected with the SUV.
Ingrassia, Paul, and Joseph B. White.Comeback: The
Fall and Rise of the American Automobile Industr y.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Perhaps the
most useful account of the American auto indus-
try during the first half of the 1990’s.
Mantle, Jonathan. Car Wars: Fifty Years of Greed,
Treacher y, and Skuldugger y in the Global Marketplace.
New York: Arcade, 1995. A broad but scattered
narrative describing the emergence of the com-
petitive global automobile industry.
Walton, Mary.Car: A Drama of the American Workplace.
New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. A remarkable ac-
count of Ford’s 1996 redesign of its best-selling
Taurus.
John A. HeitmannSee also Auto racing; Business and the economy
in the United States; Electric car; General Motors
strike of 1998; Sport utility vehicles (SUVs).72 Automobile industry The Nineties in America