Record Production of Cars in 1923

Record Production

With gasoline going up in price and in face of the predictions that the supply of gasoline will give out in a decade or two,--we consumed more gasoline last year than we produced, we are manufacturing more automobiles than ever before. Practically every factory is operating at full capacity. In March of this year 436,000 automobiles were turned out, which exceeds by 57,000 the best previous record, made in June of last year. During the first three months of this year more than 867,000 automobiles were made, or slightly more than twice as many as were made during the first three months of 1922. The prediction is for an output of about 3 million automobiles in 1923. It is well to remember that in 1915 there was a grand total of 2 million motor cars in the United States. We are making a million more cars this year than we owned in the entire nation eight years ago. About 60,000 of them will be sold in North Carolina, and they will cost us about $50 million.

The Pity of It

The money will go for a good purpose, for the most part. Every person who can afford a car, and wants one, should have it. But did you ever stop to think how the automobile business affects the South? Not an automobile factory in the entire South. We have a few assembled car and truck concerns but we manufacture practically no cars. The money spent for motor cars by the southern states represents cool cash leaving these states for a good long stay. It goes to Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New York, and the other northern states manufacturing motor cars. These are the states that are growing in wealth faster than any other states in the Union. These states occupy an enviable position. They have nearly half the population of the United States working for them. Every owner of a motor car in the South is toiling daily for the owners of this vast industry, and the wealth spent on motor cars is being garnered by relatively a few people in a restricted area in the North. One automobile manufacturer owns railroads and coal mines, among other things, and has a checking account of $200 million.

North Carolina will spend around $75 million this year in the purchase and operation of motor cars. Practically all this money will leave the state. It will take the gross income from the sale of our great cash crop cotton to pay our motor car costs. We will fail to accumulate that much state capital. That is one reason why North Carolina, although she produces an enormous amount of wealth annually, fails to get ahead in the accumulation of wealth on a per capita basis. And it is true for the entire South. We produce quantities of new wealth but retain too little of it. So far as motor cars are concerned it seems we cannot remedy this, but it is a pity. –S.H.H., Jr.

From the University of North Carolina News Letter, May 16, 1923.