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Self-propelled road vehicle
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. -
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Cars
Cars timeline -
American Oliver Evans
1789 – American Oliver Evans receives the first US patent for a steam-powered land vehicle. -
Road carriage
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 – 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 – 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 – Robert Anderson invents the first crude electric carriage in Scotland. It is powered by non-rechargeable primary power cells. -
horseless carriage
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.
