HISTORY
Leonardo Da Vinci invents the self-propelled car. This happens many years before anyone else is even thinking about automobiles. However, the car remains a sketch on paper and is never actually made. This self-propelled car is not a car like the ones we see today. It is more similar to a cart and does not have a seat. In 2004, a replica of Da Vinci’s car is finally crafted. It can be seen on display at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy.
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1478
1807
An internal combustion engine which uses a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is invented by Francois Isaac de Rivaz in Switzerland. He also designs a car for the engine, the first automobile powered by internal combustion. However, his design turns out to be very unsuccessful.
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1863
Belgian engineer Jean-Joseph-Etienne Lenoir invents the “horseless carriage.” It uses an internal combustion engine and can move at about 3 miles per hour. This is the first commercially successful internal combustion engine.
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1879
American inventor George Baldwin files the first U.S. Patent for an automobile. This invention is more similar to a wagon with an internal combustion engine.
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1885
German engine designer Karl Benz builds the first true automobile powered by a gasoline engine. It has three wheels and looked similar to a carriage.
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1886
In Michigan, Henry Ford builds his first automobile.
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1913
Ford’s Model T production rockets from 7.5 cars per hour to 146 cars per hour, thanks to the utilization of the assembly line.
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1940
The first four-wheel drive, all-purpose vehicle is designed for the U.S. Military. It becomes known as the Jeep.
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1995
The car Global Positioning System, or GPS, is introduced.
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2000
Due to the rising cost of gasoline and impact of global climate change, zero-emission electric vehicles come back to auto showrooms. The first electric vehicles had been designed in the early 1800s.
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2020
Self driving cars are beginning to be released. Brands include Tesla, Mercedes and a Google branded car, Waymo.
Used typically for warfare by Egyptians, the Near Easterners and Europeans, it was essentially a two-wheeled light basin carrying one or two passengers, drawn by one to two horses.
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1900 BC
