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4 answers

An interesting question, but more aptly stated as "Why was the automobile invented?"

Non-muscle-powered machines were described by Leonardo daVinci and later "philosophers," probably because of the inherent problems with muscle power: limited strength, need to feed and care for the animal or person providing the power, limited capacity in terms of time and distance, etc.

The first useful motor vehicle was powered by steam, once the problem of efficiently turning the steam back into water was solved.

I imagine the fact that horses are stupid, dirty and unpredictable led many to want a source of locomotion that did not leave droppings in the street, went where you wanted it to go and did not break a leg easily. After that, it was just a question of how much the motor cost and how efficient and cost-effective it was going to be. Steam died because of the size and noise, as well as the fact that you had to stop to replace the water fairly frequently (kind of like today's problem with electric cars). You also needed in effect two resources: water and whatever you burned to heat the water. The internal combustion engine using newly discovered oil eventually became the standard.

The car replaced the horse-and-buggy, and many of the early cars looked deliberately like the horse-drawn wagons (to not frighten the horses) and even use the same names for the cars as the wagons had.

You can see the evolution of the automobile by watching movies over the years.

2006-09-15 06:58:51 · answer #1 · answered by thylawyer 7 · 0 0

The new inernal combustion engine was invented in the 1890's and somone attached it to a type of wagon. It could have been Mr.
Daimler in France.

2006-09-15 06:09:39 · answer #2 · answered by cab veteran 5 · 0 0

The combustion engine, which defines the car as we know it was designed and built over several years by Benz in Germany, beginning in the late 1800's.

2006-09-15 06:12:50 · answer #3 · answered by billyandgaby 7 · 0 0

http://www.hybrid-vehicle.org/hybrid-vehicle-first-auto.html

Steam!

2006-09-15 06:32:28 · answer #4 · answered by ed 7 · 0 0

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