Electric trams were once the chief modes of public transportation in the United States. Though they required tracks and electric cables to run, these trams were clean and comfortable. In 1922, auto manufacturer General Motors created a special unit to replace electric trams with cars, trucks, and buses. Over the next decade, this group successfully lobbied for laws and regulations that made operating trams more difficult and less profitable. In 1936 General Motors created several front companies for the purpose of purchasing and dismantling the trams' system. Electric trams or trams were once the chief mode of public transportation in the United States. Though they required tracks and electric cables to run, these trams were clean and comfortable.

They received substantial investments from Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, and other parties invested in the automotive industry. Some people suspect that these parties wanted to replace trams with buses to make public transportation less desirable, which would then increase automobile sales. The decline of the tram system in North America could be attributed to many things - labour strikes, the Great Depression, regulations that were unfavourable to operators - but perhaps the primary cause was having a group of powerful men from rival sectors of the auto industry working together to ensure its destruction.