The Road Most Traveled Are you looking forward to getting your driver’s license Do you dream about the kind of car you want to own someday Maybe you want to design and build the cars of the future Throughout history people have desired to travel the world First there were carts and wagons pulled by animals Then came steam-powered trains But the automobile changed travel forever Cars let people travel quickly nearly anywhere they wanted to go People no longer had to depend on train schedules or follow train tracks Eventually anyone could learn to drive a car and most people could afford to own one
Automobile development started in the 1400s But cars would not be practical until the late 1800s and early 1900s That is when Henry Ford and others made important advancements Improvements have continued to the present day thanks to the automobile industry and entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk Cars have never been safer and easier to operate than they are now And self-driving cars are just around the corner Who knows where automobile technology will take us next In 2016 17.5 million cars were sold in the United States This was more cars than any other year before
Chapter 1 Early Ideas The history of the automobile goes back hundreds of years In the 1400s artist Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a self-propelled vehicle Starting in the 1700s inventors explored different ways to make vehicles move There were designs for steam electric and gasoline engines In 1769 French engineer Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot constructed the first true automobile His machine was huge and heavy and had three wheels It was propelled by steam Cugnot’s 1769 model could go 2 25 miles per hour 3 6 kmh and carry four people It was a military vehicle designed to haul weapons such as cannons Early steam engines were slow and required heavy equipment Inventors in England Germany France and the United States pursued design improvements Steam-driven vehicles continued to be popular until the early 1900s Parts and methods created by several inventors were later combined in automobile design In the 1600s German engineer Otto von Guericke invented pistons and cylinders Around the
Cugnot’s vehicle was very heavy due to a large steam engine and boiler The vehicle had to stop every ten minutes to build up steam same time Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens built an engine that used air pressure from a controlled explosion In 1801 French engineer Philippe Lebon made a plan for a motor with an electric fuel pump and spark ignition These would all be important elements of the internal combustion engine
