Like the light bulb and the laser, the precise origin of the car is open to debate. It largely depends on how exactly the word “automobile” is defined. The very first self-propelled vehicle that could transport people, which was powered by steam, was built by a French engineer and army captain named Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot; however, it would be a stretch to call it a car, since it was meant to haul heavy military equipment. Here, then, is a very concise look at the history of the motor vehicle.
Though the automotive manufacturing industry was dominated early on by American companies, the first gas-powered car was actually created by a German, Karl Benz, in 1885. Roughly a dozen years later, Ferdinand Porsche invented the first hybrid vehicle: it used both electricity and gasoline. Interestingly, at that time, electric vehicles were more common than those which ran on gas. There was a problem with them, though—their high cost put them out of reach of the middle class, and they were considered a luxury item. That all changed with Henry Ford’s Model T car, which debuted in 1908 in America. His use of the assembly line, which he also invented, made it possible to quickly and, even more importantly, cheaply build cars. This enabled Ford to sell his gas-powered automobiles at a price that appealed to the general public.
Other American carmakers began to successfully copy Ford’s innovations and techniques, resulting in a huge, profitable automobile manufacturing sector in the United States. Over the decades, though, quality began to deteriorate, leaving the industry vulnerable to competition from other countries, most notably Japan. Japanese carmakers began capturing the car market in the 1970s due to the reliability, fuel-efficiency, and affordability of their cars. Since 1980, Japan has been one of the largest producers of automobiles in the world.
