Automobile
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Automobile
Benz "Velo" model (1894) entered into an early automobile race as a motocycle[1][2] Classification Industry Application Fuel Source Powered Self-Propelled Wheels Axles Inventor Vehicle Various Conveyance Gasoline, Diesel, Electric Yes Yes 34 02 Ferdinand Verbiest
Passenger cars in 2000.
World map of passenger cars per 1000 people. An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels, and to be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods.[3] The term motorcar has also been used in the context of electrified rail systems to denote a car which functions as a small locomotive but also provides space for passengers and baggage. These locomotive cars were often used on suburban routes by both interurban and intercity railroad systems.[4] There are approximately 600 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car per eleven people).[5][6] Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; the engines of these burn over a billion cubic meters (260 billion US gallons) of petrol/gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.[7]
Contents
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1 Etymology 2 History 3 Mass production 4 Weight 5 Fuel and propulsion technologies 6 Safety 7 Costs and benefits 8 Environmental impact 9 Other negative effects
10 Driverless cars 11 Future car technologies 12 Open source development 13 Alternatives to the automobile 14 Industry 15 Market 16 See also 17 References 18 Further reading 19 External links
Etymology
The word automobile comes, via the French automobile, from the Ancient Greek word (auts, "self") and the Latin mobilis ("movable"); meaning a vehicle that moves itself. The alternative name car is believed to originate from the Latin word carrus or carrum ("wheeled vehicle"), or the Middle English word carre ("cart") (from Old North French), or from the Gaulish word karros (a Gallic Chariot).[8][9]
History
Main article: History of the automobile The first working steam-powered vehicle was probably designed by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65 cm-long scalemodel toy for the Chinese Emperor, that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.[10][11] [12] It is not known if Verbiest's model was ever built.[11] In 1752, Leonty Shamshurenkov, a Russian peasant, constructed a human-pedalled fourwheeled "auto-running" carriage, and subsequently proposed to equip it with odometer and to use the same principle for making a self-propelling sledge.[13] Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.[14] He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.[15] His inventions were however handicapped by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.[15] 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. In the 1780s, a Russian inventor, Ivan Kulibin, developed a human-pedalled, threewheeled carriage with an elementary differential transmission of power from the pedals to the axle.[16]
In 1807 Nicphore Nipce and his brother Claude probably created the world's first internal combustion engine which they called a Pyrolophore, but they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.[17] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor Franois 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 Nipces' Pyrolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried Lycopodium moss), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.[17] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir with his hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.[18] In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouv demonstrated a working threewheeled automobile powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[19]
