how cars have changed over the years

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How cars have changed over the years

I . Introduction

Cars , also known as automobile , are self-propelled wheeled vehicle designed to transport passengers on highways and streets . Its power unit may utilize stem , electricity , gas , or some other energy source . Because early experiments proved the superiority of the internal combustion engine as a power unit and also proved the superiority of liquid fuel generally gasoline , as an energy source , the term automobile ' is usually applied to vehicles employing these agents

Automotive vehicles carrying a

large number of passengers are called buses . Commercial vehicles are called trucks . Agriculture , various industries , and military organizations use specialized types of automotive units , such as tractor or tank . All these are produced by the automotive industry , but common usage describes as an automobile a vehicle driven by a gasoline engine and designed to carry a few passengers (seldom more than seven (Silk , 91-101 . In the United States , familiar terms for the passenger automobile are auto or car . In other countries motorcar or motor is often used . In England , a truck is called a lorry

Thesis Statement : This study gives a better understanding of the history of the automobile and scrutinizes its impact on our civilization

II . Background

A . History of the Automobile

The automobile was not invented that is , no individual can be named as its inventor , nor can its development be credited to the work of experimenters in any one nation . It evolved from some 200 years of tinkering by the French , Germans , British , Americans , and others . Some historians have tried to trace the evolution of the idea of a self-propelled vehicle . For clarity , it seems preferable to assume the existence of an ancient dream of such a vehicle and to describe simply the principal steps in its realization (Husselbee , 67-71 . Until men knew what could be done with certain energy sources and something of how to apply them to controlled motion , it was idle to talk about workable self-propelled vehicles . The automobile is really a product of the industrial and mechanical age , and its background history begins properly with the 18th and 19th century experiments in attempting to achieve locomotion with the power devices that were becoming known (Gillis , 134-149

Experimenting with Steam . The earliest progress in exploring the possibilities of steam as a power source was made in Britain . Thomas Newcomen (1705 ) and James Watt (in the 1760 's ) developed steam engines that were useful in British mines and factories . Applications of steam to vehicles appeared with the steam-propelled gun tractor of Nicolas Joseph Cugnot , a French army officer . The first practical use of steam vehicles was made in Britain , where such designers as Sir Goldsworthy Gurney , Walter Hancock , and William Church developed steam coaches or road locomotives ' some of which could accommodate 12 or 16 passengers (Olney , 64-69

Later Steam Developments . Despite these accomplishments , inventors still were unwilling to abandon experiments with other types of powered vehicles . In the United States and France , especially , work on steam vehicles...