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Posted by on Feb 22, 2016 in TellMeWhy |

When Was the Automobile Invented?

When Was the Automobile Invented?

When Was the Automobile Invented? The first self propelled “automobile” was built in 1796 by a French army officer named Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. It was a cumbersome, three-wheeled cart.

A steam-driven, two-cylinder engine drove the front wheel. The machine could go three miles per hour and had to stop every few minutes to build up steam.

Within minutes of starting, the inventor had the first motoring accident. The huge copper boiler on the front of the vehicle made it almost impossible to steer. On its first trip, Cugnot’s steamer ran into and demolished a stone wall.

Although there are many different types of automobiles – steam, electric, and gasoline – as well as countless styles. If we had to give credit to one inventor, it would probably be Karl Benz from Germany. Many suggest that he created the first true automobile in 1885/1886.

Karl Friedrich Benz, inventor of the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine, and together with Bertha Benz, pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz which is now one of the leading car brands.

Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working as partners, also worked on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz received a patent for his work first, and, subsequently patented all the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in an automobile.

In 1879, his first engine patent was granted to him, and in 1886, Benz was granted a patent for his first automobile.

Content for this question contributed by Eric Levine, resident of El Cajon, San Diego County, California, USA