Automobile, Gasoline | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Automobile, Gasoline

Gasoline was first used as a fuel for vehicles in the early to mid-1820s. Inventors had experimented with vehicles powered by other means almost two centuries earlier; the first horseless carriage was a toy built in 1680 by Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and a road vehicle using a steam engine was exhibited as early as 1771. A claim exists that an English mechanical engineer named Samuel Brown drove a self-powered vehicle in London. Brown's engine apparently had separate combustion and working cylinders and used hydrogen gas as a fuel. The patent specifications for his vehicle and eyewitness accounts of his drive both exist, but details are sketchy.

Setting aside the claim made for Brown, the first well-documented instance of an automobile using gas as a fuel dates from around 1862, when French inventor Jean-Joseph-tienne Lenoir adapted a one-cylinder engine to a vehicle that traveled about six miles in two hours. For fuel, Lenoir's engine used the same gas that was used in streetlights, which was called illuminating gas. In 1864, Austrian inventor Siegfried Marcus was ordered to remove his noisy Kraftswagon from the streets of Vienna. His engine was similar to Lenoir's but used gasoline as a fuel; consequently, Marcus is credited with developing the first gasoline-powered automobile. Neither Lenoir nor Marcus pursued their early success; these inventors could not envision any commercial value for a "horseless carriage."

Others were not so quick to abandon the idea of the automobile, and the 1880s saw several inventors develop automobiles with an eye toward the commercial market. Foremost among these were the Germans Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler. Although the two men apparently never met, they were both employed by the Karlsruhe Maschinenbaugesellschaft--Benz first and Daimler somewhat later. Benz ran his first car early in 1885; it was a three-wheeler powered by a two-cycle, one-cylinder engine. Later that same year, Daimler and his associate Wilhelm Maybach mounted a high-speed engine of their own design on a wooden bicycle, creating the first motorcycle. Both Daimler and Maybach had earlier worked for the firm created by Nikolaus August Otto, to develop a four-stroke internal combustion engine.

The engine that Otto invented is in large part responsible for making the automobile possible, but Daimler and Maybach believed that Otto poorly understood the engine's potential. For this reason, Daimler and Maybach left Otto's firm. A year after they built their motorcycle, Daimler and Maybach mounted their engine on a modified four-wheel horse carriage, apparently believing that the public would demand that automobiles be essentially converted carriages. Benz felt differently and, from the start, created a vehicle that was designed as a "motorcar," distinct from the horse carriages of the day. By 1880, Benz was employing fifty workmen to build his three-wheeled car. In 1890, he began production of a four-wheeled vehicle. Both of these early German automotive firms were successful, and after the deaths of both Daimler and Benz, their firms merged to form the Daimler-Benz company in 1926, selling the products of the combined enterprise under the Mercedes-Benz nameplate.

The French were also innovators in the early European auto industry. In 1891, the French firm of Panhard-Levassor was the first to mount a gasoline engine in the front of a vehicle, and, in 1898, Louis Renault was the first to abandon the chain-drive, which had been the universal method of transferring power from the engine to the drive wheels, and adapt a drive shaft to transfer engine power.

The Americans were not sitting idly by while the Europeans developed their automobiles. In fact, while Daimler and Benz both claim the invention of the automobile, their claim is disputed by American backers of George Baldwin Selden (1846-1922). Selden received U.S. patent 549,160 for the invention of the automobile. Selden filed his patent claim on May 8, 1879, several years before Daimler or Benz exhibited their automobiles. Despite Selden's patent claim, there is a dispute as to who actually created the first American gasoline-powered automobile. Some feel the credit should go to the brothers Charles Edgar Duryea (1861-1938) and James Frank Duryea (1869-1967) of Chicopee, Massachusetts, who drove their first automobile on September 21, 1893. The Duryeas were very early automobile success stories (in 1895, they won the first automobile race held in the United States), but their "first American gasoline auto" claim is challenged by supporters of John William Lambert of Ohio City, Ohio, who some maintain ran a gasoline auto in 1891.

Disregarding the claim of originality, other automobile manufacturers and would-be auto manufacturers soon followed. Charles Brady King of Detroit, built a car in 1896--the first of the millions of automobiles that have been produced in the city that has become synonymous with the automobile industry. In 1896, Henry Ford introduced his first automobile in Dearborn, Michigan. Alexander Winton (1860-1932) of Cleveland, Ohio, and Ransom Eli Olds (1864-1950) of Lansing, Michigan, also produced their gasoline cars that year. Introduced in 1901, Olds' three-horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile was America's first commercially successful automobile. That first year, 425 were built, and, in 1904, five thousand Oldsmobiles were built. The success of the Oldsmobile was quickly challenged, and from 1904 to 1908, 241 companies joined the burgeoning auto industry.

Henry Ford's Model T (his ninth model) was put into mass production in 1908. The Model T was powered by a four-cylinder, four-stroke, in-line, water-cooled engine and was a huge success. Between 1908 and 1927, Ford's assembly line production methods turned out fifteen million Model Ts. By 1926, the Ford Motor Company was producing one-half of the world's automobiles. Ford's Model T led a revolution in the American auto industry by offering the public an automobile that was relatively inexpensive, versatile, and easy to maintain. The Model T insured that the automobile would no longer be a toy for the well-to-do--its price in 1926 was only $290.

This same period saw the emergence in Europe of the automotive giants Austin, Morris, Singer, Fiat, Peugeot, and Citron. Innovations in the auto industry were widespread and continuous. Peugeot began experimenting with pneumatic tires as early as 1895, replacing the solid rubber tires generally in use. Tubeless tires were introduced in 1948. Another French firm, Renault, introduced the manual transmission in 1899. It had one reverse and three forward gears. The German inventor Fottinger invented the automatic transmission in 1910. The honeycomb radiator for engine cooling was invented by his countryman Maybach, and the Renault company of France introduced a sealed cooling system in 1960. General Motors, founded in 1908 by carriage maker William C. Durant (1861-1947) of Flint, Michigan, introduced the electric starter (developed by Charles Kettering) in 1912. Safety glass was first used in 1926, the same year that the Dodge Brothers introduced the first all steel-bodied car. The synchromesh gearbox was introduced by General Motors in 1929, and Citron produced a front-wheel drive vehicle in 1934, as well as a car with "unibody" construction.

In braking, the first automobiles used a wooden shoe that pressed against the solid rubber tires, but drum brakes, applied by a foot pedal, were developed quite early, though for the rear wheels only at first. Although the Dutch firm Spyker was building cars with four-wheel braking systems as early as 1903, four-wheel brakes were not widely adapted until the twenties. Disc brakes were not common until the 1950s, although they too were in experimental use early in the century.

Power windows could be found on autos in 1946, and 1950 saw the introduction of seat belts and power steering. Also in 1950, the British auto manufacturer Rover became the first to build an automobile powered by a gas turbine engine. Many other manufacturers followed suit, and, in 1956, Renault's gas turbine-powered "Etoile Filante" (Shooting Star) attained a speed of 192 mph (308 kph).

After nearly a century-long love affair with the ease, speed, and mobility of the "horseless carriage," exhaust emissions from the millions and millions of gasoline-powered vehicles on the road became a major concern. This concern resulted in legislation that mandated pollution-controlling exhaust systems for most U.S. cars by 1968. These exhaust-system controls have done little to reverse the effects of auto-source pollution. What is more, recent environmental studies have suggested that the combustion of fossil fuels--in automobiles and other devices--may be causing global warming, a phenomenon that may alter our planet's climate with results that cannot yet be foreseen. While it is true that gasoline-powered vehicles unquestionably revolutionized human existence, it is possible that the automobile's convenience and mobility have placed an excessive burden on our environment.

The next step in the evolution of the automobile will be to create an environmentally harmless power source. Electric automobiles have been explored as the solution and may yet be proven to be convenient and inexpensive. Engineers believe that some kind of hybrid may be the best answer and are experimenting with fuel cells using different types of fuel. A fuel cell is a type of battery that continuously recharges itself with a fuel source; however, those sources are usually hydrogen and methane, which are dangerous and hard to store. Other possible fuel sources include methanol, which has been used to run an experimental bus in Chicago since March 1998. As engineers come full circle in their study of various fuels, gasoline may again be the answer. Gasoline stores hydrogen as part of its chemical composition. By breaking down the gasoline into its components, the fuel cell obtains the electrons it needs to generate electricity from the hydrogen in the gasoline and more of the energy in the fuel is released than in conventional ignition. Harmful waste products are also eliminated--water vapor is the chief waste from operation of a fuel cell.

Other than the fuel cell, the most eco-friendly solution to the gasoline-powered automobile may be a hybrid that combines the advantages of the electric and internal combustion engines. Toyota's "Prius" went on sale in Japan in 1997; the car works by using its electric power source in stop-and-go driving conditions then switching to its gasoline engine at speed on the highway. Battery use is conserved when the gasoline engine operates, and some braking energy is used to recharge the battery. High speeds and excellent acceleration--advantages of the gasoline engine--are provided by the hybrid while the availability of electric power helps increase fuel economy. Improvements in fuel injection systems and weight reduction by manufacturing auto bodies from recycled plastic are other advances that may meld with fuel cells or hybrid engines to create a more ideal automobile.

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