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Passenger cars in 2000
World map of passenger cars per 1000 people



There are approximately 600 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car per eleven people).[3][4] Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; the engines of these burn over a billion cubic meters (260 billion US gallons) of petrol/gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.[5]



The word automobile comes, via the French automobile from the Ancient Greek word αὐτός (autós, "self") and the Latin mobilis ("movable"); meaning a vehicle that moves itself. The alternative name car is believed to originate from the Latin word carrus or carrum ("wheeled vehicle"), or the Middle English word carre ("cart") (from Old North French), in turn these are said to have originated from the Gaulish word karros (a Gallic Chariot).[6][7]


The first working steam-powered vehicle was likely to have been designed by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65 cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor, that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.[8][9][10] It is not known if Verbiest's model was ever built.[9]

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.[11] He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.[12] His inventions were however handicapped by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.[12] In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods, and was of little practical use.

In 1807 Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude probably created the world's first internal combustion engine which they called a Pyréolophore, but they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.[13] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own 'de Rivaz internal combustion engine' and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to be powered by such an engine. The Niépces' Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried Lycopodium moss), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.[13] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir with his hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.[14]

In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[15]

Karl Benz, the inventor of the modern automobile






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Bertha Benz, the first long distance automobile driver in the world



Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first automobile in 1892 under the brand name, Daimler. It was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, that they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers. Benz, Maybach and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each others' early work. They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG.





In 1893, the first running, gasoline-powered American car was built and road-tested by the Duryea brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. The first public run of the Duryea Motor Wagon took place on September 21, 1893, on Taylor Street in Metro Center Springfield.[16][17] To construct the Duryea Motor Wagon, the brothers had purchased a used horse-drawn buggy for $70 and then installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine.[16] The car had a friction transmission, spray carburetor, and low tension ignition. It was road-tested again on November 10, when the The Springfield Republican newspaper made the announcement.[16] This particular car was put into storage in 1894 and stayed there until 1920 when it was rescued by Inglis M. Uppercu and presented to the United States National Museum.[16]

In Britain, there had been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of success, with Thomas Rickett even attempting a production run in 1860.[18] Santler from Malvern is recognized by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first petrol-powered car in the country in 1894[19] followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895, but these were both one-offs.[19] The first production vehicles in Great Britain came from the Daimler Motor Company, a company founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right to use the name of the engines. Lawson's company made its first automobiles in 1897, and they bore the name Daimler.[19]

In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In 1897, he built the first Diesel Engine.[14] Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s.


Mass production

The large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable automobiles was debuted by Ransom Olds at his Oldsmobile factory in 1902 based on the assembly line techniques pioneered by Marc Isambard Brunel at the Portsmouth Block Mills, England in 1802. The assembly line style of mass production and interchangeable parts had been pioneered in the U.S. by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.[20] This concept was greatly expanded by Henry Ford, beginning in 1914.

As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing productivity eightfold (requiring 12.5 man-hours before, 1 hour 33 minutes after), while using less manpower.[21] It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1914, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. This is the source of Ford's apocryphal remark, "any color as long as it's black".[21] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[21]

Portrait of Henry Ford (ca. 1919)




Ford Model T, 1927, regarded as the first affordable American automobile





The weight of a car influences fuel consumption and performance, with more weight resulting in increased fuel consumption and decreased performance. According to a research conducted by Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge, global energy use could be heavily reduced by using lighter cars, and an average weight of 500 kg has been said to be well achievable.[22]

In some competitions such as the Shell Eco Marathon, average car weights of 45 kg have also been achieved.[23][24] These cars are only single-seaters (still falling within the definition of a car, although 4-seater cars are more common), but it nevertheless demonstrates the huge degree in which car weights can still be reduced, and the subsequent lower fuel use (i.e. up to a fuel use of 2560 km/l.[25]

Seating and body style

Most cars are designed to carry multiple occupants, often with four or five seats. Larger cars can often carry six, seven or more occupants depending in the internal arrange of seats. Sports cars are often designed with only two seats, and very occasionally three seats. The differing needs for passenger capacity and their luggage has resulted in a large variety of body styles to suit personal requirements such as the sedan/saloon, hatchback, station wagon/estate and Multi-Purpose Vehicle/Minivan.

Fuel and propulsion technologies




Result of a serious automobile accident

While road traffic injuries represent the leading cause in worldwide injury-related deaths,[27] their popularity undermines this statistic.

Mary Ward became one of the first documented automobile fatalities in 1869 in Parsonstown, Ireland[28] and Henry Bliss one of the United States' first pedestrian automobile casualties in 1899 in New York.[29] There are now standard tests for safety in new automobiles, like the EuroNCAP and the US NCAP tests,[30] and insurance industry-backed tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).[31]

Costs and benefits

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The costs of automobile usage, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, repairs, maintenance, fuel, depreciation, injury, driving time, parking fees, tire replacement, taxes, and insurance,[32] are weighed against the cost of the alternatives, and the value of the benefits – perceived and real – of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence and convenience.[10]




Transportation is a major contributor to air pollution in most industrialised nations. According to the American Surface Transportation Policy Project nearly half of all Americans are breathing unhealthy air. Their study showed air quality in dozens of metropolitan areas has worsened over the last decade.[34] In the United States the average passenger car emits 11,450 pounds (5,190 kg) of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide annually, along with smaller amounts of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen.[35]

Animals and plants are often negatively impacted by automobiles via habitat destruction and pollution. Over the lifetime of the average automobile the "loss of habitat potential" may be over 50,000 square meters (540,000 sq ft) based on primary production correlations.[36] Millions of animals are also killed every year on roads by automobiles—so-called Roadkill.

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Growth in the popularity of vehicles and commuting has led to traffic congestion. Brussels is considered Europe's most congested city.[37]

Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs (e.g. hybrid vehicles) and the development of alternative fuels. High fuel taxes may provide a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to not drive. On average, today's automobiles are about 75 percent recyclable, and using recycled steel helps reduce energy use and pollution.[38] In the United States Congress, federally mandated fuel efficiency standards have been debated regularly, passenger car standards have not risen above the 27.5 miles per US gallon (8.55 L/100 km; 33.0 mpg-imp) standard set in 1985. Light truck standards have changed more frequently, and were set at 22.2 miles per US gallon (10.6 L/100 km; 26.7 mpg-imp) in 2007.[39] Alternative fuel vehicles are another option that is less polluting than conventional petroleum powered vehicles.

Oil consumption in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been abundantly pushed by automobile growth; the 1985-2003 oil glut even fuelled the sales of low economy vehicles in OECD countries. The BRIC countries might also kick in, as China briefly was the first automobile market in December 2009.[40]

Residents of low-density, residential-only sprawling communities are also more likely to die in car collisions Template:Fix which kill 1.2 million people worldwide each year, and injure about forty times this number.[27] Sprawl is more broadly a factor in inactivity and obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.[41]

Driverless cars

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Future car technologies



Research into future alternative forms of power include the development of fuel cells, Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), Stirling engines,[45] and even using the stored energy of compressed air or liquid nitrogen.



Communication is also evolving due to connected car systems.

Open source development

There have been several projects aiming to develop a car on the principles of open design. The projects include OScar, Riversimple (through[46] and c,mm,n.[47] None of the projects have reached significant success in terms of developing a car as a whole both from hardware and software perspective and no mass production ready open-source based design have been introduced as of late 2009. Some car hacking through on-board diagnostics (OBD) has been done so far.[48]

Alternatives to the automobile

Established alternatives for some aspects of automobile use include public transit such as buses, trolleybuses, trains, subways, tramways light rail, cycling, and walking. Car-share arrangements and carpooling are also increasingly popular–the US market leader in car-sharing has experienced double-digit growth in revenue and membership growth between 2006 and 2007, offering a service that enables urban residents to "share" a vehicle rather than own a car in already congested neighborhoods.[49] Bike-share systems have been tried in some European cities, including Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Similar programs have been experimented with in a number of US Cities.[50] Additional individual modes of transport, such as personal rapid transit could serve as an alternative to automobiles if they prove to be socially accepted.[51]




About 250 million vehicles are in use in the United States. Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; they burn over Template:Convert/e9USgal of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.[5] In the opinion of some, urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investments. Many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.[54][55][56] The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems.

In 2008, with rapidly rising oil prices, industries such as the automotive industry, are experiencing a combination of pricing pressures from raw material costs and changes in consumer buying habits. The industry is also facing increasing external competition from the public transport sector, as consumers re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.[57] Roughly half of the US's fifty-one light vehicle plants are projected to permanently close in the coming years, with the loss of another 200,000 jobs in the sector, on top of the 560,000 jobs lost this decade.[58] Combined with robust growth in China, in 2009, this resulted in China becoming the largest automobile producer and market in the world. China 2009 sales had increased to 13.6 million, a significant increase from one million of domestic car sales in 2000.[59]


The automotive market is formed by the demand and the industry. This article is about the general, major trends in the automotive market, mainly from the demand side.

The European automotive market has always boasted a higher number of smaller cars than the United States. With the high fuel prices and the world petroleum crisis, the United States may see its automotive market become more like the European market with fewer large vehicles on the road and more small cars.[60]

For luxurious cars, with the current volatility in oil prices, going for smaller cars is not only smart, but also trendy. And because fashion is of high importance with the upper classes, the little green cars with luxury trimmings become quite plausible.[61]

See also


  1. compiled by F.G. Fowler and H.W. Fowler. (1976). Pocket Oxford Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-861113-7. 
  2. "atchison_177". Retrieved 2011-02-13. 
  3. "WorldMapper – passenger cars". 
  4. "Cars produced in the world". 2007-12-19. Retrieved 2010-07-11. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 Plunkett Research, "Automobile Industry Introduction" (2008)
  6. "Car". (etymology). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2008-06-02. 
  7. 'Car' derived from 'carrus'
  11. Encyclopaedia Britannica "Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot". 
  12. 12.0 12.1 Encyclopaedia Britannica
  13. 13.0 13.1 "Niepce Museum, Other Inventions". Retrieved 2010-08-26. 
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 Ralph Stein (1967). The Automobile Book. Paul Hamlyn Ltd. 
  15. Wakefield, Ernest H. (1994). History of the Electric Automobile. Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.. pp. 2–3. ISBN 1-56091-299-5. 
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 "The First Car - A History of the Automobile". Retrieved 2011-07-17. 
  17. "The Duryea Brothers - Automobile History". 2010-09-16. Retrieved 2011-07-17. 
  19. 19.0 19.1 19.2 Georgano, N. (2000). Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. London: HMSO. ISBN 1-57958-293-1. 
  20. "Industrialization of American Society". Retrieved 2011-07-17. 
  21. 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 Georgano, G. N. (2000). Vintage Cars 1886 to 1930. Sweden: AB Nordbok. ISBN 1-85501-926-4. 
  22. "Possible global energy reducstion". Retrieved 2011-07-17. 
  24. Shell Eco-Marathon car weightTemplate:Dead link
  25. "Andy Green's 8000 mile/gallon car". Retrieved 2011-07-17. 
  26. "Global Climate Change". U.S. Department of Energy. Retrieved 2007-03-03. 
  27. 27.0 27.1 Peden M, Scurfield R, Sleet D (eds.) (2004). World report on road traffic injury prevention. World Health Organization. ISBN 92-4-156260-9. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 
  29. "CityStreets – Bliss plaque". 
  30. " – NHTSA". 
  31. "Insurance Institute for Highway Safety". 
  32. "Car Operating Costs". my car. RACV. Retrieved 2009-12-22. 
  33. John A. Jakle, Keith A. Sculle. (2004). Lots of Parking: Land Use in a Car Culture. Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press. ISBN 0813922666. 
  34. "Clearing the Air". The Surface Transportation Policy Project. 2003-08-19. Retrieved 2007-04-26. 
  35. "Emission Facts". United States Environmental Protection Agency. May 2000. Retrieved 2011-01-10. 
  36. Ball, Jeffrey (2009-03-09). "Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2011-01-10. 
  37. "Which is Europe's most congested city?". What Car?. Retrieved 18 December 2011. 
  38. "Automobiles and the Environment". Archived from the original on 2008-02-14. 
  39. "CAFE Overview – Frequently Asked Questions". National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 
  41. "Our Ailing Communities". Metropolis Magazine. 
  43. Arth, Michael (Spring 2008). "New Pedestrianism: A Bridge to the Future". Carbusters Magazine. Retrieved 2009-03-06.  Template:Dead link
  44. Birch, Alex (2008-05-23). "Most Cars Can be Eliminated in 20 Years says Urban Designer Michael E. Arth". Retrieved 2009-03-06. 
  46. "FortyFires: Main". Retrieved 2010-07-11. 
  48. "Geek My Ride presentation at 2009". Retrieved 2010-07-11. 
  49. "Flexcar Expands to Philadelphia". Green Car Congress. 2007-04-02. 
  51. Jane Holtz Kay (1998). Asphalt Nation: how the automobile took over America, and how we can take it back. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. ISBN 0520216202. 
  52. "World Motor Vehicle Production by Country: 2007–2008". OICA. 
  53. "2008 Global Market Data Book", Automotive News, p.5
  54. Kenworthy, J R (2004). "Transport Energy Use and Greenhouse Emissions in Urban Passenger Transport Systems" (PDF). Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy. Retrieved 2008-07-22. 
  55. World Health Organisation, Europe. "Health effects of transport". Retrieved 2008-08-29.  Template:Dead link
  56. Social Exclusion Unit, Office of the Prime Minister (UK). "The Connections – final report on transport and social exclusion". Retrieved 2003-02-01.  Template:Dead link
  57. IBISWorld Newsletter, June 2008, GLOBAL TRENDS Oil – The Crude Reality of Current trends, IBISWorld
  60. Article DetailTemplate:Dead link
  61. "Rendered Speculation: Audi EV". Worldcarfans. Retrieved 2009-07-25. 

Further reading


External links


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