Talk:History of the automobile

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Archive 2005-2010

Market penetration[edit]

It would be interesting to see a chart of the percentage of households that owned a car in various decades, in various countries. This would be helpful to get an idea of how the transportation system worked in each period. -- Beland (talk) 06:00, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

i will insert a paragraph about market penetration and surrounding issues around 1930 in "british" palestine. it's a nice example about acceptance, unions etc. after the great depression when cars started to take over worldwide. Maximilian (talk) 14:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci[edit]

Hey folks, wouldn't be worth to say that the first theoretical prototypes of CARS were made by Isaac Newton and Da Vinci ?? I know about Newton that he built a car that could move forward on four wheels like a regular car, and it was controlled from the inside. Da vinci as well made a similar design. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goose friend (talk • contribs) 01:14, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We can't say anything like that without an reliable source saying it, at a minimum. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:24, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Modern era image[edit]

In August, I added an image to the "Modern era" section of the article (this version). I chose a 2011 Toyota Corolla because, being the best-selling model of all time, it is representative. Another user deleted the image, saying "a modern era automobile image is not needed, and no point in promoting a particular model". I disagree with the reversion, so I wanted to bring the topic up here. A modern image does add value to the article. Someone new to this topic is not getting a complete idea of how the appearance of cars has changed though the years because there is no image from the last 39 years (the most recent image in from 1974). Put differently, almost one-third of automobile history is missing from the images (if we start that history in 1886). An image of a contemporary automobile presents the most recent stage in automotive history, which has value for readers. Furthermore, having a contemporary image does not "promote a particular model" more than any of the other images in the article do. Consider the SUV article: having a Ford Explorer as the lead image does not serve as promotion or advertising; it is simply a representative SUV. Similarly, the Corolla would be a good choice for the modern image because the model is pervasive around the world. If we can reach consensus on this, we should restore the modern image. --Albany NY (talk) 02:41, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, put the Corolla photo back. We had a problem a while ago of a few motorcycling articles where three fourths or more of the bikes in images were BMWs, for various reasons, even though they're really a niche brand, with maybe 5% if the market in most countries. So that was a problem and needed to be balanced for the sake of neutrality. That's not the case here. Merely showing a photo of a car isn't in of itself promotional. Every other image in this article shows "one model" of car. Is each of them also overly promotional of that model? Of course not. The Corrola is in fact the most produced model of car in history, and using that as a criterion is objective and neutral. Better than some arbitrary choice based on editor's whims. And the 2011 Corolla is a perfect representative of the bland, generic design sensibility that has ruled most cars we've seen sine the 1980s. So where some see an ad for Toyotas, others, like me, see an indictment of Toyota. It's perfect. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:12, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting points and observations, but they really do not relate to the main subject matter of the article. This is not an article about the most produced cars, but of the entire history of automobiles. A separate WP article lists automobile production records. Moreover, there is also no requirement that an equal percentage of images must be used within each era of the history of automobiles. Adding an image of a modern "bland" (Dennis Bratland's description) model that everyone can see everywhere on the roads today, does not contribute significant value to this article. If anything, this article should have more images cars that are from the older eras because they are seldom seen by most readers. I would dare say that there are more people that have not seen or experienced 1974 and older automobiles, compared to most any "modern era" model. In summary, increasing the number of images of the early historically significant automobiles would vastly enhance the understanding of the development of this product and the numerous changes that automobiles have undergone over the years. Insisting on including one particular picture of a modern era car - no matter how representative, "it's perfect", or how "pervasive around the world" it is - seems to be overly enthusiastic in relationship to helping readers see the entire history of automobiles. Thank you for your consideration. CZmarlin (talk) 04:14, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you ever had to present information to a group, whether as a teacher or as a manager addressing fellow business executives, you'll know that different people are able assimilate information in different ways. Some will listen carefully to the presenter and apparently take in everything that is said, some will instantly understand the tables of figures on the accompanying Powerpoint presentations, some will read the bullet points on the presentation (as long as there are no more than three per page), and completely miss the attempts to nuance the issues by the speaker, and some really like to digest information using pictures. It's unhelpful bordering on arrogant to assume that everyone will assimilate information in the way that you do. In that context I agree with CZMarlin that this particular entry needs more well chosen images, if only for those who don't have the time available right now and/ or right glasses to read the text as carefully as it deserves.
If the story from the pictures is sufficiently compelling / interesting readers may even fetch their screen-reading glasses and come back tomorrow to read the text more carefully. Which images? That can indeed lead to vigorous differences of opinion, but that's no reason to try and communicate whatever the entry has to communicate without a good selection of the things. Images are a communication channel just like paragraphs of prose (or indeed of poetry). Incidently, contrary to what someone wrote higher up this discussion, the current Toyota Corolla cannot be seen easily all over the world. I live in England where Toyota, for reasons that presumably make sense to their marketing department, do not sell the current Corolla, and noticable numbers of "grey imports" have not (yet?) appeared of the newest cars: I guess Toyota make much more profit per vehicle on those beautifully embellished and promoted gas guzzling quasi-trucks on which the Brits like to splash out, despite the stalling of road improvements here in recent decades. Britain is a small island as that nice Mr Putin is reported to have announced the other day for the benefit of anyone who hadn't noticed it, and the absence (unless a grey import market gets going) here of recent Toyota Corollas is a slightly frivolous point, but please, whereever you live, do not assume that readers of wikipedia, simply because they use the same language version of Wikipedia as you do, see the same cars on the streets when they head out each morning.
As for "when did history stop?" that, logically, is a moving target. When I went to school the schools here chose 1945, but if you talk to kids and their teachers here today, the schools seem to think history went on right up to or even past the break up of the Soviet Union. I guess we all need to try and keep up with that moving target. It's just that if you were around when "history" happened (1) it can make you feel very old and (2) the perspectives selected by the chattering class may differ alarmingly from what you yourself remember of the matters being described. Regards Charles01 (talk) 07:30, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
♠First off, I don't care if it's a Toyota or a Bimmer. ;p
♠Second, the "when does history stop" issue IMO is relevant, because this, like the lead image of many model pages, seems to run up against a "recentism" issue: namely, the tendency is to use the latest model. Is that a preference? Even a guideline? IDK. It is common. That seems to be at play here, too.
♠I mean no criticism by that, however (tho occasionally I wonder about it on pages where the car originates in the '40s or '50s). I mean to say, that's in line with usual practise. Since it is, I'd expect complaints, & probably rv's, if the Corolla was replaced with a Aries or Monza.
♠That said, I'd rather it was something less boring than a grey Corolla... ;p (Just nothing in red, please. I'm tired of the Porsche Indians. ;p ) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 09:42, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that most of us agree that an image adds value to the Modern era section. I have therefore restored the Corolla image. If anyone has a better idea for a modern image (or for improving the historic era images as CZmarlin has suggested), please share it. --Albany NY (talk) 02:28, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Handle thingy[edit]

For someone not familiar with the inner workings of the car, I was a bit disappointed to not find an answer within the article to a longtime mystery of mine: in front of antique/vintage cars, what is that handle called which has to be cranked every so often? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 20:31, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To start the engine? Hand crank. Or starting handle (UK English). Also at Starter motor#History. It's probably a good idea to merge Kick start and Recoil start along with the history of hand crank start into a new Manual start article, since they're all different methods of accomplishing the same thing, and it's the logical precursor to Starter motor--Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:15, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for the pointer. I should've looked at the starter motor article more thoroughly. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 00:27, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

History of various elements[edit]

Many pieces of equipment were not found on early cars or were of a more primitive design; some mention of developments might be made for each of these, perhaps with a link to the History section of an appropriate sub-article:

-- Beland (talk) 01:19, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First four-wheel drive production car in 1965?[edit]

"...and it would be 1965 and the Jensen FF before four-wheel drive was used on a production car."

I like that this statement is cited and all, but... why is the Willys-Overland CJ-2A not considered to be a production car? Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 20:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is an idiomatic issue: many speakers of American English resist calling a Jeep a "car", for about the same reason they resist calling an SUV a "car"—there is a connotative divide of car-vs-truck whereby passenger cars (from sedans to station wagons to coupes) are in a separate mental class from light trucks (pickups, vans, Jeeps of the WWII/CJ form factor, and most SUVs). This is clearly the mindset where the "not until 1965" usage is coming from, even though it is true that this distinction has been breaking down somewhat since minivans were developed (1980s) and SUVs became much more popular (1990s). Early SUVs such as the Ford Bronco and Chevrolet Blazer were always considered trucks (not cars) in this idiomatic classification, whereas station wagons were cars. But in the 2000s, some Americans began calling SUVs such as the Ford Explorer "cars" a little more often (it went from sounding solecistic to many ears to sounding merely uninterested in fine distinctions), and now the crossover SUV category has rendered the old idiomatic dichotomous cutoff almost untenable. It used to be logically tied directly to platforms, which were clearly divided as either car or truck platforms, but the variety of forms that some automobile platforms can take today is so wide and continuous that it resists the old dichotomization. It's interesting to me that the very word "automobile" itself is not immune to the idiomatic dichotomy: although speakers of American English will acknowledge that light trucks are automobiles, it feels just slightly funny to call them that (at least to "car guys" it does), because "automobile" connotes "car" in the aforementioned dichotomy more strongly than it connotes "truck". Denotatively it is undeniable that "automobile" is a hypernym of "car" and "light truck", but connotatively there is a sense of the word that competes mentally, trying to fit into the car subset and resisting the light truck subset. This is why the word "vehicle" is so popular in American English (to the point that people say "my vehicle" instead of "my car" or "my SUV", which some Europeans find odd): it serves comfortably as a neutral hypernym of the "car" and "truck" mental categories without leaning toward one of them connotatively like "automobile" does. Etically it could seem silly that a heavy station wagon and a light SUV would be emically dichotomized as being so different from each other (car vs truck); and indeed I would be surprised if it is not true that in some languages they are treated exactly alike—and that speakers of those languages might find this whole topic quite odd. — ¾-10 23:51, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the essay, but there are CJ-2As with back seats and no truck bed. Those aren't trucks, they're cars. They carry people instead of cargo, and they're not big enough to be buses, so they're cars. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 03:31, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Land-Rover station wagon probably has a better claim to being an early 4WD car. UK tax law was quite strict at this period and cars attracted more tax than utility vehicles (usually judged by the absence of rear windows). Despite this, L-R did think it worthwhile to produce a small number of distinctively car-bodied station wagons, extra tax and all.
The Jensen FF's claim is that it was both the first road car (with zero pretensions to off-road use - the Jensen suspension bottoms out on an unironed billiard table) with four driven wheels and also that it was permanent or all-wheel drive, rather than the selectable 2/4 drive of the Jeep or Landie. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:14, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi SamBlob—you're totally right, but yet many Americans of the 20th century would have replied, "no, that's not a car, it's a Jeep. Jeeps aren't cars, they're light trucks. You can remove the bed and install back seats, but it's still a Jeep, not a car." I'm not saying it's better or worse, more or less correct, or anything; just explaining the idiom. In the US of the 1980s, the only 4-wheel-drive cars that an average person knew of were AMC Eagles and Subarus. Jeeps were Jeeps; if pressed on car-vs-truck, one would say a Jeep was a truck, not a car, but if some people called them cars, the solecism was mild and excusable on grounds of "precision not needed". Probably Wikipedia should explain this word-sense disambiguation instance somewhere while also not incorporating it into its own ontology. — ¾-10 16:06, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Steam in the 20th and 21st centuries[edit]

"The need for global changes in energy sources and consumption to bring about sustainability and energy independence has led 21st century engineers to think once more about possibilities for steam use, if powered by modern energy sources controlled with computerized controls, such as advanced electric batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaics, biofuels, or others."

The above appears to be original research. I don't see why anyone would use steam as a force intermediary, given that steam must be generated from other sources of energy, sources that can now directly drive pistons or electric motors. I mean, just how exactly would a battery be used to power a steam engine...via resistance heat? This is thermodynamically ridiculous and I doubt any legitimate engineer would consider commercializing such a contraption. I suspect the above quote is from some conspiratorial nut trying to promote water as a clean energy "source" again. Fission would be the only reason why steam would make sense, but fission itself is a pipe dream due to the myriad practical and lethality issues associated with it.

I have to agree. Not to pick on anyone for brainstorming anything (always good to think), but "thermodynamically ridiculous" pretty much kills the idea. Don't see how an amazing new battery powering a steam engine could ever compete with an amazing new battery powering an electric motor directly, regarding energy efficiency. I'm going to delete it, and if someone can prove me wrong with a reference about the topic, good for them. — ¾-10 23:23, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete it. As a proposition, it's absurd; it should go for the self-evident lack of understanding of the subject. (As to steam ever being practical for automotive use, I'd be inclined to disbelieve that, too.) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 23:46, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Traction control systems[edit]

Article says "1973–present Mercedes-Benz S-Class – Seat belt pretensioner, and electronic traction control system". The Buick Riviera had this in 1971. Traction_control_system#History 2001:56A:F414:D300:9897:942B:69A1:5916 (talk) 19:19, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Fuel[edit]

"The hydrogen fuel cell, one of the technologies hailed as a replacement for gasoline as an energy source for cars, was discovered in principle by Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1838." Between 'technologies' and 'hailed' the word 'now' should be added (Pamour (talk) 22:21, 17 September 2016 (UTC)).[reply]

Introduction[edit]

The following appears in the introduction: "After producing and selling the Model A in 1903, Ford Motor Company's Model T became the first mass produced automobile in 1908, focusing on affordability for the average consumer. By 1927 Ford produced over 15,000,000 Model T automobiles and only then developed the Model A."

This doesn't make sense to me. Did they produce and sell some other vehicle in 1903? Or were there 2 different Model A's? Jaydub99 (talk) 18:44, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There were two Model As. I might dispute the T as "first mass-produced", too: the & the Duryea was produced in series, & the Olds Runabout got there first. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 06:52, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Summers and Ogle[edit]

In a grammar exercise on a book I found cited in a timeline of the evolution of the car a certain "Summers and Ogle" pair who in 1830 build a car which was able to travel up to 35 mph. never heard of them, so I looked around. According to an online source, a patent was deposited in April 1830. I cannot find it here in the current text but I suppose that, if someone has a nice source, this information could be inserted.--Alexmar983 (talk) 10:45, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Philion Road Carriage[edit]

Steam powered in 1892? At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and in the film The Magnificent Ambersons (film)? [1] 2001:56A:F888:6B00:515D:470D:AB9A:6AE (talk) 03:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite the article please[edit]

The article just looks like a gallery, also it goes like WW1 cars, WW2 cars, > electric cars. In that order.

Electric cars are older than WW1 make it an article with one time line, not several ones. For example French wikipedia has a rather good way of making a timeline, it's clearer about american use of cars, than the american article itself.

--78.193.35.108 (talk) 21:04, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How many different modes from all manufacturers. Or total of different vehicles[edit]

I was wondering I can’t seem to see it how many different types of cars have been produced models for manufacturing. I’m sure there’s handbuilt 1 off cars that don’t count 2001:569:FBA3:E00:9D98:BA80:F95F:F8F5 (talk) 00:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand your question. Do you mean:
  1. How many types of cars - eg sedan, coupe, wagon, pickup, etc ?
  2. How many model names - eg Mustang, Porsche 911, Porsche 928, Tesla Model S, etc ?
  3. How many unique variations, eg Mustang 1966 coupe, Mustang 1966 fastback, Mustang 1968 coupe, etc (per year and per body style),
  4. Something else ?  Stepho  talk  00:43, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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