By: Gus Joseph
1. INTRODUCTION
The word “Auto-mobile” literally means “self movable”. The concept is self-explanatory and genius at the same time. The car has had an immense influence on humankind. First sketches and attempts at such a machine were made as far back as 1672, and have been improved ever since. Nowadays, we have things like hybrids and RVs and Smart cars, and they’re all just upgraded versions of a basic idea. Automobiles have come a very, very long way.
2. INVENTION
a. STEAM POWERED VEHICLES
There are many, many accounts of inventors creating machines capable of transporting humans. Supposedly, a man named Father Ferdinand Verbiest invented the first automobile around 1672. It was a steam-powered machine created as a toy for the Chinese Emperor, Chien Lung. Unfortunately, there is no record of the actual vehicle, only the event. The first recorded automobile was invented by a man named Nicholas Joseph Cugnot. Cugnot’s contraption weighed a total of 8,000 pounds and traveled at a whopping 2 miles per hour. For this reason, Cugnot’s machine was used to transport large cargo, not human beings. These inventions were the beginnings of the train.
The First Steam-Powered Vehicle
b. INTERNAL COMBUSTION VEHICLES
The first working automobile was invented in 1860 by a man named Etienne Lenoir in France. The machine had an impressive one-half of a horsepower, but was impractical and was never popular. In 1862, a man named Alphonse Bear de Rochas made a slight tweak to Lenoir’s initial invention. He figured out how to send gas into a cylinder, compressing it, igniting it, and exhausting the waste, which is the process that automobiles today use. The first gas-powered automobile in America was built by Charles and Frank Duryea. The vehicle was made of a horse drawn buggy with a 4 horsepower engine. The first run on public roads was September 21, 1893.
Many other innovations, such as using a hot tube ignition system, helped the car become a more practical form of transportation, by making it faster and have more horsepower. Also, better steering mechanisms were invented and the frame of the car was improved. These inventions laid the foundation for the most used device on earth.
3. BIOGRAPHY OF INFLUENCIAL INVENTOR
One of the most important people in the history of the car was Henry Ford. Henry Ford was the father of the Model T and the genius behind the assembly line. These two inventions undoubtedly changed the automobile industry forever. Henry Ford was born on July 30th, 1863 in Dearborn Michigan. His parents were farmers and he lived on a small farm with his family. His father was from Ireland, whereas his mother was from Michigan. He went into engineering in 1891, and he invented a self-propelled vehicle he called “The Ford Quadricycle”. In the next few years, he made many different versions of the Quadricycle with the help of Thomas Edison. Eventually, in 1889, he resigned from his work at the Edison Illuminating Company in order to start his own business. On August 5th, 1899, he founded the Detroit Automobile Company, where Ford hoped he would be able to produce his automobiles. Unfortunately, the company was unsuccessful and dissolved in 1901. But, soon after the failure of his first company, he and C. Harold Wills built and raced a 26 horsepower car. This caused previous stockholders in the Detroit Automobile Company to give Ford another shot, and the Henry Ford Company was born. But, Ford left that company when a man named Henry M. Leland was hired. The name of the company was changed to the Cadillac Automobile Company.
Soon after his departure from the Henry Ford Company, Ford and Alexander Y. Malcomson, a coal dealer, became friends and the duo created “Ford and Malcomson, Ltd.” to build cars. They then got the Dodge Brothers on board with the company and the company was reincorporated as the Ford Motor Company.
5 years after the creation of the Ford Motor Company, the Model T was released. Its newest features were the steering wheel on the left and that the entire engine and transmission were both enclosed. The car cost 825 dollars. It was so inexpensive that most American drivers knew how to drive one by the 1920s.
With the new demand for Model T’s, Ford needed to come up with a cheap and productive way of building his vehicles. He came up with the idea of a conveyor belt that moved separate pieces of the vehicle down past a row of employees, allowing them to work on them as they passed by. By doing this, productivity skyrocketed and the Ford Motor Company flew to the top of the industry. By inventing these two different things, he had left a very impressive mark on the world.
The Model T
4. IMPACT ON THE WORLD
Try to imagine a world without cars. Impossible, isn’t it? I couldn’t imagine a world where the streets were quiet, transportation was long and tedious, and NASCAR didn’t exist. The invention of the car is the greatest invention since the invention of the wheel. Try to imagine driving to school in a horse drawn carriage, or even walking! Imagine how much longer it would take to get from one place to another. The car has completely changed how the world works, which is why the automobile is the most important and world changing invention of all time.
5. JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW
Hybrid Cars Now, Fuel Cell Cars Later
In this journal article, the author is comparing the efficiency of hybrid cars vs. fuel cell cars, with the control being typical internal combustion engines. There is a chart showing the three different cars and how much energy is needed to do the same thing, and the car running on fuel cells needs slightly less energy than the hybrid car to move. But, both the hybrid and the fuel cell car need significantly less energy than the typical internal combustion car. The goal of this journal is to try to help make a more fuel efficient vehicle that reduce carbon dioxide emissions as well as America’s dependence on oil. The author suggests hydrogen as an alternative, which would power the fuel cell cars. Unfortunately, fuel cell technology isn’t available yet, so hybrid cars are our best bet as of today.
6. SOURCES
The First Car – A History of the Automobile. http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/cars/carhist.htm. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
The History of the Automobile. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
Henry Ford. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_ford. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
Demirdoven, Nurettin. (2004). Hybrid Cars Now, Fuel Cell Cars Later. http://dancingflames.org/dancingflames/EnvSci/Articles/EnvScipdffiles/hybrids/HybridCars_FuelCell%20Cars.pdf. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
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