History
The first working steam-powered vehicle was likely to have been designed by
Ferdinand Verbiest, a
Flemish member of a
Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65 cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor, that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.
[10][11][12] It is not known if Verbiest's model was ever built.
[11]
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot
is widely credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical
vehicle or automobile in about 1769; he created a steam-powered
tricycle.
[13]
He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of
which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and
Crafts.
[14] His inventions were however handicapped by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.
[14] In 1801,
Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his
Puffing Devil
road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a
steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam
pressure for long periods, and was of little practical use.
In 1807
Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude probably created the world's first
internal combustion engine which they called a
Pyréolophore, but they chose to install it in a boat on the river
Saone in France.
[15] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor
François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own '
de Rivaz internal combustion engine'
and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to be powered by such
an engine. The Niépces' Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of
Lycopodium powder (dried
Lycopodium moss), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of
hydrogen and
oxygen.
[15] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as
Samuel Brown,
Samuel Morey, and
Etienne Lenoir with his
hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.
[16]
In November 1881, French inventor
Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile powered by electricity at the
International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.
[17]
Karl Benz, the inventor of the modern automobile
