Car

Knowledge, Information and Experience

A car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transportation. Most definitions of car say they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four tires, and mainly transport people rather than goods.

History:

The first working steam-powered vehicle was designed — and quite possibly built — by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65-cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first full-scale, self-propelled mechanical vehicle or car in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.

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 they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.

In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated the first working (three-wheeled) car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.

From 1807 till 1892 various development took place.

In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a “New Rational Combustion Engine”. In 1897, he built the first diesel engine.

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 U.S. by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. 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.

Fuel and propulsion technologies:

According to the European Environment Agency, the transport sector is a major contributor to air pollution, noise pollution and climate change.

Most cars in use in the 2010s run on gasoline (petrol) 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.

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, 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.