On January 11, 2022, the Ministry of Public Security announced that in 2021, the number of motor vehicles in the country will reach 395 million, the number of motor vehicle drivers will reach 481 million, and the number of cars in 79 cities across the country will exceed 1 million. For the first time, China surpassed the United States to become the world's largest car ownership country. Today, January 29, 2022, coincides with the 136th anniversary of the birth of the car, let us reveal how the world's first car was born?
A car in the world (replica)
On January 29, 1886, Carl Friedrich Benz invented the first gasoline-powered three-wheeled car and obtained the "Automobile Manufacturing Patent Certificate" from the German Patent Office. This day is recognized as the Birth Day of the World Automobile!
Patent certificate for the invention of the world's first car
And before Mercedes-Benz invented the car, was there really no one trying to build a car? The answer, of course, is no! Since the advent of wheels, people have been trying to create a wide variety of wheeled vehicles.
The evolution of wheeled vehicles
The original wheeled vehicles were driven by animal power, until 1766 watt improved the steam engine, kicking off the first industrial revolution and giving people a glimpse of the possibility of "animal power-free" drives.
The steam car invented by Nicholas Joseph Kugno in 1769
In 1769 the Frenchman Nicolas Joseph Cuguenot invented the first three-wheeled car ever driven by a steam engine. This kind of vehicle driven by a steam engine cannot be further popularized and applied because the power system is too bulky.
In 1807 Isaac Rivas invented the hydrogen-powered motor vehicle
Over the next hundred years, many inventors have also worked to invent a car powered by an internal combustion engine. These pioneers included the Swiss inventor Isaac de Rivas (1807), the Belgian Jean Joseph Etienne Leñol (1863) and the Austrian Siegfried Marcus (1870). But most of these vehicles only exist on drawings. Even if it was invented, it was impossible to transport people because of the small space.
In 1884, Edouard De Mare de Butteville invented a carriage equipped with an internal combustion engine
In 1883 the Frenchmen Eduard de La Mare De Butteville and Ron Maranting built an internal combustion engine on the basis of Otto's four-stroke engine, which was initially tested on a tricycle chassis, but the test car exploded. In 1884 they put a two-cylinder engine into the carriage of a carriage, but the frame broke during the test, so they stopped all the tests.
In 1883, the Mercedes-Benz company was founded
In October 1883, Carl Benz, together with two business partners, founded the Mercedes-Benz Rhein Gas Engine Factory (renamed Mercedes-Benz in 1899) and achieved rapid success. As the market demand for the engine increases day by day, the revenue scale of Mercedes-Benz Company continues to grow.
Mercedes-Benz workshop
The company's financial well-offs laid the economic foundation for Carl Benz to develop the car. Carl Benz also fully demonstrated his talent in automotive engineering. Instead of installing the engine on an existing vehicle, he designed the car as a separate monolithic structure whose main components were a water-cooled engine with a horizontal cylinder and a large horizontal flywheel. It is also equipped with electric ignition and differential gears. Dissatisfied with the single-axle bogie of the four-wheeled carriage at the time, Carl Benz innovatively designed the new car with three wheels.
The world's first car drive system structure
The new car uses a Mercedes-Benz 954cc (58.2 cu) single-cylinder four-stroke engine with a displacement of 0.95L, a maximum power of 0.55 kW, a speed of 400 rpm and a maximum speed of 16 km/h. But the weight is very light, only about 100 kg.
The world's first car (replica)
In 1885, Carl Benz completed the development work and named the new car Motowagen, which cost 600 marks, or about 150 US dollars (equivalent to 4321 US dollars in 2020). In October of the same year, the testing of Motowagen was completed. On January 29, 1886, Carl Benz was granted drp 37435 for "Cars with gasoline engines", which is also recognized as the Birth Day of the World Automobile. That's where the name of the car comes from!
Although Motorwagen was patented, people didn't know about it at the time, and no one wanted to buy it. So on 3 July 1886, Karl Benzchi publicly presented his invention in Mannheim in order to expand his influence. But because Motorwagen was difficult to control, an accident occurred during the demonstration (the world's first car accident). Although Carl Benz subsequently improved the chassis, introducing wooden wheels, fuel tanks and manual brakes on the rear wheels, and successively launched Motowagen 2 and 3 cars, new car sales remained dismal.
In 1888, Bertha Benbenz's son made a long journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim
Carl Benz, a perfectionist, was hesitant to drive a new car in public because of the shadow of the previous accident. In order to arouse her husband's confidence and prove the value of the car to the world, Bertha Benz drove the No. 3 car from Mannheim to Pforzheim for about 180 kilometers in August 1888, becoming the world's first female driver and creating the world's first gas station on the way. Because of the failure, the brake pad was invented. It was the first "brand marketing" campaign in the history of the world's automobiles that showed the world the practicality of Mercedes-Benz cars and helped Mercedes-Benz cars quickly open up sales channels.
Mrs. Bertha's self-driving route
In the late summer of 1888, motorwagen became the first car in history to go on sale, and at the same time released the world's first car advertisement: "Benz Patent Motorwagen". Motorwagen's first customer was Parisian bicycle manufacturer Emil Roger. Between 1886 and 1893, Mercedes-Benz produced a total of 25 Motorwagens. It was subsequently replaced by velo in 1894. But Motorwagen's status as the world's first car, no one can replace!
In 1925 Carl Benz piloted Motorwagen
For 136 years, as an important invention that changed human history, the automobile has also been constantly evolving. In the future, the "new four modernizations" of automobiles with the trend of electrification, networking, intelligence and sharing will reshape the pattern of the automobile industry. Our cars will use cleaner energy, they will become smarter, and cars will continue to change the relationship between people and cars, cars and cars, people and people, and cars and nature.
Resources:
[1] Mercedes-Benz official website
[2] Daimler official website
[3] Wikipedia