The history of the automobile dates back more than 200 years.
In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle was introduced. It was a steam-driven military tractor invented by French engineer and mechanic Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. But his machine never saw production because it was much slower and harder to operate than a horse-drawn carriage. Then, somewhere between 1832 and 1839, Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first electric carriage, which used rechargeable batteries to power a small electric motor. (You didn’t think hybrids were new, did you?) Finally, in 1889, mind you more than 100 years after the first self-propelled vehicle was designed, German mechanical engineer Karl Benz built the world’s first practical automobile with an internal-combustion engine. That same year, Gottlieb Daimler invented what is often recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine — with a vertical cylinder and gasoline injected through a carburetor. It was another 12 years or so before the automobile was actually produced in quantity by Ransom E. Olds.
Though this is just a brief overview, the history of the automobile is one of the most fascinating stories, one that continues to be told because progress is always being made.
The size and dynamic of the global automotive industry exemplifies our desire to create, to design, to engineer, to advance, ultimately to drive what we consider the most intricate machine of our time.
As humans, we are driven to make things more efficient and dynamic. Just look at the evolution of computers in the last 10 years. Or the Internet for that matter. The World Wide Web wasn’t developed until 1991 and it has already become an amazingly integral part of our everyday business and personal lives — somewhat like the automobile. And it has truly spurred our ability to share innovation around the globe, which is why we will see this proliferation of evolving technology, new materials, enhanced systems and more sophisticated sensors and devices on today’s automobiles.
I was having a conversation with an executive at Delphi and he told me that vehicle sophistication has moved “along the curve with Moore’s Law,” something I had never before heard of. So, I looked it up. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore made a prediction that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every two years.
This observation about silicon integration has truly fueled the worldwide technology revolution with the automobile being no exception. We are seeing electronic features and the capacity of chips, boards and modules in vehicles rapidly progress, and there seems to be no limit in sight.
We’re hearing about clean diesels, hybrid vehicles, fuel cells, by-wire systems, active safety systems, telematics and so much more — there is truly no more dynamic time than the present. Which means that the only constant for the aftermarket, an integral subset of the automobile industry, is change.
So buckle your seat belts (unless of course, they buckle for you) and enjoy the ride.
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