Cars are mechanical vehicles made up of a set of components that work in harmony to move the car. They are one of the most important means of transportation in our modern era. Cars are divided into several categories, including small private cars used by individuals to get to work or travel with family, large buses used to transport passengers, and trucks used to carry goods. In this article, we’ll introduce the history of cars, the Cugnot car, and electric vehicles.

The first modern car was invented by Karl Benz in Germany. It ran on a gasoline-powered Otto engine and was developed in 1885. Benz registered his patent on January 29, 1886, in the city of Mannheim, Germany. Although Karl Benz is credited with inventing the modern car, there were other attempts to build vehicles around the same time. Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, for example, registered the first patent for a motorbike. In 1870, Austrian-German inventor Siegfried Marcus attached a motor to a handcart, though it never passed the experimental phase.

The Cugnot car was a steam-powered vehicle invented by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769. It is one of the earliest vehicles in automotive history. Cugnot was an engineer in the French army and designed the vehicle to tow heavy military equipment, especially cannons. It had only three wheels, and its engine used two cylinders. The pistons were connected to the front wheel via an uncovered clutch cylinder. Its top speed was around 4 km/h. One of its major flaws was poor steering due to the weight of the water boiler and the vehicle itself. It was retired after crashing into a wall during a demonstration. The original car is now housed at the National Museum of Industry and Arts in Paris, France.

The first electric car was invented in 1832, which was seventy years before the development of internal combustion engine cars. It initially outperformed combustion cars due to its quiet engine. However, internal combustion vehicles later gained the upper hand due to their ability to cover long distances and because fuel is lighter than batteries for similar travel ranges. Some electric cars developed in the year 2000 were able to reach speeds of 210 km/h and travel up to 400 km per charge. However, those models were experimental, expensive, had heavy batteries, and required up to eight hours to recharge.