An automobile is a self-propelled, four wheeled motor vehicle. It is designed for private transportation over public roads. It generally has a gasoline powered internal-combustion engine, rides on four air-filled rubber tires, and has two or four doors. The automobile comes in a wide variety of body styles, including sedans, hardtops, convertibles, station wagons, and sports coupes. In order to reach these models that are most condusive to today's life, automobiles went though their own type of evolution.
Steam Automobiles
The invention of the automobile
cannot
be
credited to a single person, a
single country, or a single generation in any country. It was the result
of many experiments with horseless four-wheeled vehicles as early as 1420.
Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, a captain in the French Army, is generally
recognized as building the first true automobile in 1769. It was a very
large and clumsy three-wheeled vehicle with the entire steam power plant,
including the boiler, mounted far to the front. Although Cugnot's vehicle
was not very successful, his attempts encouraged other to try to improve
the automobile. In England, William Murdock designed and built a model
steam-powered three-wheeler in 1784. Such early steam coaches were
very noisy and were also potentially dangerous. Murdock's attempt
was also not very
sucessful, but those who followed these inventors paved the way to the
steam-powered vehicles that were used in the early 1800s, especially the
coaches and buses. They were stepping stones to a better, more
efficient automobile.
Electric Automobiles
The first electric vehicle is
believed to have
been built around 1839 by a Scotish man named Robert Anderson. The
electric automobile was much more condusive to public life than the steam
automobile, for it was
slow, silent, smokeless, and relatively harmless. Until the 1880's,
several other attempt were made in the creation of an electric automobile.
The main power source in these vehicles was a storage battery. But, these
vehicles were not sucessful. They were of
generally heavy, and of rather ungainly construction mainly because of the
large
number of battery cells they had to carry. This resulted in very low
speeds and jerky starts and stops. These problems continued to act as an
inspiration for future engineers. The search for a better model of an
automobile continued thoughout the years, in an attempt to find an
improvement over the steam-powered and electric automobiles.
Gasoline-powered Automobiles
The development of the
gasoline-powered automobile was the result of hard work by many
individuals. This list of inventors includes Siegfried Marcus of Austria
and Karl Benz. In 1864, Marcus built a two-stroke, gasoline-powered
carriage. It ran successfully, but it was not practical, for it was
difficult to start. Marcus continued his work, building a sturdier
vehicle around 1875. This automobile achieved a speed of up to 3 miles (5
km) per hour.
Also on the list of inventors is Karl Benz and Gottliet Daimler, both of Germany. They are generally credited with building the first commercially successful car. They completed htis feat in 1886. But Benz and Daimler, unlike those before them, did not stop after completing one or two model. In 1886, Benz designed a single-cylinder gasoline engine with a four-stroke-cycle and placed it in a three-wheeled vehicle. Later on, in 1895, Benz built four-wheeled vehicles that were light, strong, and simple to operate. Daimler also designed a four-stroke engine, which was the first high-speed internal-combustion engine. He placed it in a four-wheeled carriage that had been designed for horses. Later on, Daimler designed a completely new four-wheeled vehicle.
In France, Rene Panhard, Armand Peugeot, Emile Levassor, and Louis Renault were the major players in the advancement of the automobile. Renault was greatly involved in the early development of the automobile in the 1800's. Panhard and Levassor built an automobile that used a rear-mounted Daimler V-type two-cylinder engine in 1889. The general arrangement of this model eventually became the standard layout for most of the early automobiles. Around 1890, Peugeot contributed to the evolution of the automobile with his three-wheeled steam-powered vehicle. Later on, he changed to a four-wheeled vehicle with a two-cylinder engine. Renault designed and built a four-wheeled automobile with single-cylinder, air-cooled engine. Each inventor used the advancements of others to improve the overall quality of the automobile.
The evolution was not only happening on one side of the ocean. Advancement in the automobile industry was also taking place in the United States. In America, it is difficult to credit the invention of the automobile to one individual. Nathan Read built a steam-driven automobile in Massachusetts in 1790. That was followed by Oliver Evan's self-propelled amphibious dredge in 1804 and by Thomas Blanchard's steam carriage of 1825. Others also expermented with the automobile, in hopes of improvement. Those who are given the most credit in this area are J. Frank and Charles E. Duryea. They are acknowledged by most authorities as the inventors of the automobile in America.
The Automobile Today
With the coming of the automobile, mankind found itself in possession of a
device that would affect its future. Accessibility, time, and distance
had a whole new meaning. Travel, once a luxury, now became common, and
eventually a necessity. Few aspects of society were left untouched by the
coming of the automobile. Cities were transformed. Railroad traffic,
small towns, and horses face obsolscence. Industries such as steel,
petroleum, rubber, chemicals, service stations, the mechanical trades, and
insurance greatly expanded for the needs of the automobile and the
people.The automobile has proved to be a huge benifit to society. It has
allowed people to expand their horizons. It has made work and play
something that can be enjoyed by all. The automobile revolutionized the
world and continues to have a positive impact on society.