A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels.

Most definitions of cars state that they

run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly
transport people over cargo.[1][2] There are around one billion cars in use worldwide. The car is
considered an essential part of the developed economy.[3]
The French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first steam-powered road vehicle in 1769,
while the 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 the German inventor Carl Benz patented his Benz
Patent-Motorwagen. Commercial cars became widely available during the 20th century. The
1901 Oldsmobile Curved Dash and the 1908 Ford Model T, both American cars, are widely
considered the first mass-produced[4][5] and mass-affordable[6][7][8] cars, respectively. Cars were
rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced horse-drawn carriages.[9] In Europe and other
parts of the world, demand for automobiles did not increase until after World War II.[10] In the
21st century, car usage is still increasing rapidly, especially in China, India, and other newly
industrialised countries.[11][12]
Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lamps. 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, fueled 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 petrol-driven cars before 2025.[13][14] The transition from fossil
fuel-powered cars to electric cars features prominently in most climate change mitigation
scenarios,[15] such as Project Drawdown's 100 actionable solutions for climate change.[16]
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.[17] 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.[18] Personal benefits include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and
convenience.[19] 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 the generation of revenue from taxation. People's ability to move
flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[20]
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".[21][22] It originally referred to any wheeled horse-drawn vehicle,
such as a cart, carriage, or wagon.[23][24]
"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.[25] "Horseless carriage" is attested from 1895.[26]
"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.[27] It fell out of favour in Britain and is now used chiefly in North
America,[28] where the abbreviated form "auto" commonly appears as an adjective in compound
formations like "auto industry" and "auto mechanic".[29][30]
History
Main article: History of the automobile

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 Steam machine of Verbiest, in 1678 (Ferdinand Verbiest)

Cugnot's 1771 fardier à vapeur, as preserved at the Musée des

Arts et Métiers, Paris Carl Benz, the inventor of the modern car

The original Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the first modern car,

built in 1885 and awarded the patent for the concept Bertha Benz, the

first long distance driver The Flocken Elektrowagen was the

first four-wheeled electric car Stuttgart, a cradle of the

car[31][32] with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working there at the Daimler Motoren
Gesellschaft and place of the modern day headquarters of Mercedes-Benz Group and Porsche
In 1649, Hans Hautsch of Nuremberg built a clockwork-driven carriage.[33][34] 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.[19][35][36] It is not known with certainty
if Verbiest's model was successfully built or run.[36]
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.[37] He also constructed
two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National
Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.[37] His inventions were limited by problems with water supply
and maintaining steam pressure.[37] 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.[38] 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.[38] Neither design was successful, as was the case with others, such
as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir,[39] who each built vehicles (usually adapted
carriages or carts) powered by internal combustion engines.[40]
In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a three-wheeled car powered
by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity.[41] 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.[40][42][43]
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 and business partner of Carl Benz, undertook the first road
trip by car, to prove the road-worthiness of her husband's invention.[44]
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 petrol-driven
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 petrol 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, petrol-driven 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.[45][46] Studebaker,
subsidiary of a long-established wagon and coach manufacturer, started to build cars in
1897[47]: 66 and commenced sales of electric vehicles in 1902 and petrol vehicles in 1904.[48]
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.[49] Santler from Malvern is
recognised by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first petrol-driven car in
the country in 1894,[50] followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895, but these were both
one-offs.[50] 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. [50]
In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion
Engine". In 1897, he built the first diesel engine.[40] Steam-, electric-, and petrol-driven vehicles
competed for a few decades, with petrol 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.[51]
Mass production
See also: Automotive industry

Ransom E. Olds founded Olds Motor Vehicle

Company (Oldsmobile) in 1897. Ford Motor Company

automobile assembly line in the 1920s The Toyota Corolla is

the best-selling car of all-time.
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.[52] 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).[53] It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan black would
dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colours 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".[53] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with
four months' pay.[53]
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.[54] 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.[53]
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.[53]
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' British subsidiary (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.[53] 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.[53]
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.
Components and design