A quick overview of the historical evolution of the automobile, from the era of carriages to the modern concept of automobiles. The internal combustion engine, its patents for invention and observations of the development of the automotive industry.
The race to replace the horse with a self-propelled cart began at the end of the 17th century and had its birth focus in two major regions: Britain and the USA. More than 70 years later, the French engineer Joseph Cugnot designed and built the first self-propelled vehicle, a three-wheeled military tractor. It was built in 1771 and is now housed in a museum. It was interesting as an innovation but very little useful. In both France, England and the USA, other engineers from the Cugnot era tried to create their own self-propelled vehicles but had too many flaws.
In the US, in 1789, the first patent for a steam carriage was awarded to an independent inventor Oliver Evans. The first vehicle to roll along American roads was built in 1803, also by the inventor Oliver Evans. In Europe, the first steam carriage was manufactured in 1801 by the English engineer Richard Trevithick, who in 1803 also designed and built a carriage called “London Carriage”. The latter did not make technical progress despite being manufactured for a considerable period of time.
Britain, especially England, saw a very important period of evolution between 1820 and 1840. The development of steam engines was momentous, punctually for transport machines. Among the engineers of that time was Hancocks. It should be noted that this period of growth was relatively short.
Those who still depended on carriages with horses, especially the workers, created the concept of toll. It was a share of the monetary value higher than usual for steam vehicles, which, beyond the efficiency advantage gained, tended to wear off roads more quickly because of their heavy weight.
The next chapter in the history of the evolution of the automobile has steam trains as its protagonist. In 1865 Britain became acquainted with the new legislation, which put a stop to the development of steam vehicles for roads and routes normally used by horse carriages. This empty period of technological advances for self-propelled cars lasted 30 years.
The internal combustion engine continued to be independently developed by inventors and engineers in countries such as Germany, France and the USA. England invented the concept of a self-propelled vehicle in 1830 but its policy supported rail growth.
The result was to waste the opportunity to mark absolute sovereignty from the outset in the automotive industry. Even the famous American inventor Tomas Edison acknowledged in 1901 that “The motor vehicle should have been British.” He said that the British invented it in 1830 and that they have streets of quality that can only be matched by French ones. He also strongly criticized regulations that prevented progress in other areas of technology.
Until the naphtha-fuelled internal combustion engine, technicians, engineers and scientists from all over the world experimented with their own developments evaluating the design, operation and performance with fuels such as gas and kerosene. In 1678 the Dutch scientist Christian Huygens generated an internal combustion engine design that he eventually never built.
In 1805, a Swiss named Isaac Rivaz assembled a self-propelled car of his own mechanical design. In 1863 the Frenchman Étienne Lenoir presented in Paris a self-propelled transport vehicle that used gas as fuel for lighting.
The Germans Eugen Langen and August Otto developed a gas engine in 1866 and only by 1876 August Otto designed and built a 4 cylinder that laid the foundation for subsequent designs of internal combustion engines.
The transition from self-propelled carriage to the automobile concept took place between 1885 and 1887. In that period Karl Benz and then Gottlieb Daimler sold the first vehicles to naphtha with an acceptable performance. The difference between them was that Karl Benz intended to make cars while Gottlieb Daimler was only interested in selling engines in order to finance their further developments.
The Benz car was superior as a set given that it used the latest technology of the bicycle industry. Soon it consolidated as a producer, its three-wheeled model was successfully sold from 1888 giving rise to the automotive industry. On the other hand, Daimler's car was mediocre except for its engine. The driver was technically superior to his rival Benz and in a short time revolutionized the incipient automotive industry.
Parallel to Daimler and Benz products, French inventors and engineers manufactured steam vehicles of excellent quality and good performance. The most important confluence for the evolution and consolidation of the automobile came in 1889, when two French engineers, Émile Levassor and René Panhard, discovered and met the Daimler engine at the Paris Universal Exhibition. They applied for the rights to copy their design and obtained them a year later.
They then considered that the car would not have a great future and ceded their rights to the Daimler engines to Peugeot, which manufactured 5 cars in 1891 and 29 in 1892 becoming the first serial producer on the planet, later followed by the Benz.
On the new continent, the United States had its first naphtha car in 1891 built by John Lamberty. In 1895 Charles Duryea and his brother Frank created the first car manufacturer in the United States. Their background was the creation of prototypes, including the one that made them popular in 1893. Until then, the superiority of Daimler engines was undisputed.
Just as English laws stopped the development of the automotive industry in the past (see paragraph 4), in 1901 they were amended by preventing the British Motor Syndicate from appropriating the exclusive manufacturing rights of Daimler engines. Soon Benz became the leading car producer and seller in Europe, manufacturing 2500 cars only in 1900.
In the 1890s Henry Ford decided to enter the car business. His first headache was the patent obtained by Baldwin Selden in 1895, which owned the rights of the application of the internal combustion engine to carts. In the US, in 1899 Olds manufactured 400 cars in 6 months and became the largest manufacturer in the United States.
In 1899 the Electric Vehicle Company bought that patent and licensed local producers, while Ford refused to do so and went to court in 1903. By mid-1911, Henry Ford won in court. By then, there were more than 600,000 cars sold in the US, but many operated on steam or electricity. Avoiding this monopoly attempt cost the US ten years of disadvantage compared to Europe, which did so in 1901.
France lived a remarkable momentum in the industry could not even be overcome by the English who grew 200% in 1913. Germany was in third place with production of half of French production and two-thirds of English production.
The United States had a large population with good incomes, a situation that helped the lively growth of the industry. In turn, their mass production methods proved extraordinarily efficient, so overtaking Europe in volume was not difficult.
At that time, cars were more valued for their innovations applied to comfort and elegance than for their performance. That would come later, even considering that competitions were born before the 20th century...
© Adrián Blanco 2005 — Prohibited the total or partial reproduction of text and/or images without explicit written consent of the author. —