Karl Benz's "Velo" model (1894) -
entered into an early automobile race
Passenger cars in 2000
World map of passenger cars per 1000
people.
An
automobile,
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. However,
the term
automobile is far from precise, because there are
many types of vehicles that do similar tasks.
As of 2002, there were 590 million passenger cars worldwide
(roughly one car per eleven people). Around the world, there were
about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; they
burn over 260 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly.
The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in
China and
India.
Etymology
The word
automobile comes, via the
French automobile, from the
Ancient Greek word αὐτός
(
autós, "self") and the
Latin mobilis ("movable"); meaning a
vehicle that moves itself, rather than being
pulled or pushed by a separate animal or another vehicle. 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
karros (a
Gallic wagon).
History
Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a
Jesuit mission in China, built
the first steam-powered vehicle around 1672 which was of small
scale and designed as a toy for the Chinese Emperor, that was
unable to carry a driver or a passenger, but quite possibly, was
the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile').
Although
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot
is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical
vehicle or automobile in about 1769, by adapting an existing
horse-drawn vehicle, this claim is disputed by some , who doubt
Cugnot's three-wheeler ever ran or was stable. What is not in doubt
is that
Richard Trevithick built
and demonstrated his
Puffing Devil road locomotive in
1801, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a
steam-powered road vehicle, although it was unable to maintain
sufficient steam pressure for long periods, and would have been of
little practical use.
In
Russia
, in the 1780s, Ivan
Kulibin developed a human-pedalled, three-wheeled carriage with
modern features such as a flywheel,
brake, gear box, and
bearings; however, it was not
developed further.
François Isaac de
Rivaz, a Swiss inventor, designed the first
internal combustion engine, in
1806, which was fueled by a mixture of
hydrogen and
oxygen and used
it to develop the world's first vehicle, albeit rudimentary, to be
powered by such an engine. The design was not 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.
In November 1881, French inventor
Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working
three-wheeled automobile that was powered by electricity. This was
at the International Exhibition of Electricity in Paris.
Although several other German engineers (including
Gottlieb Daimler,
Wilhelm Maybach, and
Siegfried Marcus) were working on the
problem at about the same time,
Karl
Benz generally is acknowledged as the
inventor of the modern automobile.
An
automobile powered by his own four-stroke cycle gasoline engine was
built in Mannheim
, Germany
by Karl Benz
in 1885, and granted a patent in January of
the following year under the auspices of his major company,
Benz & Cie., which was founded
in 1883. It was an
integral
design, without the adaptation of other existing components, and
included several new technological elements to create a new
concept. This is what made it worthy of a patent. He began to sell
his production vehicles in 1888.
Karl Benz
A photograph of the original
Benz Patent Motorwagen, first
built in 1885 and awarded the patent for the concept
In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had
been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of
the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a
vehicle.
His first
Motorwagen
was built in 1885, and he was awarded the patent for its invention
as of his application on January 29, 1886. Benz began promotion of
the vehicle on July 3, 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold
between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced
along with a model intended for affordability. They also were
powered with four-stroke engines of his own design.
Emile Roger of France
, already
producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz automobile
to his line of products. Because France was more open to the
early automobiles, initially more were built and sold in France
through Roger than Benz sold in Germany.
In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion
flat engine, called a
boxermotor in German. During the last years of the
nineteenth century, Benz was the largest automobile company in the
world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size,
Benz & Cie., became a
joint-stock company.
Daimler
and Maybach founded Daimler
Motoren Gesellschaft (Daimler Motor Company, DMG) in Cannstatt
in 1890, and under the brand name,
Daimler, sold their first automobile in 1892, which was a
horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, that they
retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30
vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the
Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after
disputes with their backers. Benz and the Maybach and the Daimler
team seem to have been unaware of each other's early work. They
never worked together because, by the time of the merger of the two
companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG.
Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an
engine named
Daimler-Mercedes, that was placed in a
specially-ordered model built to specifications set by
Emil Jellinek. This was a production of a
small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his
country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG automobile was
produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine
which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and
opened a business of his own. Rights to the
Daimler brand
name were sold to other manufacturers.
Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie.
when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following
the
First World War, but the
directors of DMG refused to consider it initially. Negotiations
between the two companies resumed several years later when these
conditions worsened and, in 1924 they signed an
Agreement of
Mutual Interest, valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises
standardized design, production, purchasing, and sales and they
advertised or marketed their automobile models jointly, although
keeping their respective brands.
On June 28, 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the
Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its automobiles
Mercedes Benz, as a brand honoring the most important
model of the DMG automobiles, the Maybach design later referred to
as the
1902 Mercedes-35 hp, along with the Benz name.
Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of
Daimler-Benz until his death in 1929, and at times, his two sons
participated in the management of the company as well.
In 1890,
Émile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began
producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation
of the automobile industry in France.
The first
design for an American automobile with a gasoline internal
combustion engine was drawn in 1877 by George Selden of Rochester, New
York
, who applied for a patent for an automobile in
1879, but the patent application expired because the vehicle was
never built. After a delay of sixteen years and a series
of attachments to his application, on November 5, 1895, Selden was
granted a United States patent ( ) for a two-stroke automobile engine, which
hindered, more than encouraged, development of automobiles in the
United
States
. His patent was challenged by Henry Ford and
others, and overturned in 1911.
In
Britain
, there had
been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of
success, with Thomas Rickett even
attempting a production run in 1860. Santler from Malvern is recognized by the
Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first
petrol-powered car in the country in 1894 followed by
Frederick William Lanchester in
1895, but these were both one-offs. The first production vehicles
in Great Britain came from the
Daimler Motor Company, a company
founded by
Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right
to use the name of the engines. Lawson's company made its first
automobiles in 1897, and they bore the name
Daimler.
In 1892, German engineer
Rudolf Diesel
was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In
1897, he built the first
Diesel
Engine. Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles
competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines
achieving dominance in the 1910s.
Although various
pistonless
rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the
conventional
piston and
crankshaft design, only
Mazda's version of the
Wankel engine has had more than very limited
success.
Production
The large-scale,
production-line
manufacturing of affordable automobiles was debuted by
Ransom Olds at his
Oldsmobile factory in 1902. This concept was
greatly expanded by
Henry Ford, beginning
in 1914.
As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen minute
intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing
productivity eightfold (requiring 12.5 man-hours before, 1 hour 33
minutes after), while using less manpower. It was so successful,
paint became a bottleneck. Only
Japan black would dry fast enough, forcing the
company to drop the variety of colors available before 1914, until
fast-drying
Duco lacquer
was developed in 1926. This is the source of Ford's
apocryphal remark, "any color as long as it's
black". In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with
four months' pay.
Ford's complex safety procedures—especially assigning each worker
to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam
about—dramatically reduced the rate of injury. The combination of
high wages and high efficiency is called "
Fordism," and was copied by most major industries.
The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the
economic rise of the United States. The assembly line forced
workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions
which led to more output per worker while other countries were
using less productive methods.
In the
automotive industry, its
success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide seeing the
founding of Ford France and Ford Britain in 1911, Ford Denmark
1923, Ford Germany 1925; in 1921,
Citroen
was the first native European manufacturer to adopt the production
method. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going
broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not, had disappeared.
Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the
hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's
attention. Key developments included electric
ignition and the electric self-starter (both
by
Charles Kettering, for the
Cadillac Motor Company in
1910-1911), independent
suspension, and four-wheel
brakes.
Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet
market needs, so marketing plans often have heavily influenced
automobile design. It was
Alfred P.
Sloan who established the idea of
different makes of cars produced by one company, so buyers could
"move up" as their fortunes improved.
Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one
another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for
each price range. For example, in the 1930s,
LaSalles, sold by
Cadillac,
used cheaper mechanical parts made by
Oldsmobile; in the 1950s,
Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows
with
Pontiac; by the 1990s, corporate
drivetrains and shared
platforms (with interchangeable
brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common.
Even so,
only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with
decades of production, such as Apperson,
Cole
, Dorris,
Haynes, or Premier, could not manage: of some two
hundred American car makers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived
in 1930, and with the Great
Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left.
In Europe much the same would happen.
Morris set up its production line at
Cowley
in 1924, and
soon outsold Ford, while beginning in 1923 to follow Ford's
practise of vertical
integration, buying Hotchkiss
(engines), Wrigley
(gearboxes), and Osberton (radiators), for
instance, as well as competitors, such as Wolseley: in 1925, Morris had 41% of
total British car production. Most British small-car
assemblers, from
Abbey to
Xtra had gone under. Citroen did
the same in France, coming to cars in 1919; between them and other
cheap cars in reply such as
Renault's
10CV and
Peugeot's
5CV, they
produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and
Mors,
Hurtu, and
others could not compete.
Germany's first mass-manufactured car, the
Opel 4PS
Laubfrosch (Tree Frog), came off the line at Russelsheim
in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in
Germany, with 37.5% of the market.
Fuel and propulsion technologies
Most automobiles in use today are propelled by
gasoline (also known as petrol) or
diesel internal combustion engines, which are
known to cause
air pollution and are
also blamed for contributing to
climate
change and
global warming.
Increasing costs of oil-based fuels, tightening environmental
laws and restrictions on
greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work
on alternative power systems for automobiles. Efforts to improve or
replace existing technologies include the development of
hybrid vehicles, and
electric and
hydrogen vehicles which do not release
pollution into the air.
Petroleum fuels
Diesel
Diesel-engined cars have long been popular in Europe with the first
models being introduced as early as 1922 by
Peugeot and the first production car,
Mercedes-Benz 260 D in 1936 by
Mercedes-Benz. The main benefit of diesel
engines is a 50% fuel burn efficiency compared with 27% in the best
gasoline engines. A down-side of the Diesel engine is that better
filters are required to reduce the presence in the exhaust gases of
fine soot particulates called
diesel particulate matter.
Manufacturers are now starting to fit
diesel particulate filters to
remove the soot. Many diesel-powered cars can run with little or no
modifications on 100%
biodiesel and
combinations of other organic oils.
Gasoline
Gasoline engines have the advantage over diesel in being lighter
and able to work at higher rotational speeds and they are the usual
choice for fitting in high-performance sports cars. Continuous
development of gasoline engines for over a hundred years has
produced improvements in efficiency and reduced pollution. The
carburetor was used on nearly all road
car engines until the 1980s but it was long realised better control
of the fuel/air mixture could be achieved with
fuel injection. Indirect fuel injection was
first used in aircraft engines from 1909, in racing car engines
from the 1930s, and road cars from the late 1950s.
Gasoline Direct Injection is now
starting to appear in production vehicles such as the 2007 (Mark
II)
BMW Mini. Exhaust gases are also
cleaned up by fitting a catalytic converter into the exhaust
system. Clean air legislation in many of the car industries most
important markets has made both catalysts and fuel injection
virtually universal fittings. Most modern gasoline engines also are
capable of running with up to 15%
ethanol
mixed into the gasoline - older vehicles may have seals and hoses
that can be harmed by ethanol. With a small amount of redesign,
gasoline-powered vehicles can run on ethanol concentrations as high
as 85%.
100% ethanol is used in some parts of the
world (such as Brazil
), but
vehicles must be started on pure gasoline and switched over to
ethanol once the engine is running. Most gasoline engined
cars can also run on
LPG with the addition
of an
LPG tank for fuel storage and
carburettor modifications to add an LPG mixer. LPG produces fewer
toxic emissions and is a popular fuel for
fork-lift trucks that have to operate inside
buildings.
Biofuels
Ethanol, other
alcohol fuels (
biobutanol) and
biogasoline have widespread use as an automotive
fuel. Most alcohols have less energy per liter than gasoline and
are usually blended with gasoline. Alcohols are used for a variety
of reasons - to increase octane, to improve emissions, and as an
alternative to petroleum based fuel, since they can be made from
agricultural crops. Brazil's
ethanol program provides about 20% of
the nation's automotive fuel needs, as a result of the mandatory
use of
E25 blend of
gasoline throughout the country, 3 million cars that operate on
pure ethanol, and 6 million
dual
or flexible-fuel vehicles sold since 2003. that run on any mix
of ethanol and gasoline. The commercial success of "flex" vehicles,
as they are popularly known, have allowed sugarcane based ethanol
fuel to achieve a 50% market share of the gasoline market by April
2008.
Electric
The first
electric cars were built
around 1832, well before internal combustion powered cars appeared.
For a period of time electrics were considered superior due to the
silent nature of electric motors compared to the very loud noise of
the gasoline engine. This advantage was removed with
Hiram Percy Maxim's invention of the
muffler in 1897. Thereafter internal
combustion powered cars had two critical advantages: 1) long range
and 2) high specific energy (far lower weight of petrol fuel versus
weight of batteries). The building of
battery electric vehicles that
could rival internal combustion models had to wait for the
introduction of modern
semiconductor
controls and improved batteries. Because they can deliver a high
torque at low revolutions electric cars do
not require such a complex drive train and transmission as internal
combustion powered cars. Some post-2000 electric car designs such
as the
Venturi Fétish are able
to accelerate from 0-60 mph (96 km/h) in 4.0 seconds
with a top speed around 130 mph (210 km/h). Others have a
range of 250 miles (400 km) on the
United States
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) highway cycle requiring
3-1/2 hours to completely charge. Equivalent fuel efficiency
to internal combustion is not well defined but some press reports
give it at around .
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is a fuel that, upon consumption, does not emit any
greenhouse gases.
Hydrogen can be
burned in
internal combustion
engines as well as
fuel cells.
Oxyhydrogen
Oxyhydrogen is another fuel that can be used in existing
internal combustion engines
originally developed for using gasoline. This allows the engine to
eliminate emissions, although fuel efficiency is reduced rather
than improved (since the energy required to split water exceeds the
energy recouped by burning it).
Steam
Steam power, usually using an oil- or gas-heated boiler, was also
in use until the 1930s but had the major disadvantage of being
unable to power the car until boiler pressure was available
(although the newer models could achieve this in well under a
minute). It has the advantage of being able to produce very low
emissions as the combustion process can be carefully controlled.
Its disadvantages include poor heat efficiency and extensive
requirements for electric auxiliaries..
Air
A compressed air car is an alternative fuel car that uses a motor
powered by
compressed air. The car
can be powered solely by air, or by air combined (as in a hybrid
electric vehicle) with gasoline/diesel/ethanol or electric plant
and
regenerative braking.
Instead of mixing fuel with air and burning it to drive pistons
with hot expanding gases;
compressed air cars use the
expansion of compressed air to drive their
pistons. Several prototypes are available already and scheduled for
worldwide sale by the end of 2008, though this has not happened as
of January 2009. Companies releasing this type of car include
Tata Motors and
Motor Development
International (MDI).
Gas turbine
In the 1950s there was a brief interest in using
gas turbine engines and several makers including
Rover and
Chrysler produced prototypes. In spite of the power
units being very compact, high fuel consumption, severe delay in
throttle response, and lack of engine braking meant no cars reached
production.
Rotary (Wankel) engines
Rotary
Wankel engines were introduced
into road cars by
NSU with the
Ro 80 and later were seen in the
Citroën GS Birotor and several
Mazda models. In spite of their impressive
smoothness, poor reliability and fuel economy has largely lead to
their decline. Mazda, beginning with the
R100 then
RX-2, has
continued research on these engines, overcoming most of the earlier
problems with the
RX-7 and
RX-8.
Rocket and jet cars
A
rocket car holds the record in
drag racing. However, the fastest of those cars
are used to set the
Land Speed
Record, and are propelled by propulsive jets emitted from
rocket,
turbojet, or
more recently and most successfully
turbofan engines. The
ThrustSSC car using two
Rolls-Royce Spey turbofans with
reheat was able to exceed the
speed of sound at ground level in 1997.
Data transmission
Automobiles use
CAM,
MOSH
(optic fiber),
multiplexing,
bluetooth and
WiFi between
others.
Safety
There are three main statistics to which automobile safety can be
compared:
While road traffic injuries represent the leading cause in
worldwide injury-related deaths, their popularity undermines this
statistic.
Mary Ward became one of the first
documented automobile fatalities in 1869 in Parsonstown,
Ireland
and Henry Bliss one of the
United
States' first pedestrian
automobile casualties in 1899 in New York
.There are now standard tests for safety in
new automobiles, like the
EuroNCAP and the
US NCAP tests, as well as insurance-backed
IIHS
tests.
Costs and benefits
The costs of automobile usage, which may include the cost of:
acquiring the vehicle,
repairs,
maintenance,
fuel,
depreciation,
parking fees,
tire
replacement,
taxes and
insurance, are weighed against the cost of the
alternatives, and the value of the benefits - perceived and real -
of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand
transportation, mobility, independence and convenience.
Similarly the costs to society of encompassing automobile use,
which may include those of:
maintaining
roads,
land use,
pollution,
public
health,
health care, and of
disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life, can be balanced
against the value of the benefits to society that automobile use
generates. The societal benefits may include: economy benefits,
such as job and wealth creation, of automobile production and
maintenance, transportation provision, society wellbeing derived
from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from
the
tax opportunities. The
ability for humans to move flexibly from place to place has far
reaching implications for the nature of societies.
Environmental impact
Transportation is a major contributor to
air pollution in most industrialised nations.
According to the
American Surface
Transportation Policy Project nearly half of all Americans are
breathing unhealthy air. Their study showed air quality in dozens
of metropolitan areas has worsened over the last decade. In the
United States the average passenger car emits 11,450 lbs (5
tonnes) of
carbon
dioxide, along with smaller amounts of carbon monoxide,
hydrocarbons, and nitrogen.
Animals and plants are often negatively impacted by automobiles via
habitat destruction and
pollution. Over the lifetime of the average automobile the "loss of
habitat potential" may be over 50,000 square meters (538,195 square
feet) based on
Primary production
correlations.
Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the
production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs
(e.g.
hybrid vehicles) and the
development of
alternative fuels.
High fuel taxes may provide a strong incentive for consumers to
purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to not
drive. On average, today's automobiles are about 75 percent
recyclable, and using recycled steel helps reduce energy use and
pollution. In the United States Congress, federally mandated fuel
efficiency standards have been debated regularly, passenger car
standards have not risen above the standard set in 1985. Light
truck standards have changed more frequently,
and were set at in 2007.
Alternative
fuel vehicles are another option that is less
polluting than conventional
petroleum powered vehicles.
Other negative effects
Residents of low-density, residential-only sprawling communities
are also more likely to die in
car
collisions which kill 1.2 million people worldwide each year,
and injure about forty times this number. Sprawl is more broadly a
factor in inactivity and
obesity, which in
turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.
Driverless cars
Fully autonomous vehicles, also known as robotic cars, or
driverless cars, already exist in prototype, and are expected to be
commercially available around 2020. According to urban designer and
futurist
Michael E. Arth, driverless electric vehicles—in
conjunction with the increased use of
virtual reality for work, travel, and
pleasure—could reduce the world's 800,000,000 vehicles to a
fraction of that number within a few decades. This would be
possible if almost all private cars requiring drivers, which are
not in use and parked 90% of the time, would be traded for public
self-driving taxis that would be in near constant use. This would
also allow for getting the appropriate vehicle for the particular
need—a bus could come for a group of people, a limousine could come
for a special night out, and a Segway could come for a short trip
down the street for one person. Children could be chauffeured in
supervised safety,
DUIs
would no longer exist, and 41,000 lives could be saved each year in
the U.S. alone.
Future car technologies
Automobile propulsion
technology under development include
gasoline/electric and
plug-in hybrids,
battery electric vehicles,
hydrogen cars,
biofuels,
and various
alternative
fuels.
Research into future alternative forms of power include the
development of
fuel cells,
Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition ,
stirling engines, and even using the stored
energy of compressed air or
liquid nitrogen.
New materials which may replace steel car bodies include
duraluminum,
fiberglass,
carbon
fiber, and
carbon
nanotubes.
Telematics technology is allowing more and more
people to share cars, on a pay-as-you-go basis, through such schemes as
City Car Club in the UK
, Mobility in mainland Europe, and Zipcar in the US.
Alternatives to the automobile
Established alternatives for some aspects of automobile use include
public transit (
buses,
trolleybuses,
trains,
subways,
monorails,
tramways),
cycling,
walking,
rollerblading,
skateboarding,
horseback riding and using a
velomobile.
Car-share
arrangements and
carpooling are also
increasingly popular–the U.S. market leader in car-sharing has
experienced double-digit growth in revenue and membership growth
between 2006 and 2007, offering a service that enables urban
residents to "share" a vehicle rather than own a car in already
congested neighborhoods.
Bike-share
systems have been tried in some European cities, including
Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Similar programs have been experimented
with in a number of U.S. Cities. Additional individual modes of
transport, such as
personal rapid
transit could serve as an alternative to automobiles if they
prove to be socially accepted.
See also
References
Further reading
- Halberstam, David, The
Reckoning, New York, Morrow, 1986. ISBN 0688048382
- Kay, Jane Holtz, Asphalt nation : how the automobile took
over America, and how we can take it back, New York, Crown,
1997. ISBN 0517587025
- Heathcote Williams,
Autogeddon, New York, Arcade, 1991. ISBN 1559701765
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