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THE AUTOMOBILE: UNDER ITS OWN POWER
Who invented the automobile?
Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz invented the automobile almost simultaneously; Daimler (1834-1900) studied mechanical engineeringand, together with Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929), designed and built a 1.5 HP gasoline engine. In August 1886, Daimler built this engine into a coach chassis.
However, it is the mechanical engineer CarlBenz (1844-1929) who is considered the father of the automobile. In 1886, he was the first to register a patent for a vehicle with an integrated single cylinder internal combustion engine with 1.1 HP.Benz’s three-wheeled “Patent Motor Carriage “was not based on a converted coach but was the first original, unified design for a car.
Are there new ideas for fuels for cars and trucks?
Globalenvironmental matters represent the central challenge for humanity in the 21st century. The ecological balance sheets show that of the stress a car places on the environment, more than 80 percent comesfrom its operation and not from its manufacture.
The main objective of the automobile industry, therefore, has to be reducing the emissions of the vehicle, in particular CO2. The industry isconcentrating on the further development of present technology on the future, on means of running future vehicles on energy that can be produced from renewable sources. The research and development departments,therefore, are teeming with “futuristic “designs based on a range of fuels from biogas to biodiesel. Hydrogen fuels and fuel cells are considered a hopeful alternative. Hydrogen burns without toxicby-products and, being a component of water, would be available in sufficient generation of power from renewable energy sources (e.g. Sun or wind), environmentally friendly production of hydrogen isimpossible, because splitting hydrogen off from water requires a great deal of electricity. Engines using fuel cells to convert chemical into electrical energy are as yet too expensive and their...