Automobile & Motorcycle (29254)

An automobile is a wheeled vehicle that carries its own motor. Different types of automobiles include cars, buses, trucks, vans, and motorcycles, with cars being the most popular. more...

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The term is derived from Greek 'autos' (self) and Latin 'movére' (move), referring to the fact that it 'moves by itself'. Earlier terms for automobile include 'horseless carriage' and 'motor car'. An automobile has seats for the driver and, almost without exception, one or more passengers. It is the main source of transportation across the planet.

As of 2005 there are 600 million cars worldwide (0.074 per capita), of which 220 million are located in the United States (0.75 per capita).

History

The history of automobiles

The modern automobile powered by the Otto gasoline engine was invented in Germany by Karl Benz. Even though Karl Benz is credited with the invention of the modern automobile, several other German engineers worked on building the first automobile at the same time. These inventors are: Karl Benz on July 3, 1886 in Mannheim, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart (also inventors of the first motor bike) and in 1888/89 German-Austrian inventor Siegfried Marcus in Vienna, although Marcus didn't go beyond the prototype stage.

Steam powered vehicles

Steam-powered self-propelled cars were devised in the late 18th century. The first self-propelled car was built by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769, it could attain speeds of up to 6 km/h (3.7 mi/h). In 1771 he designed another steam-driven car, which ran so fast that it rammed into a wall, producing the world’s first car accident.

The Internal Combustion Engine

In 1806 Fransois 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, one that used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to generate energy. It was not very successful, as was the case with the British inventor, Brown, and the American inventor, Morey, who produced clumsy IC-engine-powered vehicles about 1826.

Etienne Lenoir produced the first successful internal-combustion engine in 1860, and within a few years, about 400 were in operation in Paris. In 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 slower 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, i.e., vehicles. Lenoir is said to have tested liquid fuel, such as alcohol, in his stationary engines; but it doesn't appear he used them in his vehicle. If he did, he most certainly didn't use gasoline, as this was not well-known and was considered a waste product.

Read more at Wikipedia.org