The first cars
Recently, I have begun to learn how to drive. Driving has become our main method of transport, for everyday trips or even long drawn out journeys. There are roads on which to drive practically everywhere, even under the oceans and rivers. So whether you just want to pop to the shop or if you want to travel to a completely different country, it is probably possible using use of the car.
The very first cars were powered using steam engines, the very first of this type of the car being invented by one Joseph Cugnot in 1769. While this was the first car, it was hardly a useful power source, requiring large amounts of water to power the vehicle as it required on the steam that evaporating the water produced. While this source of power was sustainable in the sense of long term sustainability, it likely wasn’t able to power a car for long periods of time because of water that was expended quickly within the vehicle. This wasn’t the only issue with this type of vehicle, however. The first car could only go at around 2 miles per hour, which meant that it would have struggled to get anyway at any great speed. In fact, the human walking speeds are at around 3.5 miles per hour. This method of transport was mainly used to transport heavy loads around instead of having someone to carry them around. Although the fact that it stopped people from having to carry heavy objects for distances, it would not be able to go any more than half a mile as the care could only go for about 15 minutes before the tank had to be refilled with water to continue on with the slow trudging journey.
Although there were early electric cars, they weren’t as effective as the ones that we have today, and back in the 19th century, we were not aware of the issue of global warming or any of the dangers that the engines much like the modern ones would cause. The most effective engines of the time were the internal combustion engines. Internal combustion engines are engines that work by using the power of small contained fires or explosions to power the engine of the car and pushing it forward. For something like this, the car used in the early years would use either a gas combination or a tank of gasoline which would be able to fuel the combustion. These cars in the early time were likely much faster than the other automobiles on the market though, at the time they wouldn’t be up to the modern standard. The first patented Benz car could only go just under ten miles per hour.
We live in an age of evolution and convenience. Every day, things are invented and developed in order to make things easier to do, with even the flow of an average day being made more smooth by man-made devices. It is a wonder what the human mind can invent.
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