History and developement of automobiles

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              The History and Development of Automobiles

Introduction

I am going to write about the development of automobiles or cars (the name nowadays) through time. I am going to include how the first steam-powered automobiles were produced which worked on the same idea as trains in the 1700s and how the gas-powered cars were made and how electric cars were made and used in the 1900s. This essay will deal with car types used nowadays such as the hybrid, petrol, gas and some electric powered cars. I am going to talk about each type in this presentation so you will know how the automobile technology developed to its current state and how it might develop into solar powered cars or something we cannot even think of.  

Steam Powered Road Vehicles and Inventors

The first sketch of a self-powering vehicle was made by Leonardo Da Vinci in the 15th century which was found in his sketches and plans later. The first car made was a steam powered vehicle designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot for the French army to carry artillery on three wheels without horses. The disadvantage was that it had to stop every ten to fifteen minutes to build up its steam power and it could only go at two and a half miles per hour. The steam engine and the boiler were separated from the other parts of the vehicle and were put on the front of the automobile which gave it a very ugly design and the steam engine was very heavy as well. This vehicle needed forty-five minutes to start and had no gear shifting. Cugnot built a tricycle which was powered by steam and could carry four persons at the same time. In 1771 Cugnot had to stop his automobile experiments because one of his patrons died and the other was exiled.

After Cugnot the steam-powered automobile experiments continued. From 1820 to 1840 steam-powered stage coaches were produced for public transport in Britain. Around 1850 steam-powered tractors carried passenger carriages around France built by Charles Deitz. Between 1873 and 1883 advanced steam automobiles were built by Amadee Bollee Sr. which had a differential shaft drive but had the same problem as Cugnot’s because it needed a long time to start up and had to stop frequently to build its steam power by putting water into the boiler.

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Gasoline Powered Cars and the Internal Combustion Engine

In cars the internal combustion engine uses three main types of fuels: kerosene, diesel and the petrol or gasoline fuels.

In 1680 the first internal combustion engine was designed by Christian Huygens who was a physician from the Netherlands and wanted to fuel his engine with gunpowder but never built it. In 1807 a physician from Switzerland invented an internal combustion engine which was fueled by the mixture of oxygen and hydrogen (water). Francois Isaac de Rivaz produced an automobile for his engine but his design ...

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