thumb|right|Karl Benz's "Velo" model (1894) - entered into an early automobile race An '''automobile''' or '''motor car''' is a transporting 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 is far from precise because there are many types of vehicles that do similar tasks.

''Automobile'' comes via the Old North French), and ''karros''; a Gallic wagon.http://www.lib.wayne.edu/resources/special_collections/local/cfai/index.php, 'Car' derived from 'carrus'.

As of 2002, there were 590 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car per eleven people).

History

Although 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'). 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 bearings; however, it was not developed further.http://www.aboutmycar.com/category/car_history/creation_history/automobile-invention-1122.htm Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir who each produced vehicles (adapted carriages, carts, or boats) powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.

In November 1881 French inventor Gustave Trouvأ© 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 integral design, without the adaptation of other existing components and including 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.

upright|left|thumb|Karl Benz right|thumb|A photograph of the original ''Benz Patent Motorwagon'', 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 ''Motorwagon'' 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 approximately 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 falling out with their backers. Benz and the Maybach and 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-35hp'', 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, Emile 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 549160}}) for a two-stroke cycle|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 Mazda's version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success.

Production

As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing production by seven to one (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.

left|thumb|Portrait of Henry Ford (ca. 1919)

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 Cadillac Motor Company in 1910-1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.

right|thumb|Ford Model T, 1927, regarded as the first affordable American automobile

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, platforms (with interchangeable 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 Hotchkiss (engines), Wrigley (gearboxes), and 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 10CV and 5CV, they produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and Mors, 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 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 in the 1930s by Mercedes Benz and Citroen. 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 is the presence in the exhaust gases of fine soot particulates and manufacturers are now starting to fit filters to remove these. Many diesel-powered cars can also run with little or no modifications on 100% biodiesel.

=Gasoline

thumb|right|Mini (BMW)|2007 Mark II (BMW) Mini Cooper 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 Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) 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% LPG with the addition of an LPG tank for fuel storage and carburetion 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.

thumb|The hydrogen powered FCHV (Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle) was developed by in 2005">Toyota">in 2005

Biofuels

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

right|thumb|The Henney Kilowatt, the first modern (transistor-controlled) electric car. The first electric cars were built around 1832, well before internal combustion powered cars appeared.Bellis, M. (2006) "The History of Electric Vehicles: The Early Years" ''About.com'' article at inventors.about.com accessed on 5 September 2007 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 Fأ©tish 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 EPA highway cycle requiring 3-1/2 hours to completely chargeMitchell, T. (2003) "AC Propulsion Debuts tzero with LiIon Battery" ''AC Propulsion, Inc.'' press release at acpropulsion.com accessed 5 September 2007. Equivalent fuel efficiency to internal combustion is not well defined but some press reports give it at around .

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.Setright, L.J.K. "Steam: The Romantic Illusion", in Ward, Ian, ed., ''World of Automobiles'' (London: Orbis Publishing, 1974), pp.2168-2173.)

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. Companies releasing this type of car include Tata Motors and Motor Development International (MDI).

Gas turbine

Rotary (Wankel) engines

Rocket and jet cars

Safety

right|thumb|Result of a serious automobile accident. There are three main statistics to which automobile safety can be compared:The risks of travel {| class="wikitable" style="width: 14em; display: inline-table;" ! Deaths per billion journeys ! Deaths per billion hours ! Deaths per billion kilometres 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.

Economics and impacts

Cost and benefits of usage

The costs of automobile usage, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, 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.

Cost and benefits to society

Similarly the costs to society of encompassing automobile use, which may include those of: tax opportunities. The ability for humans to move flexibly from place to place has far reaching implications for the nature of societies.

Impacts on society and environment

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 got worse 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. 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.

Improving the positive and reducing the negative impacts

Future car technologies

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 Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), |author= Paul Werbos|authorlink=Paul Werbos|url=http://www.werbos.com/E/WhoKilledElecPJW.htm|title=www.werbos.com/E/WhoKilledElecPJW.htm|accessdate=2007-04-10}}, and even using the stored energy of compressed air or [[Liquid nitrogen economy|liquid nitrogen.

New materials which may replace steel car bodies include duraluminum, fiberglass, carbon fiber, and carbon nanotubes.

pay-as-you-go basis, through such schemes as Mobility in mainland Europe, and Zipcar in the US.

Alternatives to the automobile

Established alternatives for some aspects of automobile use include subways, tramways), 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

*Car classification

• Car donation

• Driving

• List of countries by automobile production

• List of countries by vehicles per capita

• Lists of automobiles

• Society of Automotive Engineers

• Sustainable transport

• U.S. Automobile Production Figures - production figures for each make from 1899 to 2000

• V2G

• V2V

  References

  External links

  *Fأ©dأ©ration Internationale de l'Automobile

  Category:Vehicles

af:Motorvoertuig be-x-old:ذگر‍ر‚ذ°ذ¼ذ°ذ±ر–ذ»رŒ zh-yue:و±½è»ٹ