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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1886
In Michigan, Henry Ford builds his first automobile.
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.
1940
The first four-wheel drive, all-purpose vehicle is designed for the U.S. Military. It becomes known as the Jeep.
1995
The car Global Positioning System, or GPS, is introduced.
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.
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.
1900 BC
