World on wheels From animal power to engines Few inventions changed people’s lives more than the automobile Before the 1700s all land vehicles such as carts and carriages were pulled by animals Most people could not afford a horse or any sort of road vehicle and had to rely on their legs to carry them to where they wanted to go Then came two revolutionary inventions first the steam locomotive and then in 1885 the automobile From steam to gas Steam engines were first used in the early 1700s to drive pumps and later to power ships trains and factory machines Steam was also tried on the road but it was not 6 very successful The modern revolution in road travel really began with the invention of the internal combustion engine Slowly motorized cars and trucks replaced horse-drawn carriages and ox-drawn carts Since the first cars appeared on the roads over one hundred years ago scientists and engineers have made many more improvements in auto technology to produce the fast comfortable and safe cars we use today Those changes are ongoing as companies look to design cars for the future that use lighter materials and run on cleaner alternative fuels Putting the pieces together Many of the early car pioneers worked alone They made parts themselves coming up with and borrowing ideas and adapting useful existing technology Paris France in the 1860s Horse-drawn carts and carriages rattled along city streets but most people had to walk to wherever they needed to go But less than 30 years later cars had joined the Paris street traffic
for example from the steam engine and the bicycle Pioneers were also quick to adopt new technologies such as electric batteries or air-filled rubber tires Often two inventors would have the same idea independently Some inventors became rich and famous founding international businesses Others gave up and were soon forgotten THAT’S A FACT In 1900 there were fewer than 25,000 cars in the world By 1910 that number had risen to about one million Today there are more than one billion Car manufacturers make more than 60 million cars every year In Paris today the streets are crowded with automobiles Cities have had to adapt to the car an invention that many people think they could not live without Over the years each new piece of auto technology has been a breakthrough but when Karl Benz drove his first car in 1885 he started a revolution The car created new industries changed the way people spent their leisure time and altered the landscape Today with millions of cars on busy roads across every continent the car’s success has become a challenge to science Too many cars burn too much gas and give off too much harmful waste The challenge now is to make new cars that use fuels that are less harmful to the environment Today’s science breakthroughs will create the cars of tomorrow 7
The horseless carriage piston down as well as up giving more power Watt also devised a way to turn the up and down piston motion into a round and round wheel motion Inventors show the way So if a steam engine could drive a factory machine why not a vehicle In 1769 Frenchman Nicholas Cugnot fitted a steam engine to a three-wheeled gun carriage It trundled along at 3 7 mph 6 km h but crashed and was soon forgotten It was Englishman Richard Trevithick who made the breakthrough He discovered that using steam at high pressure produced A Boiler over a fire B Cylinder where steam is condensed by cold-water spray DEF Rocking beam P Piston goes up and down C Cold-water tank V Valves Pump rod Steam power For thousands of years no human traveled faster than a horse could gallop After the invention of the first working steam engine in 1712 inventors started to dream of a horseless carriage a vehicle that could travel under its own steam The steam engine The ancient Greeks made steam toys for fun but the first person known to put steam power to work was British inventor Thomas Newcomen His 1712 atmospheric engine pumped water out of mineshafts and tunnels A fire under a boiler heated water to turn it to steam The steam entered a cylinder with a piston inside The piston was forced up and down to work the pump Similar pump mechanisms had existed for thousands of years but powering one by steam was new Other steam engines followed to power factory machines In the 1760s Scottish engineer James Watt built a steam engine with a sealed cylinder at both ends to make it double-acting the steam forced the This is Newcomen’s 1712 steam engine Steam from the water boiler was let in through a valve to the cylinder while the piston was at the top A spray of cold water cooled the steam which condensed lowering the air pressure inside the cylinder Higher air pressure outside pushed the piston down The piston drove a rocking beam linked to a pump The weight of the pump rod pulled the piston up for the cycle to begin again 8
This modern painting shows Richard Trevithick’s 1803 steam carriage A wooden carriage sat on two huge iron wheels with a small front wheel for steering The same tricycle design was used for Benz’s first automobile in 1885 Evans made it to dredge mud from the harbor and it even looked like a boat on wheels but the Digger needed no horses or sails It moved under steam power more power Watt thought this dangerous because the boiler could explode but Trevithick went ahead in 1801 with his first high-pressure steam carriage the Puffing Devil In 1803 he drove his second vehicle from Cornwall to London over 300 miles 500 km Given the terrible roads it was a miracle of engineering and persistence In the United States Oliver Evans had a similar idea In 1802 he showed his new Amphibious Digger in Philadelphia It frequently happens that two persons reasoning right on a mechanical subject think alike and invent the same thing without any communication with each other Oliver Evans Breakthrough The invention of the steam engine to power machinery spurred inventors to try to build steam-powered road vehicles In 1801 Richard Trevithick proved that a steam-powered carriage was possible 9
