Cars

Self-propelled road vehicle

1769

1769 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot builds the first self-propelled road vehicle in France. This vehicle is a tractor for the French army. It has three wheels and moves at about 2.5 miles per hour.

Cars

Period: 1769 to 1863

Cars timeline

American Oliver Evans

1789

1789 – American Oliver Evans receives the first US patent for a steam-powered land vehicle.

Road carriage

1801

1801 – In Great Britain, inventor Richard Trevithick builds a steam powered road carriage. It is considered to be the first tramway locomotive. It is designed for use on road, not railroad.

Combustion engine

1807

1807 – An internal combustion engine which uses a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is invented by Francois Isaac de Rivaz in Switzerland. He also designs a car for the engine, the first automobile powered by internal combustion. However, his design turns out to be very unsuccessful.

Internal combustion

1823

1823 – English engineer and inventor Samuel Brown invents an internal combustion engine. It has separate combustion and working cylinders, and is used to power a vehicle.

Crude Electric Carriage

1832

1832 – Robert Anderson invents the first crude electric carriage in Scotland. It is powered by non-rechargeable primary power cells.

horseless carriage

1863

1863 – Belgian engineer Jean-Joseph-Etienne Lenoir invents the “horseless carriage.” It uses an internal combustion engine and can move at about 3 miles per hour. This is the first commercially successful internal combustion engine.