In this blog post, we will look at the changes that automobiles have brought to human civilization, from the advent of steam-powered cars to self-driving cars.
The development of transportation means that can efficiently and quickly move materials and people has accompanied the development of human civilization to this day. Since the invention of the wheel by the Sumerians around 3500 BC, humans have invented various means of transportation, such as carts and carriages. Among them, the automobile, invented during the Industrial Revolution, can be considered one of the means of transportation that has changed human lifestyles the most. Today, automobiles enable individuals to travel quickly to wherever they want to go, and it is no exaggeration to say that this has accelerated the pace of human civilization. However, early automobiles differed from today’s automobiles in many ways. Automobiles, which provide great benefits to humanity today, have undergone various developments since their invention to become what they are today.
The dictionary definition of an automobile is a machine equipped with an engine mounted on a chassis that runs on roads and fields to transport people or cargo or perform various tasks. Based on this definition, the first automobile was the steam-powered car invented by Nicolas Cugnot in 1769. A captain in the French army, he invented a three-wheeled transport vehicle powered by a steam engine to transport artillery carriages, but the maximum speed of this vehicle was only 3.2 km/h. Starting with Cugnot’s steam-powered vehicle, various steam-powered vehicles began to be developed, and in the early 19th century, they became widespread in Europe as suburban buses. In 1826, W. Hanmo made a 22-seater steam car that could travel at 16-22 km/h, making it the first practical steam car, and the steam car developed by Goldworthy Gurnsey successfully traveled the long distance from London to Bath. Although steam cars gradually improved in performance with technological advances, they were not commercialized for personal use due to their inherent problems, such as their heavy weight and the long time required to start the engine. At that time, a new energy source other than steam engines was needed for automobiles to be commercialized for personal use, and in 1860, Benz invented an automobile that used an engine that could replace steam engines.
German mechanical engineer Karl Friedrich Benz invented the gasoline engine in 1879 and developed the world’s first gasoline-powered three-wheeled vehicle in 1885. Gasoline engines are engines that obtain power by mixing gasoline, a type of petroleum, with air and burning it. Compared to steam engines, they are lighter and have the advantage of being stable and not stalling easily. When gasoline-powered cars first appeared, they had the disadvantages of frequent breakdowns and difficulty in obtaining fuel, but with the advancement of technology and the spread of gasoline-powered cars, these disadvantages were gradually overcome, and with the emergence of companies such as Renault and Daimler that manufactured gasoline-powered cars, personal cars, which could not be commercialized with existing steam engines, began to be developed. However, early gasoline engines had disadvantages that were difficult to solve at the time, namely low efficiency and the risk of explosion. Gasoline has a low flash point of 30 to 200 degrees, making it highly flammable, which led to frequent engine explosions. In addition, gasoline engines were only about 20% efficient, which was about twice as efficient as steam engines, but this meant that gasoline car owners had to pay high fuel costs. To overcome these disadvantages of gasoline cars, diesel cars using diesel engines were developed.
Diesel engines are engines that use diesel, a type of petroleum, as fuel. Compared to gasoline, diesel has a higher ignition point, so there was less risk of engine explosion than gasoline engines, and it was more efficient, allowing for long-distance travel at a lower cost. However, diesel engines also had disadvantages compared to gasoline engines. First, due to the nature of diesel as a fuel, it emitted a lot of pollutants such as exhaust fumes, and it was very noisy when the engine was running. Therefore, today, both gasoline and diesel engines are used depending on the situation and type of car. Gasoline engines are mainly used in passenger cars such as sedans that require low noise, while diesel engines are used in vehicles that require high power, such as trucks and SUVs.
Meanwhile, since the development of gasoline and diesel cars, both types of cars have developed together. However, cars with numerous precision-made parts were expensive and unaffordable for the middle class at the time. As a result, cars were used only as private vehicles by some high-income people or as public transportation, and their high price prevented them from becoming widely available to the general public. Henry Ford dramatically reduced the cost of car manufacturing through division of labor. Division of labor refers to increasing work efficiency by having each worker assemble only one part, which not only reduced the time it took to manufacture and deliver cars, but also improved productivity by increasing the workers’ proficiency in their roles. Henry Ford’s improvements in the manufacturing process of automobiles led to lower prices, and from that point on, automobiles became a means of transportation available to the general public.
However, as cars became more widespread and the number of cars on the road increased, traffic accidents also increased, leading to greater awareness of safety. In 1970, seat belts were installed in cars to protect passengers in the event of a collision, and in 1978, an ABS system was developed that allowed cars to control themselves in situations where the driver lost control due to skidding. In 1984, a seat belt tension system was applied to seat belts to prevent passengers from being injured by strong tension in the event of a collision by adjusting the tension of the seat belts. Airbags were also developed and introduced to minimize the impact on passengers in the event of a collision, in conjunction with seat belts. Thus, in the mid-to-late 1900s, awareness of passenger safety increased, and the development and introduction of safety devices became active.
At the end of the 1900s, concern for the environment grew, and attempts were made to replace gasoline and diesel engines, which were the main power sources for automobiles at the time. At that time, automobiles using solar power and hydrogen fuel cells, which were being researched as renewable energy sources, were developed, and various environmentally friendly energy sources were used in automobiles, such as bioethanol made from plant-based fuels such as corn.
However, most of these renewable energy vehicles have not been commercialized due to their low energy efficiency and high price compared to existing gasoline and diesel vehicles, as well as the lack of related infrastructure, such as fuel cell charging stations for hydrogen vehicles. Nevertheless, efforts to develop more environmentally friendly and efficient vehicles have continued, and as a result, hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles are now becoming commercialized. Hybrid cars are cars that run on electricity obtained from batteries and internal combustion engines. They eliminate the disadvantages of electric cars, which have low power and short driving ranges due to the use of batteries, by using internal combustion engines. In other words, they use an internal combustion engine to increase output, but also use electrical energy, which reduces emissions of pollutants such as exhaust gases and improves fuel efficiency. Compared to conventional vehicles, they are not significantly more expensive and have good fuel efficiency, so they are rapidly becoming commercialized today. Electric vehicles are vehicles that run only on electrical energy stored in batteries without fuel-burning engines. They have the advantages of producing no exhaust gas and making no noise because they do not use engines. However, until recently, battery technology was not sufficiently advanced, and their short driving range on a single charge and high price made them difficult to use in everyday life. However, with recent technological advances and active research by various automobile manufacturers, the performance of electric vehicles has improved to the point where they can be used in everyday life without inconvenience, and they are expected to become widely available in the present and near future, along with hybrid vehicles.
Today, along with the development of eco-friendly power sources such as hybrid and electric vehicles, research is also underway on self-driving cars. Self-driving cars are cars that can drive themselves to their destination by using sensors to understand the situation around the car through a computer built into the car. Due to their great potential to prevent most traffic accidents caused by human carelessness and mistakes, the need for autonomous vehicles has existed since the mid-1900s, but due to technological limitations, practical development did not take place until the 2010s, when research began to actively progress thanks to advances in information and communication technology.
We have seen how automobiles have developed since their invention. At first, steam cars were made to pull heavy cannons, but in the early 1800s, they started to be used for public transportation. Then, through efforts to make more efficient engines, gasoline and diesel cars were developed. As these cars were mass-produced and started to be used by the general public, awareness of passenger safety grew, and safety devices such as airbags and seat belts were developed. Subsequent attempts to create more environmentally friendly and efficient cars led to the development of hybrid and electric cars, which are rapidly becoming commercialized today. Currently, with the advancement of IT technology, efforts to develop self-driving cars are also actively underway. Henry Ford, who made mass production of cars possible, is said to have said, “Don’t look for mistakes, look for ways to fix them.” As he said, automobiles have undergone various problems over time and have been developed to solve those problems. The automobiles we drive today without thinking twice are the product of human civilization, accumulated over 300 years of development.
