History of the Automobile
Nicolas Cugot, a French artillery officer, designed and built the world's first self-propelled road vehicle in 1769, Nicolas Cugot constructed a crude three-wheeled steam tractor for handling canon. It attained a speed of about two and half mph for 15 minutes only.
The saga of the modem day automobile really began as early as 1860. In that year Jean Étienne Lenoir, a Belgian inventor, built the first practicable gas engine, and which subsequently became the model from which all other internal-combustion engines developed. In that first engine, however, the mixture of coal gas and air was not compressed before ignition, and as such it was inefficient.
The next milestone in the history of the automobile was in 1876 when Nikolas Otto, a German engineer, first successfully applied the four stroke principle that had been proposed by the Frenchman. The four-stroke cycle enabled the charge to be compressed, which gave a significantly better performance. In 1880, German and French efforts resulted in an internal combustion engine vehicle, which was used to carry fruits. The present-day automobile developed from this vehicle. In 1883, Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz Daintier, working with Wilhelm Maybach, produced his first engine, and it created a sensation by running at more than four times the speed of Otto's engines. On the other hand, Benz started with the objective of making his own self-propelled vehicle, and in 1885, installed his first engine at the back of a tricycle. Within a year or so, Daimler and Benz were building cars for sale. In 1895, Pan hard and Daimler in France had the engine placed in the front of a chassis, hooked up to a sliding gear transmission, and incorporated the brake pedal, clutch and accelerator.
The Locomotives Act 1865, framed in Britain for steam-driven traction engines, set an overall speed limit of 4 mph in open country and 2 mph in towns and villages. Cars had to be preceded by a man carrying a red flag to warn the drivers of horse-drawn vehicles. Although the flag was abolished in 1876, the man was still required by law until 1896.
In 1908, Ford started his model with an initial run of 20,000 vehicles, an output unheard of at that time. This was the period when the designer's chief objective was to make the vehicle run in mass production, at the lowest possible price. In 1920 there was a gradual change and refinement in automobile design. By that time, the spark-ignition gasoline engine was to be the power plant of the modern motor vehicle. Water cooled engines were almost universal. The sliding gear transmission had established itself predominantly. The poppet valve was used in almost every engine design. Engines were all located in the front of the chassis.
Substantial progress has been made after the Second World War in every car feature. The designers during this time tried to produce a vehicle which not only functioned at all times under all conditions, but which was also comfortable to ride and easy to operate. The increased life of tires, brakes, independent front wheel suspension, beating and ventilation, improved engine design. Safety and exhaust emission were the additional features. However, this is not an end. Further research and development efforts continue and are focused to produce a better, cheaper, safer and in the future, computer controlled vehicles.
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