What is the origin of the word automobile

The automobile is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. The word is mainly used in American English and Canadian English; in British English the term motor car is more commonly used. Different types of automobiles include cars, buses, trucks, and vans. Some include motorcycles in the category, but cars are the most typical automobiles. The term «automobile» is derived from Greek «auto» (self) and Latin «movére» (move), referring to the fact that it «moves by itself.» Earlier terms for automobile include motorwagen, and horseless carriage. Although the term «car» is presumed to be derived through the shortening of the term «carriage», the word has its origin before 1300 A.D. in English as, «carr»—derived from similar words in French and much earlier Greek words—for a vehicle that moves, especially on wheels, that was applied to chariots, small carts, and later—to carriages that carried more people and larger loads. As of 2005, there were 600 million cars worldwide (93 cars per 1,000 persons).

The automobile was hailed as an environmental improvement over horses when it was first introduced in the 1880s. Before its introduction, in New York City alone, more than 1,800 tons of manure had to be removed from the streets daily, although the manure was used as natural fertilizer for crops and to build top soil. In 2006, the automobile is recognized as a primary source of world-wide air pollution and a cause of substantial noise pollution and adverse health effects.

History

Main article: History of the automobile

The automobile powered by the Otto gasoline engine was invented in Germany by Karl Benz in 1885. Benz was granted a patent dated January 29, 1886 in Mannheim for that automobile. Even though Benz is credited with the invention of the modern automobile, several other German engineers worked on building automobiles at the same time. In 1886, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart patented the first motor bike, and in 1889 they built a converted horse-drawn stagecoach. In 1870, German-Austrian inventor Siegfried Marcus assembled a motorized handcart, though Marcus’s vehicle didn’t go beyond the experimental stage.

Automobile history eras
1890s	1900s	1910s	1920s	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s	2000s
Veteran	Brass or Edwardian	Vintage	Pre-War	Post-War	Modern
Antique
Classic

Internal combustion engine powered vehicles

In 1806 François Isaac de Rivaz, a Swiss, designed the first internal combustion engine (sometimes abbreviated «ICE» today). He subsequently used it to develop the world’s first vehicle to run on such an engine that used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to generate energy. The design was not very successful, as was the case with the British inventor, Samuel Brown, and the American inventor, Samuel Morey, who produced vehicles powered by clumsy internal he combustion engines about 1826.

Etienne Lenoir produced the first successful stationary internal combustion engine in 1860, and within a few years, about four hundred were in operation in Paris. About 1863, Lenoir installed his engine in a vehicle. It seems to have been powered by city lighting-gas in bottles, and was said by Lenoir to have «travelled more slowly than a man could walk, with breakdowns being frequent.» Lenoir, in his patent of 1860, included the provision of a carburettor, so liquid fuel could be substituted for gas, particularly for mobile purposes in vehicles. Lenoir is said to have tested liquid fuel, such as alcohol, in his stationary engines; but it doesn’t appear that he used them in his own vehicle. If he did, he most certainly didn’t use gasoline, as this was not well-known and was considered a waste product.

The next innovation occurred in the late 1860s, with Siegfried Marcus, a German working in Vienna, Austria. He developed the idea of using gasoline as a fuel in a two-stroke internal combustion engine. In 1870, using a simple handcart, he built a crude vehicle with no seats, steering, or brakes, but it was remarkable for one reason: it was the world’s first internal-combustion-engine-powered vehicle fueled by gasoline. It was tested in Vienna in September 1870 and put aside. In 1888 or 1889, he built a second automobile, this one with seats, brakes, and steering, and included a four-stroke engine of his own design. That design may have been tested in 1890. Although he held patents for many inventions, he never applied for patents for either design in this category.

The four-stroke engine already had been documented and a patent was applied for in 1862 by the Frenchman Beau de Rochas in a long-winded and rambling pamphlet. He printed about three hundred copies of his pamphlet and they were distributed in Paris, but nothing came of this, with the patent application expiring soon afterward—and the pamphlet disappearing into total obscurity. In fact, its existence mostly was unknown and Beau de Rochas never built a single engine.

Most historians agree that Nikolaus Otto of Germany built the world’s first four-stroke engine although his patent was voided. He knew nothing of Beau de Rochas’s patent or idea, and came upon the idea entirely on his own. In fact, he began thinking about the concept in 1861, but abandoned the concept until the mid-1870s.

There is some evidence, although not conclusive, that Christian Reithmann, an Austrian living in Germany, had built a four-stroke engine entirely on his own by 1873. Reithmann had been experimenting with internal combustion engines as early as 1852.

In 1883, Edouard Delamare-Deboutteville and Leon Malandin of France installed an internal combustion engine powered by a tank of city gas on a tricycle. As they tested the vehicle, the tank hose came loose, resulting in an explosion. In 1884, Delamare-Deboutteville and Malandin built and patented a second vehicle. This one consisted of two four-stroke, liquid-fueled engines mounted on an old four-wheeled horse cart. The patent, and presumably the vehicle, contained many innovations, some of which wouldn’t be used for decades. However, during the vehicle’s first test, the frame broke apart, the vehicle literally «shaking itself to pieces,» in Malandin’s own words. No more vehicles were built by the two men. Their venture went completely unnoticed and their patent unexploited. Knowledge of the vehicles and their experiments was obscured until years later.

Supposedly in the late 1870s, an Italian named Murnigotti patented the idea of installing an internal combustion engine on a vehicle, although there is no evidence that one was built. In 1884, Enrico Bernardi, another Italian, installed an internal combustion engine on his son’s tricycle. Although merely a toy, it is said to have operated somewhat successfully in one source, but another says the engine’s power was too feeble to make the vehicle move.

Production of automobiles begins

If all of the above experiments hadn’t taken place, however, the development of the automobile wouldn’t have been retarded by so much as a moment, since they were unknown experiments that never advanced beyond the testing stage. The internal-combustion-engine automobile really can be said to have begun in Germany with Karl Benz in 1885, and Gottlieb Daimler in 1889, for their vehicles were successful, they went into series-production, and they inspired others.

Karl Benz began to work on new engine patents in 1878. First, he concentrated all his efforts on creating a reliable two-stroke gas engine, based on Nikolaus Otto‘s design of the four-stroke engine. A patent on the design by Otto had been declared void. Karl Benz finished his engine on New Year’s Eve and was granted a patent for it in 1879. Karl Benz built his first three-wheeled automobile in 1885 and it was granted a patent in Mannheim, dated January 1886. This was—the first automobile designed and built as such—rather than a converted carriage, boat, or cart. Among other items Karl Benz invented for the automobile are the carburetor, the speed regulation system known also as an accelerator, ignition using sparks from a battery, the spark plug, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator. He built improved versions in 1886 and 1887 and—went into production in 1888—the world’s first automobile put into production. His wife, Bertha, made significant suggestions for innovation (see below) that he included in that model. Approximately twenty-five were built before 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced. They were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz automobile to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early automobiles, in general, more were built and sold in France through Roger, than Benz sold initially from his own factory in Germany.

Gottlieb Daimler, in 1886, fitted a horse carriage with his four-stroke engine in Stuttgart. In 1889, he built two vehicles from scratch as automobiles, with several innovations. From 1890 to 1895 about thirty vehicles were built by Daimler and his innovative assistant, Wilhelm Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after having a falling out with their backers. These two Germans, Benz and Daimler, seem to have been unaware of the early work of each other and worked independently. Daimler died in 1900. During the First World War, Benz suggested a co-operative effort between the companies the two founded, but it was not until 1926 that the companies united under the name of Daimler-Benz with a commitment to remain together under that name until the year 2000.

In 1890, Emile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began series-producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the motor industry in France. They were inspired by Daimler’s Stahlradwagen of 1889, which was exhibited in Paris in 1889.

The first American automobile with gasoline-powered internal combustion engines supposedly was designed in 1877 by George Baldwin Selden of Rochester, New York, who applied for a patent on an automobile in 1879. Selden didn’t build a single automobile until 1905, when he was forced to do so, due to a lawsuit threatening the legality of his patent because the subject had never been built. Construction is required to demonstrate the feasibility of the design and validate the patent, otherwise the patent may be voided. After building the 1877 design in 1905, Selden received his patent and later sued the Ford Motor Company for infringing upon his patent. Henry Ford was notorious for opposing the American patent system and Selden’s case against Ford went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Ford, and anyone else, was free to build automobiles without paying royalties to Selden, since automobile technology had improved so significantly since the design of Selden’s patent, that no one was building according to his early designs.

Meanwhile, notable advances in steam power evolved in Birmingham, England by the Lunar Society. It was here that the term horsepower was first used. It also was in Birmingham that the first British four-wheel petrol-driven automobiles were built in 1895 by Frederick William Lanchester. Lanchester also patented the disc brake in that city. Electric vehicles were produced by a small number of manufacturers.

Innovation

The first automobile patent in the United States was granted to Oliver Evans in 1789 for his «Amphibious Digger«. It was a harbor dredge scow designed to be powered by a steam engine and he built wheels to attach to the bow. In 1804 Evans demonstrated his first successful self-propelled vehicle, which not only was the first automobile in the US but was also the first amphibious vehicle, as his steam-powered vehicle was able to travel on wheels on land as he demonstrated once, and via a paddle wheel in the water. It was not successful and eventually was sold as spare parts.

The Benz Motorwagen, built in 1885, was patented on January 29, 1886 by Karl Benz as the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. In 1888, a major breakthrough came with the historic drive of Bertha Benz. She drove an automobile that her husband had built for a distance of more than 106 km (i.e. — approximately 65 miles). This event demonstrated the practical usefulness of the automobile and gained wide publicity, which was the promotion she thought was needed to advance the invention. The Benz vehicle was the first automobile put into production and sold commercially. Bertha Benz’s historic drive is celebrated as an annual holiday in Germany with rallies of antique automobiles.

In 1892 Rudolf Diesel gets a patent for a «New Rational Combustion Engine» by modifying the Carnot Process. And in 1897 he builds the first Diesel Engine.

On 5 November 1895, George B. Selden was granted a United States patent for a two-stroke automobile engine U.S. Patent 549160. This patent did more to hinder than encourage development of autos in the USA. Steam, electric, and gasoline powered autos competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s.

The large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable automobiles was debuted by Ransom Eli Olds at his Oldsmobile factory in 1902. This assembly line concept was then greatly expanded by Henry Ford in the 1910s. Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world’s attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910-1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.

Felix Wankel invented the Wankel engine in 1954, which had a very unconventional structure that would reduce the wear the engine effected upon itself as it worked.

Model changeover and design change

Cars are not merely continually perfected mechanical contrivances; since the 1920s nearly all have been mass-produced to meet a market, so marketing plans and manufacture to meet them have often dominated automobile design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one firm, so that buyers could «move up» as their fortunes improved. The makes shared parts with one another so that the larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; the LaSalle of the 1930s, sold by Cadillac, used the cheaper mechanical parts made by the Oldsmobile division.

Design

Main article: Automobile design

Alternative fuels and batteries

Main article: Alternative fuel cars

With heavy taxes on fuel, particularly in Europe and tightening environmental laws, particularly in California, and the possibility of further restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, work on alternative power systems for vehicles continues.

Diesel-powered cars can run with little or no modification on 100% pure biodiesel, a fuel that can be made from vegetable oils but require modifications if you drive in cold weather countries. The main plus of Diesel combustion engines is its 50% fuel burn advantage over 23% in the best gasoline engines. This makes Diesel engines capable of achieving an average of 17 km per liter fuel efficiency. Many cars that currently use gasoline can run on ethanol, a fuel made from plant sugars. Most cars that are designed to run on gasoline are capable of running with up to 15% ethanol mixed in. With a small amount of redesign, gasoline-powered vehicles can run on ethanol concentrations as high as 85%. All petrol fuelled cars can run on LPG. There has been some concern that the ethanol-gasoline mixtures prematurely wear down seals and gaskets. Theoretically, the lower energy content of alcohol should lead to considerably reduced efficiency and range when compared with gasoline. However, EPA testing has actually shown only a 20-30% reduction in range. Therefore, if your vehicle is capable of doing 750 kilometers on a 50 liter tank (15 kilometers per liter), its range would be reduced to approximately 600 kilometers (12 kilometers per liter). Of course, certain measures are available to increase this efficiency, such as different camshaft configurations, altering the timing/spark output of the ignition, increasing compression, or simply using a larger fuel tank.

In the United States, alcohol fuel was produced in corn-alcohol stills until Prohibition criminalized the production of alcohol in 1919. Interest in alcohol as an automotive fuel lapsed until the oil price shocks of the 1970s. Reacting to the high price of oil and its growing dependence on imports, in 1975 Brazil launched a huge government-subsidized effort to manufacture ethanol fuel (from its sugar cane crop) and ethanol-powered automobiles. These ethanol-only vehicles were very popular in the 1980s, but became economically impractical when oil prices fell — and sugar prices rose — late in that decade. In recent years Brazil has encouraged the development of flex-fuel automobiles, where the owner can use any mixture of ethanol and gasoline based on their individual cost and performance goals. In 2005, 70% of the cars sold in Brazil were flex-fuel.

Attempts at building viable, modern battery-powered electric vehicle began in the 1950s with the introduction of the first modern (transistor based) electric car — the Henney Kilowatt. Despite the poor sales of the early battery-powered vehicles, development of various battery-powered vehicles continued through the 1990s (notably General Motors with the EV1), but cost, speed and inadequate driving range continued to make them impractical. Battery powered cars have primarily used lead-acid batteries and NiMH batteries. Lead-acid batteries’ recharge capacity is considerably reduced if they’re discharged beyond 75% on a regular basis, making them a less-than-ideal solution. NiMH batteries are a better choice, but are considerably more expensive than lead-acid. Lithium-ion battery powered vehicles such as the Venturi Fetish have recently demonstrated excellent performance and range, but they remain very expensive.

Current research and development is centered on «hybrid» vehicles that use both electric power and internal combustion. The first hybrid vehicle available for sale in the USA was the Honda Insight. As of 2006, the car is still in production and achieves around 25.5 km per liter.

Other R&D efforts in alternative forms of power focus on developing fuel cells, alternative forms of combustion such as GDI and HCCI, and even the stored energy of compressed air (see water Engine).

Safety

Automobile accidents are almost as old as automobiles themselves. Joseph Cugnot crashed his steam-powered «Fardier» against a wall in 1771. One of the earliest recorded automobile fatalities was Mary Ward, on 1869-08-31 in Parsonstown, Ireland, an early victim in the United States was Henry Bliss on 1899-09-13 in New York City, NY.

Cars have two basic safety problems: They have human drivers who make mistakes, and the wheels lose traction near a half gravity of deceleration. Automated control has been seriously proposed and successfully prototyped. Shoulder-belted passengers could tolerate a 32G emergency stop (reducing the safe intervehicle gap 64-fold) if high-speed roads incorporated a steel rail for emergency braking. Both safety modifications of the roadway are thought to be too expensive by most funding authorities, although these modifications could dramatically increase the number of vehicles that could safely use a high-speed highway.

Early safety research focused on increasing the reliability of brakes and reducing the flammability of fuel systems. For example, modern engine compartments are open at the bottom so that fuel vapors, which are heavier than air, vent to the open air. Brakes are hydraulic so that failures are slow leaks, rather than abrupt cable breaks. Systematic research on crash safety started in 1958 at Ford Motor Company. Since then, most research has focused on absorbing external crash energy with crushable panels and reducing the motion of human bodies in the passenger compartment.

There are standard tests for safety in new automobiles, like the EuroNCAP and the US NCAP tests. There are also tests run by organizations such as IIHS and backed by the insurance industry.

Despite technological advances, there is still significant loss of life from car accidents: About 40,000 people die every year in the U.S., with similar figures in Europe. This figure increases annually in step with rising population and increasing travel if no measures are taken, but the rate per capita and per mile travelled decreases steadily. The death toll is expected to nearly double worldwide by 2020. A much higher number of accidents result in injury or permanent disability. The highest accident figures are reported in China and India. The European Union has a rigid program to cut the death toll in the EU in half by 2010 and member states have started implementing measures.

Current Production

In 2005 63 million cars and light trucks were produced worldwide. The world’s biggest car producer (including light trucks) is the European Union with 29% of the world’s production. In non-EU Eastern Europe another 4% are produced. The second largest manufacturer is NAFTA with 25.8%, followed by Japan with 16.7%, China with 8.1%, MERCOSUR with 3.9%, India with 2.4% and the rest of the world with 10.1%.

Large free trade areas like EU, NAFTA and MERCOSUR attract manufacturers worldwide to produce their products within them and without currency risks or customs, additionally to being close to customers. Thus the production figures do not show the technological ability or business skill of the areas. In fact much if not most of the Third World car production is used western technology and car models (and sometimes even complete obsolete western factories shipped to the country), which is reflected in the patent statistic as well as the locations of the r&d centers.

The automobile industry is dominated by relatively few large corporations (not to be confused with the much more numerous brands), the biggest of which (by numbers of produced cars) are currently General Motors, Toyota and Ford Motor Company. It is expected, that Toyota will reach the No.1 position in 2006. The most profitable per-unit car-maker of recent years has been Porsche due to its premium price tag.

The automotive industry at large still suffers from high under-utilization of its manufacturing potential.

A typical family car costs about 25€ in raw materials in production. Higher line cars tend to cost 100€ up.

Economics

Compared to other popular modes of passenger transportation, especially buses, the automobile is relatively uneconomic. There are a number of reasons for this:

• The typical private car spends most of its lifetime idling and depreciation is a significant proportion of the total cost.

• Compared to bulk-carrying vehicles such as airplanes, buses and trains, individual vehicles have worse economies of scale.

• Capacity utilisation is low. The average occupancy of automobiles is below 1.5 passengers in most parts of the world. Measures such as HOV lanes try to address this issue.

• According to the RAC the average cost of running a new car in the UK is GBP 5,000 (US$ 9,000) per year, or roughly 1/3 of the average net wage, a situation reflected in most other Western nations. Nevertheless demand for automobiles remains high and inelasic, suggesting that its advantages, such as on-demand and door-to-door travel, are highly prized and not easily susbtituted by cheaper alternative modes of transport.

The costs of running a car can be broken down as follows (in approximate order of cost):

• Depreciation
• Fuel (including fuel tax)
• Repairs
• Maintenance
• Insurance
• Parking
• Tire replacement
• Vehicle tax
• Financing
• Roadworthiness Tests
• Registration
• Accessories
• Opportunity cost

Despite rising oil prices the real cost of car travel has dropped steadily over the past 5 decades, in part due to better manufacturing technologies, and in part due to engines becoming more fuel-efficient.

As opposed to public transport, the automobile is characterised by high fixed costs and low variable costs, making it most attractive for frequent travellers such as commuters, and least attractive for infrequent and/or flexible travellers, such as people who use their car for weekend trips only. This is the main reason why public transport companies try to increase competitiveness in the commuter market by raising fixed costs/ reducing variable costs to the consumer in the form of season tickets. Carsharing significantly lowers fixed costs, hence it tends to be more popular with light users than commuters.

Since automobiles demand a high land use, they become increasingly uneconomic with higher population densities. This can either manifest itself in higher costs of driving in densely populated areas (Parking fees and road pricing), or in the absence of a price mechanism, in an shortage in the form of traffic jams. Public transport, by comparison, becomes increasingly uneconomic with lower population densities. Hence cars tend to dominate in rural and suburban environments, while only fulfilling a secondary role in city center transport.

Future of the car

Main article: Future of the car

In order to limit deaths, there has been a push for self-driving automobiles. There have been many notable efforts funded by the NHTSA, including the many efforts by the NavLabgroup at Carnegie Mellon University. Recent efforts include the highly publicized DARPA Grand Challenge race.

A current invention is ESP by Bosch that is claimed to reduce deaths by about 30% and is recommended by many lawmakers and carmakers to be a standard feature in all cars sold in the EU. ESP recognizes dangerous situations and corrects the drivers input for a short moment to stabilize the car.

Relatively high transportation fuel prices do not completely stop car usage but makes it significantly more expensive. One environmental benefit of high fuel prices is that it incentivises the production of more efficient (and hence less polluting) car engines and designs and the development of alternative fuels. In the beginning of 2006, 1 liter of gas costs approximately $1.60 in Germany and other European countries, and one US gallon of gas costs nearly $3.00. With fuel prices at these levels there is a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Nevertheless, individual mobility is highly prized in modern societies so the demand for automobiles is inelastic. Alternative individual modes of transport, such as Personal rapid transit, could make the automobile obsolete if they prove to be cheaper and more energy efficient.

Hydrogen cars, driven either by a combination of fuel cells and an electric motor, or alternatively, a conventional combustion engine, are widely mooted to replace fossil fuel powered cars in a few decades. Some obstacles to a mass market of hydrogen cars include: the cost of hydrogen production by electrolysis, which is inefficient and requires an inexpensive source of electrical energy to be economical, the difficulty of storing hydrogen either in its gaseous or liquid (cryogenic) form, and the lack of a hydrogen transport infrastructure such as pipelines and filling stations. Hydrogen has a much higher energy density than gasoline or diesel. It is thought to become cheaper with mass production, but because its production is overall energy inefficient and requires other sources of energy, including fossil, it is unlikely to be a cheaper fuel than gasoline or diesel here today. Also, its combustion produces only water vapour (a greenhouse gas) and virtually no local pollutants such as NOx, SOx, benzene and soot. BMW’s engineering team promises a high horsepower hydrogen fuel engine in its 7 Series sedan before the next generation of the car makes its debut.

The electric car in general appears to be a way forward in principle; electric motors are far more efficient than internal combustion engines and have a much greater power to weight ratio. They also operate efficiently across the full speed range of the vehicle and develop a lot of torque at zero speed, so are ideal for cars. A complex drivetrain and transmission would not be needed. However, despite this the electric car is held back by battery technology — so far a cell with comparable energy density to a tank of liquid fuel is a long way off, and there is no infrastructure in place to support it. A more practical approach may be to use a smaller internal combustion (IC) engine to drive a generator- this approach can be much more efficient since the IC engine can be run at a single speed, use cheaper fuel such as diesel, and drop the heavy, power wasting drivetrain. Such an approach has worked very well for railway locomotives, but so far has not been scaled down for car use.

Recently the automobile industry has determined that the biggest potential growth market (in terms of both revenue and profit), is software. Cars are now equipped with a stunning array of software; from voice recognition and vehicle navigation systems, vehicle tracking system like ESITrack to in-vehicle distributed entertainment systems (DVD/Games), to telematics systems such as BMWs BMW Assist or GMs Onstar not to mention the control subsystems. Software now accounts for 35% of a cars value, and this percentage is only going to get larger. The theory behind this is that the mechanical systems of automobiles are now essentially a commodity, and the real product differentiation occurs in the software systems. Many cars are equipped with full blown 32bit real-time memory protected operating systems such as QNX.

A new invention by Carmelo Scuderi has the potential to permanently change the combustion engine. The engine is still in the process of patenting, raising capital, and developing a prototype. The invention is claimed to improve the efficiency of an engine from 33% to 40%, a substantial improvement. In addition, toxic emissions are claimed to be reduced by as much as 80%. The new invention calls for dividing the four strokes of a normal engine over a combination of one compression cycle and one power cycle. The inventor claims that the invention will also create more power and will cost manufacturers less to produce. However, given that there is not even a working prototype of this design it is still only speculative at this time (May 2006).

Hypothetical driverless cars and flying cars have been proposed for decades, but for now the costs would outweigh the benefits (traffic overhaul and control, fuel and operating costs, the development of widely available driverless and flying cars itself, and the technology required for such vehicles which is currently out of reach). Thus driverless and especially flying cars still are an idea widely associated with science fiction.

See part of vehicles

• engine
  • carburetor or fuel injection
  • fuel pump
  • engine configuration: Wankel or reciprocating (V, inline, flat).
  • engine management systems
  • exhaust system
  • ignition system
  • self starter
  • emissions control devices
  • turbochargers and superchargers
  • front engine
  • rear engine
  • mid engine

• Ancillary power — mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, vacuum, air
• drivetrain
  • transmission (gearbox)
    • manual transmission
    • semi-automatic transmission
    • fully-automatic transmission
  • Layout
    • FF layout
    • FR layout
    • MR layout
    • MF layout
    • RR layout
  • Drive Wheels
    • Two-wheel drive
    • Four-wheel drive
    • Front-wheel drive
    • Rear-wheel drive
    • All-wheel drive
  • Differential
    • limited slip differential
    • locking differential
  • Axle
  • Live axle
• brakes
  • disc brakes
  • drum brakes
  • anti-lock braking system (ABS)
• Wheels and tires
  • custom wheels
  • Magnetic levitation
• Steering
  • rack and pinion
  • Ackermann steering geometry
  • Caster angle
  • Camber angle
  • Kingpin
• suspension
  • MacPherson strut
  • wishbone
  • double wishbone
  • multi-link
  • torsion beam
  • semi-trailing arm
  • axle
• Body
  • crumple zones
  • fender
  • monocoque (or unibody) construction
  • Doors
  • headlight styling
  • spoiler
  • Japan Black (fore-runner of modern automotive finishes)
• Vehicle interior equipment
  • passive safety
    • seat belts
    • airbags
    • child safety locks
  • dashboard
  • gear shifter for selecting gear ratios
  • Ancillary equipment such as stereos, air conditioning, cruise control, car phones, positioning systems, cup holders, etc.
• exterior equipment
  • windows
    • Power window
    • windshield
    • Daytime running lamps

See also

• Automobile design
• Car safety
• GPS
• Effects of the automobile on societies
• Hybrid Cars
• List of automobile manufacturers
• List of automotive superlatives
• North American Eagle
• Pac-Car
• Roadway air dispersion modeling
• Roadway noise
• Thrust SSC
• Passenger vehicles in the United States

External links

• Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
• NHTSA.gov
• BusinssCar magazine
• Car Reviews
• Automobile Car Information
• Indian Auto Car Industry Blog
• Cars in India

First let us consider the name, “automobile.” Now, a “car” could have been called anything and, sometimes, it is. Oliver Evans applied for a U.S. patent in Philadelphia in 1792 on a steam land carriage, which he called the “oruktor amphibolos!” We could have been strapped with that name forever, if it weren’t for more reasonable individuals working on the same concept.

Martini was a 14th Century Italian painter, who had been trained in engineering. He designed (on paper) a man-propelled carriage, mounted on four wheels. Each wheel was powered by a hand-turned capstan arrangement. Gearing was also provided to transmit the rotation of each capstan to the wheel below. It may have looked good on paper, but the four turners of the capstans couldn’t have kept it up for long before they fell over with exhaustion. It is lucky for us that Martini did not name his invention after himself, as many inventors do. If he had, and the word had survived to the present, it might be a little confusing. If we were offered a “Martini,” we might not know whether to drive it or drink it! (Representatives of MADD and SADD would probably tell us to park it!) We could be reading headlines like: ORUKTOR ACCIDENT TAKES THREE LIVES or UNITED MARTINI WORKERS ON STRIKE.

The really historical (and fortunate) aspect of Martini’s design is the name that he gave it: “automobile,” from the Greek word, “auto,” (self) and the Latin word, “mobils,” (moving). “Car,” on the other hand, comes from an ancient Celtic word, “carrus,” meaning cart or wagon.

George B. Selden, an attorney in Rochester, New York, applied for, and finally received, a patent for a “road machine” in 1879. The Duryea brothers (1895) called their products “motor wagons.” In 1896, Henry Ford introduced an experimental car labeled the “Quadricycle.” Newspapers used words like autometon, motor-vique, oleo locomotive, autokenetic, buggyaut, motor carriage, autobaine, automotor horse, diamote, motorig, mocole, and, of course, the horseless carriage. In 1895, H. H. Kohlsaat, publisher of the Chicago Times-Herald, offered a $500.00 prize for the best name for the motorized vehicles of the day. The judges picked “motorcycle” as the winner. “Quadricycle” was a favorite, as was “petrocar.” The word “automobile” wasn’t even in the running! But in 1897, The New York Times prophesied, “…the new mechanical wagon with the awful name — automobile…has come to stay…”

Many of the words that are associated with automobiles are derived from the French; i.e, garage, chauffeur, limousine, and chassis are just some examples.

Where Did The Automobile Idea Come From?

No one person can be credited for the invention of the automobile that you are driving today. It has developed bit by bit from the ideas, imagination, fantasy, and tinkering of hundreds of individuals through hundreds of years.

In the 13th-century, the English philosopher-scientist, Roger Bacon, said that “cars can be made so that without animals they will move with unbelievable rapidity.” Oh, Roger, if you only knew! Bacon was positive that these vehicles had existed in ancient times, but he didn’t know what propelled them.

The Greeks apparently had their own Olympic assembly line. In the “Iliad,” Haephestus (the Roman “Vulcan”), was the god of fire and invention. When he had time off from making thunder bolts and beautiful jewelry for the vain goddesses, he built three-wheeled vehicles, which moved from place to place under their own power. Homer says they were “self-moved, obedient to the gods,” and would Homer lie? The really remarkable thing about this is that even as far back as the Homeric era (8th-9th (?) century B.C.), man had already imagined automobiles.

The motorized vehicle is, indeed, a prime example of creeping development; i.e., invention through slow accumulation of bits and pieces over a time so long that it is hard to pin down its origin. Thomas Russell Ybarra, in this century, wrote rhyming doggerel which pointed to the automobile as a Roman invention. Those who care to can point to two 15th-century Italians: Francesco di Giorgio Martini (whose concept has been presented in another section) and Leonardi Da Vinci. Da Vinci conceived an armor-plated war vehicle, the propulsion system of which is much like that of Martini’s. This particular concept of Da Vinci did not contribute anything of value, not even a name, as did Martini’s.

The important thing to remember is the automobile is not some recent idea that popped up in the 19th-century, or the 18th, or even the 14th. It is a creation that has charmed imagination and inventiveness before man was able to conceive how to make it go. Perhaps that is why Homer placed it in the hands of the gods.

 Ups and Downs in Automotive Progress

As early as 1600, the Dutch, no strangers to wind power, had built a wind-powered, sail-mounted carriage. These carriages were reported to hold several passengers and move at speeds as high as twenty miles per hour. These tests were abandoned in favor of small windmills built onto the carriage, with mill vanes geared to the wheels. In either case, whether equipped with sails or windmills, they never caught on; mostly because they could not move except on the whim of a breeze. However, they were probably the first real land vehicles to move under power, other than that of animal or human muscle. While the Dutch dreamed in terms of the wind, others were thinking of other means of propulsion. In the 1700s, a Frenchman, Jacques de Vaucanson (no relation to the Roman god, Vulcan), built a vehicle which was powered by an engine based on the workings of a clock. What he neglected to calculate was that any clock which was capable of moving a vehicle with passengers would have to outweigh the load it was carrying. Even winding such a clock motor would take great time and greater effort than it was worth.

Inventors in England, France, Germany and other countries worked on the idea of a compressed-air engine, but they were unable to find the solution to self-propulsion in this means. However, in their efforts, they contributed significant individual elements to the picture; elements like valves, pistons, cylinders, and connecting rods, and an emerging idea of how each of these elements related to the other. The first invention that can truly and logically be called an “automobile” was a heavy, three-wheeled, steam-driven, clumsy vehicle built in 1769 by Captain Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French Army engineer. (Cugat was actually born in Switzerland, but the French don’t want to hear about it.) This mechanism was slow, ponderous, and only moved by fits and starts. In tests, it carried four passengers at a slow pace – a little over two miles per hour – and had to stop every twenty minutes to build a fresh head of steam. It was, however, a self-powered, steerable, wheeled, people transporter, thereby demonstrating that the idea of mobilization was workable. Unhappily, Cugot’s superiors were not men of vision and failed to appreciate the potential of his creation. To show him how they really felt, they disallowed him any funds for further development and transferred him to other duties. Since they had paid good money for this contraption, however, they preserved the vehicle, and it can still be seen in the Paris museum, where it is displayed with proper national pride.

In the meantime, Great Britain, who believed themselves to be the masters of steam, had begun to believe that they could put this same steam on wheels. It was probably natural that they believed this; Thomas Savery, an English engineer, had given the world its first steam engine in 1698. This engine was crude (by our standards), inefficient, and blew up at intervals. Thomas Newcomen, an English blacksmith in 1711, turned out a better, less dangerous version of the engine. Then, in 1679, James Watt, a Scottish instrument maker, had patented a truly improved steam engine that became widely used in British mills, mines, and factories. Sir Isaac Newton, in 1680, conceived of the idea of a carriage propelled by a “rearwardly directed jet of steam.” (It didn’t amount to much at the time, but Sir Isaac’s concept has become the means of rearwardly directed jets to provide the thrust for rockets to probe space.) Then, in 1801, an engineer in Cornwall, Richard Trevithick, built a road steamer, which was first tested in a Christmas Eve snowfall. Two years later, he built an improved model with drive wheels ten feet in diameter, which proved to be capable of sustained, reliable performance at speeds up to twelve miles per hour.

Others were also working on steam propulsion in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France, and the United States. The Evans vehicle, the “oruktor amphibolos” referred to earlier, was thirty feet long and weighed fifteen tons. It was really intended for dredging the harbor and was the world’s first amphibious conveyance. On it first run in 1804, it clanked along on huge iron wheels, frightening Philadelphia onlookers out of their skivvies, before entering the Schuylkill River, where its propulsive energy was converted to a stern paddle wheel. Another American inventor, Richard Dudgeon, was experimenting with steam-mobiles. One was destroyed in a fire in 1858 in the famous Crystal Palace in New York City; another, built about ten years later, was banned from the streets by the civic leaders. Britain actually was where the steamers made their greatest impact. By the 1830s, they had set up a limited network which provided both passenger and freight service to a handful of cities. The public was awed, amused, and sometimes bitter. Some complained that the road steamers were noisy, which they were; and some complained that they were dangerous, which was occasionally true. But, as is natural, the loudest complaints came from vested interests, horse-drawn vehicles and railroads, who were afraid of losing business. Because of the pressure, in 1865, the British Parliament adopted the “Red Flag Act,” which limited steamers to a speed of four miles an hour on the open road and to two miles an hour in the city. It required a crew of three men: one walking sixty yards ahead, with a red flag by day and a lantern at night, to warn of the vehicle’s approach. Stymied by these restrictions, several British engineers turned their thoughts and attention to electricity as a promising alternative to steam. One can imagine that the automobile may have progressed very differently if not for these restrictions.

It takes courage to effect revolutionary changes of any kind, and there were some formidable tinkerers in the horse-drawn carriage, nineteenth century; men like William Murdock, William Henry James, William Symington, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney and Walter Hancock, Charles Dallery, Etienne Lenoir, Amedee Bollee-Pere, Siegfried Marcus, Thomas Blanchard, William Janes, Nathan Read, Apollos Kinsey, Sylvester Roper, Carl Benz, and Gottlieb Daimler.

Shocking Developments

The first electric-powered road vehicle is believed to have been built in Scotland about 1839 by Robert Anderson, but it, along with others within the next several years, were generally unsuccessful. The steamer had to wait for a boiler to build up pressure and was very noisy besides. The concept of an electrical engine that could start immediately and run quietly was very attractive at that time. There were disadvantages, however. Electric batteries were heavy, bulky, unreliable, and needed recharging after a short run. In 1880, there was a general improvement in the development of longer-lasting batteries. There still existed, however, excessive weight and bulk of the batteries and a need for frequent rechargings, although electric cabs appeared on the streets of London in the late 1800s.

Steamers and electric vehicles gained only restricted acceptance on the continent as well. In France, the electric had a shining, brief hour of public acclaim when Camille Jenatzy, driving a Jeantaud electric, pushed the cigar-shaped vehicle to a record of sixty miles per hour on April 29, 1899. The high-speed run, however, burned out the specially fabricated batteries and the interest in electrics died almost as soon as the cheers of the attending public.

It was in America that steamers and electric cars gained their most sustained measure of success. Eventually twenty different U.S. car companies would produce electrics; and in the peak of popularity, 1912, nearly 35,000 were operating on American roads. But even America could not shake the limitations of the bulky batteries and the short ranges between recharging. Steamers were actually more popular. More than 100 American plants were making steamers, the most famous of which were the Stanley brothers factory in Newton, Massachusetts. The “Stanley Steamer” had the affectionate nickname, “The Flying Teapot,” and with good reason. In 1906, a Stanley Steamer was clocked at 127.6 miles per hour on the sands of Ormond Beach, Florida. In spite of this, the steamers, along with the electrics, were only living on borrowed time. Experiments were being made on an automobile powered by a gasoline-fueled, internal-combustion engine, and the steamers and electrics would not survive the impact of the coming collision.

Internal-combustion automobiles did not just burst forth on the scene all of a sudden to crowd the electrics and steamers off the road. The theories of internal-combustion engines had been on the way ever since 1860, when Etienne Lenoir applied to the authorities in Paris for a patent on his invention, an internal-combustion engine powered by coal gas. Two years later, Lenoir hooked his engine to a carriage, and, although it was crude, it worked. It worked so poorly and so slowly (about one mile an hour), however, that he became discouraged and abandoned his efforts.

In 1864, a resourceful Austrian in Vienna, Siegfried Marcus, built a one-cylinder engine that incorporated a crude carburetor and a magneto arrangement to create successive small explosions that applied alternating pressure against the piston within the cylinder. Bolting his engine to a cart, Siegfried geared the piston to the rear wheels, and while a strong assistant lifted the rear of the cart off the ground, Siegfried started the engine. The wheels began to turn and continued to turn with each successive “pop.” Marcus signaled the assistant to lower the cart and watched it burp along for about 500 feet before it ran out of fuel. Ten years later, he built the new, improved version of his motorcar, and then, mysteriously washed his hands of the entire thing, saying it was a waste of time. (The second model, which is preserved in an Austrian museum, was refurbished and taken for a test run in Vienna in 1950. It reached a top speed of ten miles per hour on level ground.)

Although Lenoir and Marcus did not have the grit and determination to pursue their enterprises, they made some valuable contributions to the theory of internal-combustion engines. It would be overstating the case to credit them with the creation of the internal-combustion automobile, however.

Get A Horse!

The proud owner of a new horseless carriage often loaded his family into the machine while the neighbors ogled with envy. Invariably, the budding driver would over-dramatize the ritual of donning his gloves, checking his equipment, and cranking the engine into sputtering, back-firing action, while onlookers held their ears. With heads held high, the driver and passengers would then begin their baptismal trek into the country, beaming with arrogant satisfaction. They would take the way which would lead them past the “right people,” of course. If ever there was a “thrill of a lifetime,” this was it. But such were the ways of life in those days that such joyous beginnings didn’t always have a happy ending.

Somewhere along the way, the tiny engine would start to cough and sputter. The driver would assure his frightened passengers that there was nothing to worry about, but the mechanical hiccuping continued. The driver’s assurances would waiver, and when the motor finally died, the ego-deflated owner suffered the pangs of the damned. When no amount of tinkering, kicking, or cursing would revive the engine, the humiliating trip to the nearest farm would have to take place. The farmer would probably be glad to add to the driver’s mental anguish by making remarks about “them new-fangled contraptions,” but with some degree of stability, he would harness his team and hitch it to the front of the horseless carriage.

Now gone were the proud airs; mother and daughter blushed with shame as they were towed back homeward past their snickering neighbors. Young sons usually enjoyed the experience, but father was ready to explode. The team of horses, as slow, expensive, and old-fashioned as they were, got the final horse laugh. It seems right, somehow, that the term “horse-power” has continued to be a measurement of the automobile’s mechanical muscle. The animal has certainly contributed so much to civilization that it needs some lasting remembrance with the vehicle which unceremoniously dumped it from public favor. The horse was not just replaced, he was caught up in a competitive situation which saw him maligned by copyrighters, ridiculed by a new strain of high-powered merchants, called auto dealers, and he was even attacked by health authorities, who saw the motor car as an end of manure heaps, disease-toting flies, and assorted other pollution.

Anyone who has ever walked down-wind of a livery stable knows that the horse had an aromatic drawback. It was also easy for the sly advertiser to win over a public, who was plagued with a need for sticky flypaper, insect traps, and foul-smelling sprays. No one envisioned that the motor car would be all health and happiness, either, but the economic argument was hammered home by automobile publicists. They pointed out that each horse in the U.S. required the production of five acres of land and twenty man-days of work per year. Ransom E. Olds, writing in “Scientific American” before 1900, took an swing at the horse when he advertised a new steam carriage: “It never kicks or bites, never tires on long runs, and never sweats in hot weather. It does not require care in the stable and eats only while on the road.” William A. White, a famed editor and horse-lover, wrote, “…he makes no claim to speed, but his carburetor always works, and while he has but two cylinders, he brings his guests back in one piece at home rather than downtown at the undertaker’s to be assembled by total strangers…”

Stories of runaways, overturned buggies and other accidents due to horses were widely exaggerated and overdramatized. Of 476 equine accidents, analyzed by a prominent magazine, only two were reportedly caused because the horses involved were frightened by automobiles. This statistical whitewash was to refute the common complaint that motor cars were scaring otherwise good, tame horses. The anti-horse faction, always looking for new ammunition, made the most of a vicious heat wave which hit New York City in July of 1911. About 1,200 horses dropped dead of heat exposure, and it was quickly pointed out that motor cars and trucks continued to function without difficulty or detriment to the health of the populace. The once overwhelming notes of rebuttal began to flag, and in spite of the fact that there were 25,000,000 horses in the country in 1912, Dobbin was definitely “out,” and the “Betsy” was “in.”

This transition from a centuries-old form of land transportation to one of automobiles was not easy, and it did not just happen in a day or two. The horse was, after all, an important part of the economy. Feed and veterinary bills amounted to millions of dollars each year. The Chicago Times reported that horseshoes in 1915 required enough iron to build 60,000 motor cars. Harness makers, buggy-whip companies, carriage builders, livery stable operators, blacksmiths, an army of street cleaners, wheelwrights and even hitching-post manufacturers were all affected by the technological development of automobiles. These companies had to either re-tool and adapt to the industry or face the realities of a declining business.

The coming of WWI spurred the production of motor vehicles, and also upped the need for horses and mules. After the signing of Armistice, however, the final turning point came. From then on, it was really downhill for the horse – not into oblivion, fortunately, but to a minor role of race tracks, rodeos, show rings, riding clubs, and Wild West movies. The horse retired to greener pastures (or to the glue factory) and became only a legend in transportation and agriculture.

It’s Just Another Statistic

From the very first, automobiles have attracted each other like magnets, even when there were only two in the same town. The first incident (or accident) occurred when horse met car. The car-haters over-dramatized the runaways and foretold all sorts of catastrophes for the future. On the other hand, the motorists blamed it on the horses and predicted a great new day of personal transportation. Each side had an element of truth. There was no question that the automobile was a boon to mankind, but it was also to prove to be a killer of people, a destroyer of property, and the accomplice of criminals.

Even in the beginning of the automobile age, when numbers were few and bad roads limited the amount of traffic, deaths due to accidents in automobiles began to mount. Before the U.S. entered WWI, auto accidents had killed more than 36,000 Americans. By comparison, only 22,424 had lost their lives in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War combined. This trend to kill more people with cars than with weapons worsened as the years rolled by.

Before the turn of the century, anti-horseless carriage sentiments began to express themselves in restrictive regulations. In the late 1890s, Louis Greenough and Harry Adams of Pierre, South Dakota, built a homemade car out of an Elkhart wagon and a two-cylinder Wolverine gas motor, hoping to haul passengers at the county fair. They were not only denied permission to haul passengers, the authorities would not even let them bring their contraption inside the city limits. Automobiles were banned in the streets of many cities: Boston, Chicago and Bar Harbor, Maine, to name a few. In Massachusetts, an act to require that all cars be equipped with a bell which would ring with each wheel revolution was voted down, as was one for shooting off roman candles to warn of the vehicle’s approach. There were laws that required motorists to stop completely while buggies, surreys and freight wagons dragged by. Speed limits as low as two and three mile per hour were imposed by a few cities and towns. In some, night-time driving was prohibited. In 1907, Glencoe, Illinois, built humps in the streets to discourage speeding. Three years earlier, they had stretched a steel cable across the road to stop the “devil wagons.” Most of this was antagonism rather than an attempt to accomplish constructive regulations.

While the jumble of confusing ordinances continued to plague pioneer motorists, a new wrinkle was added: the “speed trap.” In smaller towns, particularly, marshals and other law officials lay in wait for unsuspecting drivers, timing them by stop-watch or “by guess and by gosh.” Some lawmen were authorized to shoot at tires or to stretch chains or wire across the road. Until the motorcycle became a police vehicle, the local sheriff’s office was somewhat limited in their pursuit of fleeing cars, since they were either on foot or on bicycles.

Motorists tried to find ways to defend themselves. One way was by organization, and in 1902, the American Automobile Association was formed in Chicago to take up the pennant for the motor car operator. That same year, the city passed an ordinance prohibiting the driver of a car to wear “pince-nez” glasses. The A.A.A. proved to be a good watchdog for its members as it fostered realistic regulations and fought against abusive police action, especially the common practice of arresting owners of expensive cars on the premise that such people could afford to pay a stiffer fine.

In the middle of this confusion, there seemed to be no stemming the growing tide of accidents. It was a case of simple arithmetic; more cars meant more collisions. With each year, too, the autos were made faster and more powerful. Narrow roads with no shoulders and sharp, unbanked curves simply couldn’t accommodate speed runs, and from the beginning, auto owners have had the desire to “see how fast she’ll go.” Gradually, the automobile was accepted as a permanent fixture, and traffic regulations shifted from anti-car priority to that of anti-accident.

On October 13, 1913, The National Council for Industrial Safety opened a three-room headquarters in Chicago. The original emphasis had been on the “industrial,” but in that year, the Public Safety Commission of Chicago and Cook County reported that in July, twenty people had been killed by automobiles, eighteen of them children. The commission launched an education program – with leaflets and slides – in the schools and parks, and the new NCIS realized that the motor car would have to be the subject of its most intense study. In 1914, the organization’s name was changed to The National Safety Council, and it began to the compile statistics on automobile accidents. From 1913, when the death toll was 4,000, or 4.4% of a 100,000 population, it rose, in 1930, to 32,900, or 26.7%.

The desire to “do something about it” was growing among Americans everywhere; but the urge to find unfettered freedom in a fast car was even stronger. In 1914, Detroit installed a manually-operated stop-and-go sign. In August that year an electrical traffic signal was put in operation at 105th and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. The Ford Motor Company gave each car purchaser a card reminding him to “Stop, Look, and Listen,” at all railroad crossings. Magazines and newspaper articles carried “don’t drink and drive” cartoons; this cooled off during the prohibition when “nobody” was drinking. But bootleggers, in their big touring cars, and the bathtub gin guzzlers, in their sporty rumble seat models, continued to add to the highway toll.

In 1924, the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety, whose chairman was the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, authorized a committee to draft a uniform motor vehicle code for all forty-eight states. Two years later, the laws were presented and adopted by the second conference. The individual states didn’t move so quickly, and some adopted the package in their own time, but a standardized code of laws was a major achievement of effective nation-wide traffic regulations.

Die-hard horse-lovers saw the entire development with an “I told you so” attitude. They knew that the nation was going to suffer for its folly in permitting roads to be over-run with those mechanical contraptions. They were snickering in the wilderness, however. The automobile had a solid footing in America, and no amount of finger pointing could make it go away. Men began to feel that buying a car was like taking a bride, you just have to take what you get, for better or for worse.

Internal-Combustion Engine Inventors

Lenoir and Marcus had shown the feasibility of the internal-combustion engines, but both lacked faith in their own enterprises and abandoned their efforts. Closest to the mark in the judgment of historians is another pair of inventors who had faith in the future of the motorcar as well as in themselves. They worked doggedly (and unbeknownst to each other) to find the missing pieces of a puzzle that had been plaguing automotive inventors through the years: how to propel the horseless carriage.

Carl Freidrich Benz and Gottlich Wilhelm Daimler worked separately (and at almost the same moment) in Germany; each designing and building the world’s first commercially successful cars. These are, for all intents and purposes, the direct linear antecedents of the modern automobile.

Benz’s first creation was not very impressive, either in design nor in initial road test. It was a fragile, carriage-like three-wheeler with tubular framework, mounted on a Benz-designed, one-horsepower, one-cylinder engine. The engine was a refinement of the four-stroke engine designed by Nikolaus Otto (another German), who had refined his from Lenoir’s two-stroke engine. Even though Benz’s creation was awkward and frail, it incorporated some essential elements that would characterize the modern vehicle: electrical ignition, differential, mechanical valves, carburetor, engine cooling system, oil and grease cups for lubrication, and a braking system. He obtained a patent on a “carriage with gasoline engine” in 1886.

About seventy-five miles from Carl Benz, Daimler worked diligently to design a better internal-combustion engine. He was satisfied that he had succeeded in 1833, when he took out a patent on what he believed was a more efficient, four-stroke, gasoline-fueled engine. He first mounted his engine on a sturdy bicycle, a two-wheeler, which ran satisfactorily on its test run in 1885. This was the prototype of the modern motorcycle. In 1887, Daimler, encouraged by this success and by experience, installed his engine in a four-wheeled, two-passenger vehicle. The engine had only a few more horsepower than Benz’s, but it was lighter and ran at a much higher speed – 900 rpm as compared to Benz’s 300 rpm. It was the first example of a high-speed, internal- combustion engine.

Daimler and Benz argued heatedly concerning each other’s claim to fame and prestige. Daimler insisted that he had successfully tested his engine on a bicycle before Benz had patented his tricycle and had, in any case, been the first to patent a four-wheeled car. Benz conceded that Daimler invented the motorcycle, but he insisted his tricycle was the first motorcar. These claims are still argued to this day by people who care; historians give both men a lot of credit: Daimler for his high-speed engine; Benz for the features of water cooling, electric ignition and differential gears. Benz and Daimler continued separately and competitively, to develop improved engines and refined vehicles to put them in. When Gottlich died in 1900, his company removed his name from the car he had created and affixed “Mercedes,” for Mercedes Jellinck, the daughter of an influential distributor who lived in France. In 1926, when Carl Benz was 82 (he lived three more years), the companies merged into one firm. These two inventive giants, who worked so hard and lived less than seventy-five miles apart, never met one another, but they poised the world for entry into the Automobile Age. Just as the 19th-century was making its way into the 20th, the world was little inclined to be led in the direction of automobiles – except for those who had money enough to indulge their fancies, and in France, where motorcar production was beginning to assume some significant economical measures.

The wide boulevards of Paris, and the fine paved roads radiating out of the French capital, were ideal settings for rich sportsmen to show off their noisy toys. By 1895, there were so many self-propelled vehicles puttering around the city that the French Academy coined a new word to the French language to describe them. The word was “automobile.”

One of the first vehicles to be officially designated an automobile was a car which is now considered to be the real prototype of modern cars. It was a Daimler-powered vehicle built in 1892 by the Parisian carriage-making firm, Panhard and Levassor. The “Panhard” marked the appearance of the automobile’s classic design: engine in front, supplying power to a gearbox behind it; gearbox connected by chain drive to the rear drive wheels. It had four forward speeds and a reverse, and an 1894 model made headlines when it covered a 750-mile distance from Paris to Rouen in forty-eight hours at an average speed of fifteen miles per hour.

Is It A Car? Is It A Plane? No, It’s A Bicycle!

Although the first automobiles were called “horseless carriages,” and they were, indeed, little more than motorized versions of horse-drawn vehicles, the automobile owes much more to the bicycle than it does to the buggy. It has been explained in a prior chapter that Daimler tested his high-speed engine on a bicycle and developed the world’s first motorcycle. Bicyclists, too, generated the first movement for good roads and set the stage for motoring in America.

Automotive advancement in America was hampered by the need of roads. Bicyclists, however, generated a national good roads movement in the early 1890s, which culminated with the establishment of the U.S. Office of Road Inquiry under the Department of Agriculture in 1893. This later evolved into the Bureau of Public Roads.

In fact, the American bicycle industry of the 1890s is really a sponsor of the automobile industry. Many pioneers in automotives were men who were experienced in manufacturing bicycles. Charles and Frank Duryea introduced the first successful American internal- combustion engine in 1893. Charles was a skilled bicycle mechanic. Alexander Winston, a bicycle manufacturer, made the first American high-performance car in 1897, a twelve-horsepower model that tested out at 33.7 miles per hour. Henry Ford, a tinkerer, used many bicycle parts, including a saddle, on his first “quadricyle” in 1896. There were twenty-seven American bicycle manufacturers in 1890, and many of these played significant roles in the development of the automobile. The Pope Manufacturing Company opened a motor-carriage department in 1897 to produce Columbia cars, using the popularity of their Columbia bicycles as a sales incentive. Another manufacturer, Rambler bicycles, was so successful with their Rambler automobiles that they concentrated solely on the cars and stopped producing bicycles altogether.

The first car manufacturers were dependent on the bicycle firms for many of the parts they needed: lightweight tubing, gears, chain drives, ball and roller bearings, wire wheels, pneumatic tires, tools, and sometimes, even the space in which they needed to work. The first car dealers were also recruited and converted from the bicycle dealers. The best place to buy a really fine car at the turn of the century was at the local bicycle shop.

America! America! Cars in America

The greatest legend in the American automobile development is the common belief that the car is an American institution. The American car inventors were really Johnny-come-latelys, when it came to producing the automobile, but once they got going, they made up for all the centuries of lost time.

Although the automobile was becoming an increasingly familiar sight in Europe in the 1890s, it was considered a freakish contraption in the United States. Roads were poor and few. Americans finally became receptive to the idea of the automobile when they realized that, with a car, they could go where they wanted to go without having to use the railroad.

Detroit is not the original forge where the U.S. auto industry took shape: Hartford, Cleveland, and at least a dozen other places have better credentials. Many men and hundreds of hours of creating, designing, and hard work went into the creation of American cars. Several crude, experimental motorized buggies had been built in the U.S. before the Duryea brothers built the first successful, internal-combustion car in 1892-93.

A carriage maker in Flint, Michigan, William C. Durant designed a motorcar and went on to organize Buick, General Motors, and Chevrolet. George M. Pierce made bird cages, bicycles and finally, automobiles–Pierce-Arrows. Charles W. Nash made the Nash. In 1954 the Nash Kelvinator Corp. merged with the Hudson Motor Car Company to become the American Motors Corporation.

Car designers came from all areas and occupations. Some succeeded, but most failed. Then, along came the son of a Michigan farmer. His name was Henry Ford.

In 1879, Henry Ford was sixteen years old when he got a job in Detroit. In his spare time he built an internal-combustion engine from plans he found in a magazine. It was a bicycle-wheeled, tiller-steered two-seater, without brakes or reverse gear. It was so noisy that it was condemned by the public as a nuisance.

In 1898, he built an improved vehicle, but it failed in a year. Finally he produced an automobile that was bigger, more powerful, and much faster. A well-known bicycle rider drove the car in a race and won. The publicity got Ford financial backing.

The first popular car was a roadster, the “Oldsmobile,” designed as an economy car by Ransom E. Olds. This car had two seats and a one-cylinder, three-horsepower engine.

In 1900, only 8,000 cars were registered in the U.S. Olds introduced quantity production, and became a very rich man. The car sold for $650, about half the price of competitors. Sales zoomed from 425 in 1901, to 6,500 in 1905.

Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Ford first brought out the Model A: a small, two cylinder car with an eight- horsepower engine, which sold for $850. The next year, the Model B Ford was added, a four-cylinder, which sold for $2,000. In 1906, Ford added the Model K, an important milestone. In 1906, New York held two auto shows. In Madison Square Garden, there were 220 exhibits; the 69th Regiment Armory show had 205 exhibitors. Ford’s Model K, introduced at Madison Square Garden, was big, heavy, expensive and a mistake. It could go 60 mph with its six-cylinder, 40-horsepower engine. It sold for $2,800, $2,000 more than a Cadillac. Ford lost money on every one sold, so he concentrated on a light, simple, rugged model that could be sold inexpensively; what he termed “the universal automobile.”

The new design was called the Model T. Adapted from the model N, it was solidly constructed, and easy to operate and repair. Its chassis was high to provide good clearance. A four-cylinder engine produced 20-horsepower in two forward speeds and a reverse. In 1909, the least expensive Model T got about thirty miles to the gallon. Customers responded to the advantages of the Model T, and new, plants were constructed. Production increased from 10,000 in 1909 to 78,000 in 1912. In 1913, Ford found a better, faster way to build cars.

In 1914, Ford opened the world’s first auto assembly line. Production jumped to 472,000; a car could be turned out in 93 minutes. In 1924, when half of the cars in the world were Fords, the Model T sold for $290 and profits piled up. The last “tin lizzy” (the 15,007,003rd) rolled off the production line in 1927. It was truly the “universal car,” in every corner of the world.

The eighteen-year supremacy of the Ford caused the disappearance of many of the smaller car companies and the emergence of others. One of the consolidators was the General Motors Corporation. William C. Durant bought out the Buick Motor Company in 1904. He incorporated General Motors in 1908 and merged Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Oakland (Pontiac) into a single corporation. Ford’s monopoly ended after WWI; other manufacturers began to make cheaper, more attractive cars. In 1916, the Chevrolet Motor Company put out a four-cylinder model that eventually passed the Ford as the best-selling car in America.

Another strong competitor of the Model T was a tough four-cylinder Dodge manufactured by John and Horace Dodge. By 1924, they assembled 1,000 cars per day. Four years later the company was purchased for what was then a world’s record price of $175,000,000 by Walter P. Chrysler, of the Chrysler Corporation. In 1928 the Chrysler Corporation started selling Dodges, DeSotos Plymouths, and Chryslers.

By 1928, competition had forced new standard equipment. The self- starter was invented in 1911, resulting in more drivers. The car had gone from a wooden, open vehicle to a steel, fully enclosed year-round sedan. The modern automobile was mechanically “complete” by 1929, when 4,587,400 cars were sold in the United States. All the major mechanical developments since then have been improvements or refinements of existing systems.

Henry Ford did not create the automobile nor the automobile industry. When he built his first internal-combustion engine from magazine plans in 1896 and mounted it in a carriage, others had already built better motor vehicles than his crude attempt. Those others must yield the stage to Henry Ford in one aspect; it was he who captained the manufacturing revolution. He jacked up the world and slid four wheels under it. He said he would democratize the automobile and when he was through, just about everyone would have a car. He kept his word. Life would never be the same again.

Name It and It’s Yours

By 1911 the automobile industry had come into its own. Securities of automotive companies were listed in the New York Stock Exchange. The Ford Motor Company had been formed, and by 1908 had introduced the historic Model T. The Buick Motor Company, the Olds Motor Works, the Cadillac Automobile Company and the Oakland Motor Car Company had already achieved individual success – and had been combined with other firms by William Crapo Durant into the General Motors Company. Durant then lost control of the organization and moved on to another career, building and selling a new automobile, which had been designed by and named for Louis Chevrolet, a French race driver. Another promoter, Benjamin Briscoe, had brought together some 130 companies to create the United States Motor Car Corporation. This ambitious merger soon ran into financial difficulties and ran into receivership in 1912. Michigan, and especially Detroit, were now established as centers of automobile production. The general public took to motorized vehicles like moths to a flame. While the heads of companies were inventing, merging, maneuvering, suing, counter-suing, promoting, failing, or amassing fantastic wealth, curious Americans from Oregon to Maine were interested enough to open their wallets. Dealerships were set up in livery stables, blacksmith shops and general stores in the largest cities and in the smaller towns. Some of the mechanically-minded individuals assembled their own vehicles, while others turned to their favorite source of supply for anything – the Sears, Roebuck catalog – to order a motor buggy “so safe that a child could run it.”

Many of those who contributed to the automotive industry have faded from memory and into historic oblivion (or those whose ideas were stolen, into oblivion itself). Others have been engraved into automobile history on nameplates. Walter Chrysler, Louis Chevrolet, David Dunbar Buick, Ransom E. Olds, Henry Ford, John and Horace Dodge, The White, Mack, and Duesenberg brothers have not been forgotten. John Mohler Studebaker, John North Willys, Harry Stutz, William Crapo Durant, Edwin Ross Thomas, Francis and Freelan Stanley, Johathan Dixon Maxwell, Charles W. Nash, James Ward Packard, Thomas B. Jeffery, E. L. Cord, George N. Pierce, Albert Augustus Pope, Howard C. Marmon and others like them have a niche in the automotive annuals because their names graced the automobiles and radiator caps of their era.

Only an avid hobbyist or automotive historian is familiar with the pioneers like H. Bartol Brazier of Philadelphia; J. L. Cato of San Francisco; Dan J. Piscorski of St. Louis, Missouri; W. H. Kiblinger of Auburn, Indiana; Percy L. Klock of New York; F. J. Fanning of Chicago; C. Clarence Holden of Comanche, Texas; or J. A. Moncrieff of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They had cars named for them as well, but for some reason, the vehicles failed to catch on and their creators were ground into the oils of automotive history by more popular models.

In 1904, Graham Fisher and James A. Allison organized the Prest-O- Lite Company and introduced a new system of acetylene gas headlights. In 1908, the year of the Model T, C. Harold Wills developed the use of vanadium steel for Ford. At the same time, Charles Y. Knight was perfecting his sleeve-valve engine, and the Fischer brothers founded a company which was to gain fame as a producer of closed auto bodies. Scientific experimentation of Charles Franklin Kettering of the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company helped bring about such innovations as the electric starter and ethyl gasoline. Harvey S. Firestone, B. F. Goodrich, Arthur W. Grand and others worked with rubber to overcome deficiencies in tire construction. Edward G. Budd, a young Philadelphia engineer, is credited with the idea for all-steel bodies for automobiles. Before this time, many of the manufacturers had been carriage makers and used the same techniques and designs they had previously used for horse-drawn vehicles. The heat of early-day motors caused wood to warp and weakened the glue which held it together. Rough roads made joints give way so that the automobile creaked and groaned. Budd left a good job to pursue his idea with his own company; in 1912, he finally convinced the Oakland and Hupmobile people to try his all-steel body frames, and the next year he received his first large contract from John and Horace Dodge.

Arthur O. Smith, the son of a Milwaukee blacksmith and bicycle parts manufacturer, shifted his interests from bicycles to the new-fangled horseless carriage. He sold his first pressed steel frames to the Peerless Motor Company early in the 20th century and when other auto builders became interested, he offered a house and lot to a foreman who could increase his production to twelve frames per day. It was then that he was visited by Henry Ford. Ford ordered 10,000 Model T frames for delivery in four months; a challenge that was accepted, and by 1921, the A. O. Smith Corporation was capable of producing Ford’s first order in a single day.

Hundreds of ideas have come from unknown mechanics who achieved neither fame nor pay for their contributions. The automobile, as it progressed, was a product of many hands, of revolutionary concepts, and of simple, almost unnoticed upgrading. In the end, the one who received the most for these challenges and changes was the motorist, whose interest, money, and enthusiasm have forced the auto-moguls to upgrade, perfect, and add to previous achievements in order to stay in the competition.

The Cadillac is named after the man who, in the 1700’s, founded Detroit. His name was Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

Automotive History

The Social Impact of The Automobile

Once the world climbed into the driver’s seat and stepped on the gas, it hardly ever looked back. Art Buchwald wrote, “Americans are broad- minded people. They’ll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater, and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn’t drive there’s something wrong with him.” Automobiles became more than just toys for the rich, they became a part of day-to-day living in, from, and to the work place. And it is in America that the long ride has been the zippiest, the zestiest, and the zaniest, because it is in America that automobiles started a social revolution almost as revolutionary as that of the motorized industry itself.

One of the first social changes cars brought about was in mating habits. It didn’t take young people in America long to realize that there was a lot more they could accomplish in a backseat than on the front porch. Besides, it would be more private and a good deal more comfortable. Motorized courtship had been established even before the Model T offered a love nest within everyone’s price range. Gus Edwards’ popular “In My Merry Oldsmobile” contained two very provocative lines: “You can go as far as you like with me, In our merry Oldsmobile.” Ford’s Model T just gave the merry Oldsmobile an enormous amount of company at prices the common person could afford. In 1944, John Steinbeck noted in “Cannery Row”: “Most of the babies of the era were conceived in the Model T Ford, and not a few were born in them.” And it wasn’t just in America.

A survey of 6,000 British girls by the London “Woman” revealed that half of them regularly make love in parked cars. In Los Angeles, a business called “Tail Dating” became popular. The motorist paid a fee to receive a bumper sticker in popular day-glo colors. If one driver spots another car on the road with a driver that sparks his or her interest, and also sports the bumper sticker, the license number can be phoned in to “Tail Dating” to set up a meeting. The automobile manufacturers had no qualms about using sex appeal to sell their product. In 1924, a Jordan firm named one of its models the “Playboy.” Its ad campaign showed a handsome cowboy and a beautiful girl driving “somewhere West of Laramie.” A Brewster used the same tactics when they produced a heart-shaped radiator grille. Some car companies turned out models with seats that folded down to become a double bed. Things haven’t really changed much, except the fold-down seat has become a more comfortable van with all the luxuries of a motel.

Automobiles opened up the possibility of farm children going to town schools, where they were provided with better facilities and greater educational choices. It also gave farm communities the ability to shop at will, rather than once or twice a year. Town was within shopping range and there were also clubs, theaters, and numerous other activities that the average farm family had previously been denied. If one got tired of it, he could always get back to the quiet of the country.

The feminists’ movement, which had been dragging its feet ever since the 1820s, had a rapid growth from the automobile. In 1898, Genevra Delphine Mudge drove a Waverly Electric in New York to become the nation’s first known female motorist. The following year she became the country’s first female racing driver by competing in a Locomobile in a New York race meet. She skidded into five people standing on the sidelines, knocking them down, but not seriously hurting them. She’s now only a footnote in automotive history as the first American woman to have an automobile accident. It was also in 1898 that Chicago began requiring licenses in order to drive, and one of the first to be licensed was a woman. The Women’s Motoring Club of New York was chartered before Henry Ford had even begun to produce the Model T. In 1909, the president, Alice Ramsey, and three members left New York in an open-bodied Maxwell-Briscoe and drove to San Francisco in 59 days. Women were not a real part of the automotive scene, however, until

Henry Leland produced a self-starter in a 1912 Cadillac. Eliminating the physical strain of hand-cranking, he removed a large physical bar from women drivers and, perhaps, men as well, since he was prompted to this creation because his friend died of injuries he had received from the kickback of a hand crank.

The automobile gave America a new look and something new to look at as well. Escaping railroad schedules and the fixed routes of public transportation, Americans could go wherever and whenever they wanted and stay or leave at will. They took advantage of this opportunity by the thousands. Overcrowded hotels and stage stops developed into road-side cabins and then courts and finally, into motels for the convenience of the motorist who was on his way to someplace else and only needed a stopover to rest for the night.

Businesses looked around and saw the multitude on cars on the roads and followed after them. First there were a smattering of service stations; then they spread across the country like insects as more and more people owned wheels. Every junction of the road had a gas station, and eventually they were on each corner of the junction. The speed of the vehicles picked up sharply and station owners were soon watching them fly by to the next stop, so they started building eye-catching structures, and because man does not live on gasoline alone, they erected diners and cabins and assorted other roadside businesses, which now provide everything from swimming pools and paper, disposable swim suits to breath sprays.

Some salute the car for improving the American breed by providing such extended mating territories. This may be argued, but the car surely did alter the pattern of movement. People began to leave the beaten path, which had previously been unknown. The car introduced a country to itself, enabling travelers to discover and to understand regional differences and common values.

The placid beauty of the open road and the changing scenery began to be spoiled by old tires, food wrappings, pop and beer bottles (and then cans), by bodies of animals who could not outrun the charging vehicle, by deserted service buildings and finally, by road signs designed to catch the motorist`s eye several miles ahead of his arrival, so that he had time to consider stopping before he had already sped past.

One advertising man instituted the now famous Burma Shave jingles, which were spaced out to match the speed of the traffic. Tourist cabins were upgraded into more lavish courts, and then into motels. Diners began to improve and highway food chains made an appearance with some control over menu and sanitary conditions.

Unfortunately, the lure of money brings all kinds of money makers, some of them not so desirable: beer joints, hot dog stands, “wild animal” shows, fortune tellers, souvenir shops, and now automobile scrap heaps lining the edges of every town and city. Signs became bigger and some were lighted in flashing neon.

People trying to get out of the congestion of the city fled in droves to the suburbs. Somehow they envied the farmer who could come in and shop and return to the solitude of the country. They breathed the fresh air and cooked on open grills, and talked about the country life, encouraging more people to move into the suburbs, all bringing their outdoor grills, lawn mowers, automobiles, boats, trailers, and other paraphrenalia, until there was eventually as many people in the suburbs as there were in the city. Then the “suburbanites” demanded some of the advantages of the city. They needed churches, schools, fire departments, markets, drugstores, hardware stores and gasoline stations, until there was soon as much congestion and stress as they had left behind. Shopping malls sprang up everywhere, serving everything from french fries to wedding gowns, and electric rails swept the population into the city in the morning and back to the suburbs in the evening. They finally began to realize that they had not escaped the city at all; they had merely moved to the “residential area.”

Oh, Henry Ford!

There being more people and, therefore, more money in the cities, it is natural that the first effects of the automobile should be felt there. In 1899, the Akron police threw away their horse-drawn paddy wagons and replaced them with motorized versions. In the same year, an enterprising citizen in Boston opened “a stable for renting, sale, storage, and repair of motor vehicles” – the country’s first garage. Curbs along the city streets began to furnish hand-cranked gasoline pumps, bringing an end to the dangerous practice of open containers in hardware stores, and the nation’s first regular service station opened in Pittsburgh in 1913, an all night drive-in that began slowly but soon picked up a lot of business.

The first automobile showroom opened in New York City in 1900 and these were soon found in all city centers all over the country. The used car lot followed shortly after for those who would surrender the class and gloss of a new car for a much smaller price.

It had been the custom for companies to display their goods on the cash-on-the-barrelhead basis, unless it was a major purchase, such as a piano, which could be bought on an installment plan. In 1911, the Studebaker Company offered automobiles on a deferred payment plan. This was soon followed (in some cases, reluctantly) by other car companies. In less than ten years, 50% of all cars sold in America were bought on time payments. Other businesses, seeing the powerful draw this had on consumers, also started selling their merchandise on the installment plan (what the Britishers term “the never-never”), putting almost all of America “on the books.”

Cities now had to face the problem of traffic and traffic jams, as more and more people became car owners. Traffic policemen were soon organized, and in 1914, Cleveland installed the first traffic light, and soon there became a need for traffic management. There is always someone standing in the wings, waiting to find a way to make a buck. As the load of traffic became heavier and parking space limited, parking garages were built to care for the overflow; then the unadorned parking lot was installed. In 1935, city officials discovered that there was money to be made in this, and came up with parking meters.

The Great Depression of 1929 gave the nation a thorough understanding of just how important the automobile had become. People began to realize that cars were not just a convenience that would take them from here to there a little faster: they were a fixation, part of the body and soul of everyday life. No matter how poor and needy those in the depression became, they would not give up their cars. If forced to choose between gasoline and beans, the average man may decide the gasoline was more important. Replacement parts were scavenged and repairs were improvised from whatever could be found. Will Rogers said that Americans would be the first people to go to the poor house in an automobile.

In 1924, an innkeeper in California put up a flashing sign that was to spread across the nation. He combined hotel and motor to coin the word, “motel.” At the same time, in Florida, businesses began to bow to the motorists needs by establishing curb service dining with bell hops, so that the driver would not even need to leave his car. They coined the word, “drive-in.” The government (always the last to act) installed curbside mailboxes, equipped with chutes angled out to receive letters. These were first put up in Houston in 1927. In Camden, New Jersey, on June 6, 1933, the first drive-in movie was shown in a field large enough to hold 500 cars on a 40 x 50 foot screen. At their peak, there were more than 4,000 drive-in movies across America.

Thanks to drive-ins, we now have the privilege of sitting in our cars to do everything. We can draw money from the bank account, have our prescriptions filled, pay utility bills, have clothes cleaned, have film developed, return library books, or buy a bottle of wine. Dallas has a drive-through pawn shop, where you can sell whatever is worth anything to drive straight to the gas station and fill up. There are some drive-through supermarkets. In some cities, church-goers can pick up their drive-through breakfasts and continue down the road to attend drive-in worship services. There are at least two cities that furnish drive-through funeral parlors. The automobile has become an inbred necessity to life in America, thanks to Henry Ford’s assembly lines and his “universal automobile.”

Did Anyone Get That License Number?

After the end of WWII, teenagers, trying to find their individualism, made their cars into hot rods, low-riders and high-riders. They put chrome on everything that would hold it, and painted everything that was paintable – often with florescent colors, and otherwise extended their efforts to make their car their “own.” Many people hung a pair of oversized dice from their mirror in an effort to show independence. Some displayed logos of their school or club. Then came the bumper sticker. The bumper sticker was first held on with wires and probably said, “Buy War Bonds.” After the war, the stickers actually began to stick. Probably due to our need to “do (or say) our own thing.” Nearly every car now has a message; some subtle, some clever, and some down-right obnoxious.

In 1901, Connecticut passed laws regulating the registration and speed of motor vehicles. That same year, New York state required “that every vehicle shall have the separate initials of the owner’s name placed upon the back thereof in a conspicuous place.” That was fine when there were only 954 cars involved, but when registrations increased, the variety of lettering and location of the initials was so great that the state amended the decree and required that assigned registration numbers be shown on plates or leather pads. The state collected a $1.00 fee and assigned the owner a number. He had to buy brass numerals, bolt them to a strip of leather, and attach his homemade tag to his car. In 1903, Massachusetts issued the first official state-made license plates, heavy porcelain-enameled white on dark blue tags. Other states followed suit with variations of metal, leather, wooden shingles, sheet metal and some do-it-yourself styles. The first state driver’s license laws were passed by Rhode Island in 1908 and then New Hampshire in 1909.

When the states took over the production of license plates, they used their prison population for the actual work – rehabilitating their inmates for a position for which there was no job on the outside.

In 1937, Connecticut offered the first “vanity tags.” Other states, seeing an opportunity to get more money for no more service, followed suit. They soon found that personalized license plates could become a giant problem. Just a few letters, chosen by some clever motorist, could produce an embarrassing sentiment to the issuing office. After a few incidents, they hired staff to carefully review each request so that it would not reflect badly on the state. It is now prestigious to buy a license plate or “Vanity tag” in order to display a personal message. These, as the car itself once was, are symbols of status.

Losing tags to a thief is not unusual. Authorities report that these prestige license plates are being stolen in increasing numbers. To make matters worse, motorists are discovering that it doesn’t pay to be too smart. The more clever and creative a tag is, the more apt it is to be stolen. On the other hand, the owner may derive some pleasure and comfort from this implied salute to his creativity.

Drive It Or Park It!

By the 1970s, it was clear that the thrill had disappeared for some of us. At last America’s love affair with the automobile was cooling and it was now just a marriage of convenience. Some would still say that nothing has changed; that America still loves the automobile, in spite of social observers who might say that love of a machine is a sickness. It’s just that the automobile can now be seen for what it was intended to be in the first place: something to get us from point A to point B in a faster, more comfortable way. We understand now that the car is just another mechanical appliance. We also understand the price we pay in having that appliance for convenience: we must cope with inflated prices from car companies, petroleum producers, and special interest lobbies; we must also cope with an environment which has been degraded, as well as with product unreliability that drains our pockets and consumes our time.

The numbers of cars are awesome in size. There are about 130,000,000 passenger cars on the streets and highways of the country. There are 40,000,000 other types of vehicles who vie with the automobiles for almost 4,000,000 miles of roadway. Consider Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Holland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and West Germany – whose combined populations are about 40,000,000 more than that of the United States, and where automobiles are as available and affordable as they are in America; they also had cars before we did. In spite of this, there are 29,000,000 fewer cars in those countries combined than in the United States. America owns about 40% of all the motor vehicles in the world. Four of every ten American families own two or more vehicles.

Once every seven minutes, someone somewhere in New York, tired of fighting or nursing their cars, abandons it on the city’s streets. Illegal parking plagues the world. Paris police say that 1/3 of all cars on that city’s streets at any given time are parked illegally. Japan will not even register a car unless the owner can prove that he has bought or rented a parking space to put it in. Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and other American cities are so frustrated and overcome by parking tickets that they hire collection agencies to try to collect some of them. Chicago has $500,000,000 worth of unpaid tickets and writes another 4,000,000 every year. Then there are the staggering amounts paid for policemen, administration, judges, besides the enormous sum paid to keep the highways in good condition. The car may not use any oats while it is parked, but it creates huge problems for society.

Casper, Wyoming, with a population of 1,000, has 729 vehicles. Los Angeles has 3,040 cars per square mile. Larger cities have cramped living space into cubicles to build mass-transport highways and ramps that clog the air with pollution from the exhaust pipes. 2/3 of Los Angeles is taken up with streets, ramps, freeways, parking facilities and garages. This is not to mention that many of the houses include garage attachments. Automobile density is worsening each day. The U.S. Government has imposed a Clean Air act to eliminate some of the smog and lethal gases, but catalytic converters, while suppressing some emissions, are substituting others which cause cancer, according to Swiss research.

Besides the 44,175 people killed in automobile accidents in 1984, 1,600,000 other received injuries, 150,000 of them permanent. During nine years of war in Viet Nam, the total American dead was only about 2,000 greater than the number killed on the highway in 1983, and the wounded was less than 1/10 of those disabled in automobile accidents that year. More Americans have died in automobile accidents than have been killed in all the wars that America ever fought, making the love of the automobile a dark romance, to say the least. What does it cost to run the automobile? Well, in spite of “falling” gas prices and increased fuel efficiency, a study released by Hertz Corporation in 1985 says that the average cost is 45.67 cents per mile for a compact and 59.77 cents for a standard-sized car. If you drive 10,000 miles a year, and include depreciation, insurance, licensing, repairs, accessories, gas and oil, the total comes to over $4,500 per year for a compact and almost $6,000 for a standard. (And that was in 1985!) You can see then that driving a car is not just a “free-wheeling” lark, but has become a big bite out of the old pocketbook.

Some economists state that one worker in every five (others say seven or six) workers in the U.S. labor force is employed by some activity related to automobiles. The modern car is made up of some 14,000 parts. These parts are fashioned out of steel, glass, rubber, chrome, and aluminum, among countless other elements.

Important Automobirthdays

• 1903 Debut of the enclosed car and glass windshield.
• 1904 Steering wheels replaced tillers.
• 1908 The first rumble seat. It was part of a Packard two-seater called the “Honeymoon car.”
• 1909 Introduction of the compressed air self-starter. It never worked well.
• 1912 The electric self-starter we use today was perfected by Samuel Kettering.
• 1914 Henry Ford started paying his employees a daily minimum wage of five dollars. He thought that his employees should be able to afford the cars they built.
• 1916 Something for women; cars would feature vanity cases, clocks, crystal flower vases, telephones to “instruct” the driver and smelling salts.
• 1917 Car heaters started to appear on several models.
• 1920 The pneumatic tire was introduced allowing the new possibility of flat tires.
• 1922 The Wills-St. Clair featured a back-up light.
• 1925 The first rental car: the Hertz “Drivurself.”
• 1926 Shock-proof” glass on Stutz and Rickenbacher models.
• 1927 The year of the chrome trim.
• 1930 The first front-wheel drive cars offered to the public were the Gardner, the Cord and the Auburn.
• 1931 Sun visors for the interior of the car became available.
• 1933 The billboards first announcing mileage appeared in displays due to concern for fuel economy.
• 1937 Batteries were moved to a new position, under the hood, and the first automatic transmission (as we know it) appeared on an Oldsmobile.
• 1938 Buick made turn signals available.

Believe it or Not…

Since horses were quite frightened of cars, they were a great worry for the first drivers. Uriah Smith, the founder of the Horsey Horseless Carriage Company in Battle Creek, Michigan had a solution. His motor car came with a wooden, life-sized horse head on the front. No mention was made of the fact that this did nothing to quiet the noise of the engine.

The 1955 Dodge Custom Royal LaFemme was equipped with a matching rain cape, boot, umbrella and purse.

Believe it or Not…

Since horses were quite frightened of cars, they were a great worry for the first drivers. Uriah Smith, the founder of the Horsey Horseless Carriage Company in Battle Creek, Michigan had a solution. His motor car came with a wooden, life-sized horse head on the front. No mention was made of the fact that this did nothing to quiet the noise of the engine.

The 1955 Dodge Custom Royal LaFemme was equipped with a matching rain cape, boot, umbrella and purse.

But Wait…There’s More!

The Ford Model T (introduced in 1908) sold for about $290 without extras. Because it was so simple, it lent itself to becoming the most adaptable car in history. Some of the aftermarket extras included tool chests, rubber hood silencers, tire-patching kits flower vases and clamp-on dash lights.

A farmer could reasonably afford a set of tractor wheels to fit a model T. If he needed to use his car in the fields, he could mount the tractor wheels and hitch up his plow, or whatever.

The car made an excellent power plant. If you jacked up the rear wheel and removed the tire, you could attach a belt from the wheel to your buzz saw to cut wood.

Model T’s were used to generate electricity, pump water, grind feed, shear sheep, shred corn, churn butter and grind sausage.

The Model T was the first snowmobile in the 20’s. A special undercarriage was developed, the front wheels were moved to the rear, and each double set of wheels was fitted with steel caterpillar treads. After steel sled runners were attached to the front axle, the snowmobile was ready for the farmers and woodsmen in the deep northern snows.

The Ferocious FAAS Organization

In rural Pennsylvania at the turn of the century, a group of farmers formed the “Farmers’ Anti-Automobile Society,” (or FAAS as we would know it today) to set down some rules for car owners.

Automobiles traveling at night must send up a rocket (Roman candle) every mile, wait ten minutes (for the road to clear) and then proceed (with caution) while blowing the horn.

If a driver sees horses coming, he must pull over to the side of the road, stop and cover his car with a camouflage cover.

If a horse refuses to pass a car on the road, the driver must dismantle the car and hide the pieces in the bushes.

FAAS members, as well as members of the community were also encouraged to spend Sundays to chase automobiles, shout and shoot at drivers, as well as threaten them with arrest.

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An automobile (or car) is a land vehicle used to carry passengers. Automobiles usually have four wheels, and an engine or motor to make them move.

Name[change | change source]

The word «automobile» comes from the Greek prefix «αυτό» (self) and the Latin word «mobilis» (moving). This name means «self-moving», as cars run on their own power and do not need horses or other power from outside to move.

Types of automobiles[change | change source]

Automobiles are made in different shapes and sizes, for people with different needs. Here are some common types.

• A convertible is an automobile with a roof that can be opened or taken off for an open-air drive. Sportier convertibles are called roadsters.
• A hatchback is a smaller automobile with a cargo area that uses the same space as the cabin (instead of a separate trunk like in a sedan or coupé). They combine the sportiness of coupés and sedans with the storage space of SUVs.
  • A station wagon (estate car in British English) is a hatchback-like automobile that has a less sloped rear window and more space for passengers and luggage.
• A pickup truck is a truck with a separate cabin and cargo area on a ladder frame. The cargo area is called the «bed«.
• A sedan (saloon in British English) is an automobile with a sloped rear window and separate trunk that has four doors.
  • A coupé (coupe in American English) is like a sedan, but usually only has two doors and is seen as sportier than a sedan.
• An SUV (sport utility vehicle) is a rugged automobile that has a combined passenger and cargo area (like in hatchbacks, station wagons, and vans). SUVs are very popular due to their usefulness.
• A van is a big box-shaped automobile meant for carrying plenty of passengers or cargo. There are many different sizes of vans, such as minivans, which are made for families.

Energy[change | change source]

To make an automobile move, it must have energy to turn the wheels. This energy might be chemical energy in gasoline or electrical energy in a battery. How quickly the engine or motor can send the energy to the wheels, and how much energy is sent, is called the power of the motor. The power of an automobile is usually measured in kilowatts or horsepower.

Gasoline[change | change source]

As of 2019, most automobile burn a fuel to make an internal combustion engine (sometimes called a «motor») run. The power from the engine then goes to the wheels through a transmission, which has a set of gears that can make the automobile go faster or slower. The most common fuel is petrol, which is called «gasoline» or «gas» in American English.

Gasoline is called a fossil fuel because it comes from tiny fossils that were made millions of years ago. Over millions of years, they turned into oil, which was then drilled up from deep inside the Earth, and then turned into fuel by chemical changes. Old gasoline-powered automobiles are noisy and their exhaust makes city air dirty, which can make people ill. But automobiles made after the mid-2010s are cleaner.^[1]

Burning gasoline, like any kind of fossil fuel, makes carbon dioxide, which makes global warming. Since 2017, less gasoline powered automobiles are being made,^[2][3] and some places will not allow gasoline-powered automobiles in future, like Amsterdam in 2030.^[4]

Batteries[change | change source]

The cleanest automobiles are electric vehicles. They are usually plugged into a power outlet or a charging station and store electricity in a battery at the bottom of the automobile. The electricity then drives an electric motor, which turns the wheels. Some electric automobiles have 2 motors: one at the front, and one at the back. A few have 4 motors (one for each wheel).^[5]

Other sources of energy[change | change source]

Some automobiles burn diesel fuel, which is used in big trucks and buses, and a few use wood gas. In some countries, such as Brazil and Sweden, a mixture of ethanol and gasoline, called «gasohol» in Brazil and «E85″ in Sweden, is used as automobile fuel. Other fuels include propane, natural gas, compressed air, and ethanol (which comes from plants). There are automobiles designed to run on more than one type of fuel — these are called «flex-fuel» and are rare.

A few automobiles generate electricity from hydrogen fuel cells (like the Honda Clarity). As of 2019, most of the hydrogen that people use comes from burning fossil fuels, but scientists and engineers are trying to make hydrogen from renewable energy a lot cheaper and easier to use.

Some automobiles even use solar cells for their electricity, but they are not very practical. There is a competition every year where people try to design a automobile that can last the longest and go the farthest on solar energy alone.

There is also a type of automobile that uses both an engine and an electric motor. This is called a hybrid electric vehicle; an example is the Toyota Prius.

Regenerative Brakes[change | change source]

All automobiles have brakes which work by friction to stop the automobile quickly in an emergency or stop it rolling when parked. Electric automobiles also have regenerative brakes, which slow the automobile by turning the energy in its movement back into electricity, like an electric motor working the opposite way. So regenerative means the electricity is generated again.

History[change | change source]

The earliest recorded automobiles were actually steam engines attached to wagons in the late 18th century. The steam engines were heavy, making these wagons slow and hard to control. Better and faster steam automobiles became common late in the 19th century.

Some automobiles in the early 20th century were powered by electricity. They were slow and heavy and went out of use until the idea came back later in the century.

The internal combustion engine changed the way many automobiles were powered. The engine used either gasoline, diesel, or kerosene to work. When the fuel is exploded in a cylinder it pushes the piston down and turns the wheels.

Although many people tried to make a good automobile that would work and sell well, people say that Karl Benz invented the modern automobile. He used a four-stroke type of internal combustion engine to power his Benz Patent-Motorwagen in 1886. He began to make many automobiles in a factory and sell them in Germany in 1888.

In North America, the first modern automobile was made by brothers Charles and J. Frank Duryea in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Duryea brothers’ automobile also won the first-ever car race in 1895, competing against automobiles made by Benz. The race was in Chicago, Illinois, and 53 miles long. The Duryeas then began making the first automobiles for everyday use in 1896. That year, they made 13 automobiles by hand in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Benz may have invented the first modern automobile, and the Duryeas the first automobile to be sold, but Henry Ford sold the most automobiles to the most people. In 1910 he began making and selling his Model T, which was a huge success. Many people could afford this automobile, not just the rich, because Ford used mass production. This meant he made many Model Ts in a short time in a factory. People say that the Model T is the automobile that «put America on wheels». The Model T was the most popular automobile of the time because it was cheap but it was still a good quality automobile that ordinary people could own.

Since then, many different kinds of automobiles have been designed and built, from minivans to sports cars. In the 1950s, the United States made and used more automobiles than all the rest of the world. Fifty years later, China became the largest maker and user of automobiles.

Advantages[change | change source]

Automobiles are faster than walking or riding a bike if you are going a long way. They can carry more than one person and a large amount of luggage. Depending on local public transport quality, they can also be faster and far more convenient than using buses, bicycles or trains, and can often go where public transport cannot. 4-wheel drive «off road» vehicles are particularly good at reaching places difficult for other wheeled transport due to bad roads or harsh terrain. However, they cost more and burn more fuel, and there are many places even they cannot go.

Most automobiles enclose people and cargo in a closed compartment with a roof, doors and windows, thus giving protection from weather. Modern automobiles give further protection in case of collisions, as they have added safety features such as seat belts, airbags, crumple zones and side-impact protection that would be expensive or impossible on two-wheeled or light 3-wheeled vehicles, or most buses.

With regular check ups and service, automobiles can last a very long time. In some countries like Australia, people have to get their automobile checked by authorised mechanics regularly by law to confirm that their automobile is safe to drive. They can go to an automobile mechanic to get their automobile checked or have a mobile mechanic come to them to repair their automobile.

Disadvantages[change | change source]

Buying and running a automobile needs a lot of money, especially for newer good-quality automobiles. There are things to pay for — the automobile itself, fuel, parts (for example, tyres), maintenance, repairs, insurance to cover the cost of crashes or theft, parking charges, and toll roads and any taxes or licensing fees charged by the government.

When automobiles crash, they can become damaged and hurt people, and the life of a person is more important than keeping a automobile from damage. When too many automobiles try to go the same way, traffic congestion slows them all. Automobiles can cause air pollution if too many are used in a small area like a city, and the combined pollution of the world’s automobiles is partly to blame for climate change. Many places where people live close together have public transportation such as buses, trains, trams and subways. These can help people go more quickly and cheaply than by automobile when traffic jams are a problem. Some of these problems can be made smaller, for example by carpooling, which is putting many people together in one automobile.

Traffic congestion and accidents can be dangerous to other road users, for example people riding bicycles or walking, especially in an old town built when automobiles were few. Some 20th century towns are designed for automobiles as the main transport. This can cause other problems, such as even more pollution and traffic, as few, if any, people walk. Communities are divided and separated by big roads. Pedestrians are in danger where there are too few foot bridges, small road bridges or other special crossings.

References[change | change source]

On Jan. 3, 1899, the New York Times printed the word «automobile» upon its austere pages. It wasn’t the first publication to do so; Scientific American used the phrase «automobile carriage» in a May 14, 1898, review of the Winton Motor Carriage, but the Grey Lady — a more influential publication — was the first to debate the term.

The Times penned an editorial lambasting the suggestions that these newfangled motor-carriages be called «autotrucks,» or even «autowains» (which takes the latter part from an old Saxon word meaning «wagon», as one Avery Quercus explained less than a week later). No, «There is something uncanny about these new-fangled vehicles,» wrote the beleaguered, invective-spewing editorial board. «They are all unutterably ugly and never a one of them has been provided with a good, or even an endurable, name.» The board cited that the word «automobile» has Greek and Latin roots that are «near to indecent that we print it with hesitation.» Greek and Latin, how uncouth!

«Automobile» comes from the French, «who are usually orthodox in their etymology if in nothing else.» A son of France did invent the car, after all, owing to the efforts of Nicholas Cugnot. L’Académie française, notorious sticklers for language, had already coined the word

for steam-powered buses way back in 1875. Like flamenco, Smart cars and David Hasselhoff, it remained a European thing that Americans resisted for decades.

Our mysterious bile-filled scribes never did come up with another word. But within the month the Times was printing the word «automobile» with gusto. (What can you do? This modern world just moves too fast.) And we have the august publication to thank that we’re not calling these machines «horseless carriages,» «quadricycles,» «oruktor amphibolos,» «hippomobiles,» benzene buggies

,» or «autowains,» lest only the Wayans Brothers be allowed to operate them.

Though «benzene buggy» has a nice ring to it. Who wants to start a band?

Car
Cars and trucks driving on a divided highway, Highway 401 in Ontario, Canada
Classification	Vehicle
Industry	Various
Application	Transportation
Fuel source	Gasoline, electricity, diesel, natural gas, hydrogen, solar, vegetable oil
Powered	Yes
Self-propelled	Yes
Wheels	3–4
Axles	2
Inventor	Carl Benz
Invented	1886

A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people (rather than goods).^[1][2]

French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first steam-powered road vehicle in 1769, while Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed and constructed the first internal combustion powered automobile in 1808. The modern car—a practical, marketable automobile for everyday use—was invented in 1886, when German inventor Carl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Commercial cars became widely available during the 20th century. One of the first cars affordable by the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced horse-drawn carriages.^[3] In Europe and other parts of the world, demand for automobiles did not increase until after World War II.^[4] The car is considered an essential part of the developed economy.

Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex. These include rear-reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in-car entertainment. Most cars in use in the early 2020s are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fuelled by the combustion of fossil fuels. Electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, became commercially available in the 2000s and are predicted to cost less to buy than gasoline cars before 2025.^[5][6] The transition from fossil fuels to electric cars features prominently in most climate change mitigation scenarios,^[7] such as Project Drawdown’s 100 actionable solutions for climate change.^[8]

There are costs and benefits to car use. The costs to the individual include acquiring the vehicle, interest payments (if the car is financed), repairs and maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance.^[9] The costs to society include maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, noise pollution, public health, and disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.^[10] Personal benefits include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience.^[11] Societal benefits include economic benefits, such as job and wealth creation from the automotive industry, transportation provision, societal well-being from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from taxes. People’s ability to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.^[12]

There are around one billion cars in use worldwide. Car usage is increasing rapidly, especially in China, India, and other newly industrialized countries.^[13]

Etymology

The English word car is believed to originate from Latin carrus/carrum «wheeled vehicle» or (via Old North French) Middle English carre «two-wheeled cart», both of which in turn derive from Gaulish karros «chariot».^[14][15] It originally referred to any wheeled horse-drawn vehicle, such as a cart, carriage, or wagon.^[16][17]

«Motor car», attested from 1895, is the usual formal term in British English.^[2] «Autocar», a variant likewise attested from 1895 and literally meaning «self-propelled car», is now considered archaic.^[18] «Horseless carriage» is attested from 1895.^[19]

«Automobile», a classical compound derived from Ancient Greek autós (αὐτός) «self» and Latin mobilis «movable», entered English from French and was first adopted by the Automobile Club of Great Britain in 1897.^[20] It fell out of favour in Britain and is now used chiefly in North America,^[21] where the abbreviated form «auto» commonly appears as an adjective in compound formations like «auto industry» and «auto mechanic».^[22][23]

History

The first steam-powered vehicle was designed by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65-centimetre-long (26 in) scale-model toy for the Kangxi Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.^[11][24][25] It is not known with certainty if Verbiest’s model was successfully built or run.^[25]

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first full-scale, self-propelled mechanical vehicle in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.^[26] He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.^[26] His inventions were limited by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.^[26] In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods and was of little practical use.

The development of external combustion (steam) engines is detailed as part of the history of the car but often treated separately from the development of true cars. A variety of steam-powered road vehicles were used during the first part of the 19th century, including steam cars, steam buses, phaetons, and steam rollers. In the United Kingdom, sentiment against them led to the Locomotive Acts of 1865.

In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude created what was probably the world’s first internal combustion engine (which they called a Pyréolophore), but installed it in a boat on the river Saone in France.^[27] Coincidentally, in 1807, the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own «de Rivaz internal combustion engine», and used it to develop the world’s first vehicle to be powered by such an engine. The Niépces’ Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried spores of the Lycopodium plant), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.^[27] Neither design was successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir,^[28] who each built vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by internal combustion engines.^[29]

In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a three-wheeled car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity.^[30] Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on cars at about the same time, the year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the modern car—a practical, marketable automobile for everyday use—when the German Carl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen; he is generally acknowledged as the inventor of the car.^[29][31][32]

In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle. His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 in Mannheim, Germany. He was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on 29 January 1886 (under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883). Benz began promotion of the vehicle on 3 July 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced along with a cheaper model. They also were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz car to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early cars, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany. In August 1888, Bertha Benz, the wife of Carl Benz, undertook the first road trip by car, to prove the road-worthiness of her husband’s invention.

In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion flat engine, called boxermotor. During the last years of the 19th century, Benz was the largest car company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint-stock company. The first motor car in central Europe and one of the first factory-made cars in the world, was produced by Czech company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra) in 1897, the Präsident automobil.

Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first car in 1892 under the brand name Daimler. It was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, which they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895, about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers. Benz, Maybach, and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each other’s early work. They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG. Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler-Mercedes that was placed in a specially ordered model built to specifications set by Emil Jellinek. This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG car was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine, which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers.

In 1890, Émile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the automotive industry in France. In 1891, Auguste Doriot and his Peugeot colleague Louis Rigoulot completed the longest trip by a gasoline-powered vehicle when their self-designed and built Daimler powered Peugeot Type 3 completed 2,100 kilometres (1,300 mi) from Valentigney to Paris and Brest and back again. They were attached to the first Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race, but finished six days after the winning cyclist, Charles Terront.

The first design for an American car with a gasoline internal combustion engine was made in 1877 by George Selden of Rochester, New York. Selden applied for a patent for a car in 1879, but the patent application expired because the vehicle was never built. After a delay of 16 years and a series of attachments to his application, on 5 November 1895, Selden was granted a US patent (U.S. Patent 549,160) for a two-stroke car engine, which hindered, more than encouraged, development of cars in the United States. His patent was challenged by Henry Ford and others, and overturned in 1911.

In 1893, the first running, gasoline-powered American car was built and road-tested by the Duryea brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. The first public run of the Duryea Motor Wagon took place on 21 September 1893, on Taylor Street in Metro Center Springfield.^[33][34] Studebaker, subsidiary of a long-established wagon and coach manufacturer, started to build cars in 1897^[35]: 66 and commenced sales of electric vehicles in 1902 and gasoline vehicles in 1904.^[36]

In Britain, there had been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of success, with Thomas Rickett even attempting a production run in 1860.^[37] Santler from Malvern is recognized by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first gasoline-powered car in the country in 1894,^[38] followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895, but these were both one-offs.^[38] The first production vehicles in Great Britain came from the Daimler Company, a company founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right to use the name of the engines. Lawson’s company made its first car in 1897, and they bore the name Daimler.^[38]

In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a «New Rational Combustion Engine». In 1897, he built the first diesel engine.^[29] Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles competed for a few decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the conventional piston and crankshaft design, only Mazda’s version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success.

All in all, it is estimated that over 100,000 patents created the modern automobile and motorcycle.^[39]

Mass production

Large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable cars was started by Ransom Olds in 1901 at his Oldsmobile factory in Lansing, Michigan, and based upon stationary assembly line techniques pioneered by Marc Isambard Brunel at the Portsmouth Block Mills, England, in 1802. The assembly line style of mass production and interchangeable parts had been pioneered in the US by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.^[40] This concept was greatly expanded by Henry Ford, beginning in 1913 with the world’s first moving assembly line for cars at the Highland Park Ford Plant.

As a result, Ford’s cars came off the line in 15-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing productivity eightfold, while using less manpower (from 12.5 manhours to 1 hour 33 minutes).^[41] It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1913, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. This is the source of Ford’s apocryphal remark, «any color as long as it’s black».^[41] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months’ pay.^[41]

Ford’s complex safety procedures—especially assigning each worker to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam about—dramatically reduced the rate of injury.^[42] The combination of high wages and high efficiency is called «Fordism» and was copied by most major industries. The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the economic rise of the US. The assembly line forced workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions which led to more output per worker while other countries were using less productive methods.

In the automotive industry, its success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide seeing the founding of Ford France and Ford Britain in 1911, Ford Denmark 1923, Ford Germany 1925; in 1921, Citroën was the first native European manufacturer to adopt the production method. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not, had disappeared.^[41]

Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world’s attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910–1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.

Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans often have heavily influenced car design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one company, called the General Motors Companion Make Program, so that buyers could «move up» as their fortunes improved.

Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1930s, LaSalles, sold by Cadillac, used cheaper mechanical parts made by Oldsmobile; in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared bonnet, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; by the 1990s, corporate powertrains and shared platforms (with interchangeable brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common. Even so, only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with decades of production, such as Apperson, Cole, Dorris, Haynes, or Premier, could not manage: of some two hundred American car makers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived in 1930, and with the Great Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left.^[41]

In Europe, much the same would happen. Morris set up its production line at Cowley in 1924, and soon outsold Ford, while beginning in 1923 to follow Ford’s practice of vertical integration, buying Hotchkiss (engines), Wrigley (gearboxes), and Osberton (radiators), for instance, as well as competitors, such as Wolseley: in 1925, Morris had 41 per cent of total British car production. Most British small-car assemblers, from Abbey to Xtra, had gone under. Citroën did the same in France, coming to cars in 1919; between them and other cheap cars in reply such as Renault’s 10CV and Peugeot’s 5CV, they produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and Mors, Hurtu, and others could not compete.^[41] Germany’s first mass-manufactured car, the Opel 4PS Laubfrosch (Tree Frog), came off the line at Rüsselsheim in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in Germany, with 37.5 per cent of the market.^[41]

In Japan, car production was very limited before World War II. Only a handful of companies were producing vehicles in limited numbers, and these were small, three-wheeled for commercial uses, like Daihatsu, or were the result of partnering with European companies, like Isuzu building the Wolseley A-9 in 1922. Mitsubishi was also partnered with Fiat and built the Mitsubishi Model A based on a Fiat vehicle. Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, and Honda began as companies producing non-automotive products before the war, switching to car production during the 1950s. Kiichiro Toyoda’s decision to take Toyoda Loom Works into automobile manufacturing would create what would eventually become Toyota Motor Corporation, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Subaru, meanwhile, was formed from a conglomerate of six companies who banded together as Fuji Heavy Industries, as a result of having been broken up under keiretsu legislation.

Fuel and propulsion technologies

The transport sector is a major contributor to air pollution, noise pollution and climate change.^[44]

Most cars in use in the early 2020s run on gasoline burnt in an internal combustion engine (ICE). The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers says that, in countries that mandate low sulfur gasoline, gasoline-fuelled cars built to late 2010s standards (such as Euro-6) emit very little local air pollution.^[45][46] Some cities ban older gasoline-fuelled cars and some countries plan to ban sales in future. However, some environmental groups say this phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles must be brought forwards to limit climate change. Production of gasoline-fuelled cars peaked in 2017.^[47][48]

Other hydrocarbon fossil fuels also burnt by deflagration (rather than detonation) in ICE cars include diesel, autogas, and CNG. Removal of fossil fuel subsidies,^[49][50] concerns about oil dependence, tightening environmental laws and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work on alternative power systems for cars. This includes hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. Out of all cars sold in 2021, nine per cent were electric, and by the end of that year there were more than 16 million electric cars on the world’s roads.^[51] Despite rapid growth, less than two per cent of cars on the world’s roads were fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars by the end of 2021.^[51] Cars for racing or speed records have sometimes employed jet or rocket engines, but these are impractical for common use.

Oil consumption has increased rapidly in the 20th and 21st centuries because there are more cars; the 1980s oil glut even fuelled the sales of low-economy vehicles in OECD countries. The BRIC countries are adding to this consumption.

As of 2023 few production cars use wheel hub motors.^[52][53]

Batteries

In almost all hybrid (even mild hybrid) and pure electric cars regenerative braking recovers and returns to a battery some energy which would otherwise be wasted by friction brakes getting hot.^[54] Although all cars must have friction brakes (front disc brakes and either disc or drum rear brakes^[55]) for emergency stops, regenerative braking improves efficiency, particularly in city driving.^[56]

User interface

Cars are equipped with controls used for driving, passenger comfort, and safety, normally operated by a combination of the use of feet and hands, and occasionally by voice on 21st-century cars. These controls include a steering wheel, pedals for operating the brakes and controlling the car’s speed (and, in a manual transmission car, a clutch pedal), a shift lever or stick for changing gears, and a number of buttons and dials for turning on lights, ventilation, and other functions. Modern cars’ controls are now standardized, such as the location for the accelerator and brake, but this was not always the case. Controls are evolving in response to new technologies, for example, the electric car and the integration of mobile communications.

Some of the original controls are no longer required. For example, all cars once had controls for the choke valve, clutch, ignition timing, and a crank instead of an electric starter. However, new controls have also been added to vehicles, making them more complex. These include air conditioning, navigation systems, and in-car entertainment. Another trend is the replacement of physical knobs and switches by secondary controls with touchscreen controls such as BMW’s iDrive and Ford’s MyFord Touch. Another change is that while early cars’ pedals were physically linked to the brake mechanism and throttle, in the early 2020s, cars have increasingly replaced these physical linkages with electronic controls.

Electronics and interior

Cars are typically equipped with interior lighting which can be toggled manually or be set to light up automatically with doors open, an entertainment system which originated from car radios, sideways windows which can be lowered or raised electrically (manually on earlier cars), and one or multiple auxiliary power outlets for supplying portable appliances such as mobile phones, portable fridges, power inverters, and electrical air pumps from the on-board electrical system.^[57][58][a] More costly upper-class and luxury cars are equipped with features earlier such as massage seats and collision avoidance systems.^[59][60]

Dedicated automotive fuses and circuit breakers prevent damage from electrical overload.

Lighting

Cars are typically fitted with multiple types of lights. These include headlights, which are used to illuminate the way ahead and make the car visible to other users, so that the vehicle can be used at night; in some jurisdictions, daytime running lights; red brake lights to indicate when the brakes are applied; amber turn signal lights to indicate the turn intentions of the driver; white-colored reverse lights to illuminate the area behind the car (and indicate that the driver will be or is reversing); and on some vehicles, additional lights (e.g., side marker lights) to increase the visibility of the car. Interior lights on the ceiling of the car are usually fitted for the driver and passengers. Some vehicles also have a boot light and, more rarely, an engine compartment light.

Weight

During the late 20th and early 21st century, cars increased in weight due to batteries,^[62] modern steel safety cages, anti-lock brakes, airbags, and «more-powerful—if more efficient—engines»^[63] and, as of 2019, typically weigh between 1 and 3 tonnes (1.1 and 3.3 short tons; 0.98 and 2.95 long tons).^[64] Heavier cars are safer for the driver from a crash perspective, but more dangerous for other vehicles and road users.^[63] The weight of a car influences fuel consumption and performance, with more weight resulting in increased fuel consumption and decreased performance. The Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, a typical city car, weighs about 700 kilograms (1,500 lb). Heavier cars include SUVs and extended-length SUVs like the Suburban.

Some places tax heavier cars more: as well as improving pedestrian safety this can encourage manufacturers to use materials such as recycled aluminium instead of steel.^[65] It has been suggested that one benefit of subsidizing charging infrastructure is that cars can use lighter batteries.^[66]

Seating and body style

Most cars are designed to carry multiple occupants, often with four or five seats. Cars with five seats typically seat two passengers in the front and three in the rear. Full-size cars and large sport utility vehicles can often carry six, seven, or more occupants depending on the arrangement of the seats. On the other hand, sports cars are most often designed with only two seats. The differing needs for passenger capacity and their luggage or cargo space has resulted in the availability of a large variety of body styles to meet individual consumer requirements that include, among others, the sedan/saloon, hatchback, station wagon/estate, and minivan.

Safety

Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.^[10] Mary Ward became one of the first documented car fatalities in 1869 in Parsonstown, Ireland,^[67] and Henry Bliss one of the US’s first pedestrian car casualties in 1899 in New York City.^[68] There are now standard tests for safety in new cars, such as the Euro and US NCAP tests,^[69] and insurance-industry-backed tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).^[70]

Costs and benefits

The costs of car usage, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance,^[9] are weighed against the cost of the alternatives, and the value of the benefits—perceived and real—of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience,^[11] and emergency power.^[72] During the 1920s, cars had another benefit: «[c]ouples finally had a way to head off on unchaperoned dates, plus they had a private space to snuggle up close at the end of the night.»^[73]

Similarly the costs to society of car use may include; maintaining roads, land use, air pollution, noise pollution, road congestion, public health, health care, and of disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life; and can be balanced against the value of the benefits to society that car use generates. Societal benefits may include: economy benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of car production and maintenance, transportation provision, society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax opportunities. The ability of humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.^[12]

Environmental effects

Cars are a major cause of urban air pollution,^[74] with all types of cars producing dust from brakes, tyres, and road wear,^[75] although these may be limited by vehicle emission standards.^[76] While there are different ways to power cars most rely on gasoline or diesel, and they consume almost a quarter of world oil production as of 2019.^[47] Both gasoline and diesel cars pollute more than electric cars.^[77] Cars and vans caused 8% of direct carbon dioxide emissions in 2021.^[78] As of 2021, due to greenhouse gases emitted during battery production, electric cars must be driven tens of thousands of kilometers before their lifecycle carbon emissions are less than fossil fuel cars;^[79][80] however this varies considerably^[81] and is expected to improve in future due to lower carbon electricity, and longer lasting batteries^[82] produced in larger factories.^[83] Many governments use fiscal policies, such as road tax, to discourage the purchase and use of more polluting cars;^[84] and many cities are doing the same with low-emission zones.^[85] Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs (e.g., hybrid vehicles) and the development of alternative fuels.^{[citation needed]} High fuel taxes or cultural change may provide a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars,^{[citation needed]} or to not drive.^[85]

The lifetime of a car built in the 2020s is expected to be about 16 years, or about 2 million km (1.2 million miles) if driven a lot.^[86] According to the International Energy Agency the average rated fuel consumption of new light-duty vehicles fell by only 0.9% between 2017 and 2019, far smaller than the 1.8% annual average reduction between 2010 and 2015. Given slow progress to date, the IEA estimates fuel consumption will have to decrease by 4.3% per year on average from 2019 to 2030.^[87] The increase in sales of SUVs is bad for fuel economy.^[47] Many cities in Europe have banned older fossil fuel cars and all fossil fuel vehicles will be banned in Amsterdam from 2030.^[88] Many Chinese cities limit licensing of fossil fuel cars,^[89] and many countries plan to stop selling them between 2025 and 2050.^[90]

The manufacture of vehicles is resource intensive, and many manufacturers now report on the environmental performance of their factories, including energy usage, waste and water consumption.^[91] Manufacturing each kWh of battery emits a similar amount of carbon as burning through one full tank of gasoline.^[92] The growth in popularity of the car allowed cities to sprawl, therefore encouraging more travel by car, resulting in inactivity and obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.^[93]

Animals and plants are often negatively affected by cars via habitat destruction and pollution. Over the lifetime of the average car, the «loss of habitat potential» may be over 50,000 square metres (540,000 sq ft) based on primary production correlations.^{[94][clarification needed]} Animals are also killed every year on roads by cars, referred to as roadkill. More recent road developments are including significant environmental mitigation in their designs, such as green bridges (designed to allow wildlife crossings) and creating wildlife corridors.

Growth in the popularity of cars and commuting has led to traffic congestion.^[95] Moscow, Istanbul, Bogotá, Mexico City and São Paulo were the world’s most congested cities in 2018 according to INRIX, a data analytics company.^[96]

Mass production of personal motor vehicles in the United States and other developed countries with extensive territories such as Australia, Argentina, and France vastly increased individual and group mobility and greatly increased and expanded economic development in urban, suburban, exurban and rural areas.^{[citation needed]}

In the United States, the transport divide and car dependency resulting from domination of car-based transport systems presents barriers to employment in low-income neighbourhoods,^[97] with many low-income individuals and families forced to run cars they cannot afford in order to maintain their income.^[98] The historic commitment to a car-based transport system continued during the presidency of Joe Biden. Dependency on automobiles by African Americans may result in exposure to the hazards of driving while black and other types of racial discrimination related to buying, financing and insuring them.^[99]

Emerging car technologies

Although intensive development of conventional battery electric vehicles is continuing into the 2020s,^[100] other car propulsion technologies that are under development include wireless charging,^[101] hydrogen cars,^[102] and hydrogen/electric hybrids.^[103] Research into alternative forms of power includes using ammonia instead of hydrogen in fuel cells.^[104]

New materials which may replace steel car bodies include aluminium,^[105] fiberglass, carbon fiber, biocomposites, and carbon nanotubes.^[106] Telematics technology is allowing more and more people to share cars, on a pay-as-you-go basis, through car share and carpool schemes. Communication is also evolving due to connected car systems.^[107]

Autonomous car

Fully autonomous vehicles, also known as driverless cars, already exist as robotaxis^[108][109] but have a long way to go before they are in general use.^[110]

Open source development

There have been several projects aiming to develop a car on the principles of open design, an approach to designing in which the plans for the machinery and systems are publicly shared, often without monetary compensation. None of the projects have succeeded in developing a car as a whole including both hardware and software, and no mass production ready open-source based designs have been introduced. Some car hacking through on-board diagnostics (OBD) has been done so far.^[111]

Car sharing

Car-share arrangements and carpooling are also increasingly popular, in the US and Europe.^[112] For example, in the US, some car-sharing services have experienced double-digit growth in revenue and membership growth between 2006 and 2007. Services like car sharing offer residents to «share» a vehicle rather than own a car in already congested neighbourhoods.^[113]

Industry

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2019)

The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells the world’s motor vehicles, more than three-quarters of which are cars. In 2020, there were 56 million cars manufactured worldwide,^[114] down from 67 million the previous year.^[115]

The automotive industry in China produces by far the most (20 million in 2020), followed by Japan (seven million), then Germany, South Korea and India.^[116] The largest market is China, followed by the US.

Around the world, there are about a billion cars on the road;^[117] they burn over a trillion litres (0.26×10¹² US gal; 0.22×10¹² imp gal) of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly, consuming about 50 exajoules (14,000 TWh) of energy.^[118] The numbers of cars are increasing rapidly in China and India.^[13] In the opinion of some, urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investment. Many of these negative effects fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.^[119][120] The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems. The car industry is also facing increasing competition from the public transport sector, as some people re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.

Alternatives

Established alternatives for some aspects of car use include public transport such as busses, trolleybusses, trains, subways, tramways, light rail, cycling, and walking. Bicycle sharing systems have been established in China and many European cities, including Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Similar programs have been developed in large US cities.^[121][122] Additional individual modes of transport, such as personal rapid transit could serve as an alternative to cars if they prove to be socially accepted.^[123]

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

• Halberstam, David (1986). The Reckoning. New York: Morrow. ISBN 0-688-04838-2.
• Kay, Jane Holtz (1997). Asphalt nation : how the automobile took over America, and how we can take it back. New York: Crown. ISBN 0-517-58702-5.
• Williams, Heathcote (1991). Autogeddon. New York: Arcade. ISBN 1-55970-176-5.
• Sachs, Wolfgang (1992). For love of the automobile: looking back into the history of our desires. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06878-5.
• Margolius, Ivan (2020). «What is an automobile?». The Automobile. 37 (11): 48–52. ISSN 0955-1328.

External links

• Media related to Automobiles at Wikimedia Commons
• Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile
• Forum for the Automobile and Society