Do You Really Know How "Automobiles" Came to Be? "Automobiles" Were Invented by the French!

BiaoXue Magazine, Japanese Car Enthusiast Magazine, 2021-05-18 12:02:19


(This article primarily narrates the early history of automobile development. Due to limited image materials, please bear with us.)


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As a magazine dedicated to PSA vehicles, we have introduced the histories of Peugeot, Citroën, and later Opel, including their founders and high-performance sports divisions. However, I always felt that something was missing—like a "castle in the air."

Since we are introducing French cars, shouldn't we also talk about the origins of French automobiles?

The word "automobile" seems easy to explain. When discussing cars, we often focus on torque, horsepower, acceleration, and top speed.

But if someone asks you: How did automobiles originate? When did they first appear? Which country invented them? Who was the inventor?

Most people would answer:
"Wasn't it Karl Benz?"
"Of course, it was Germany!"
"If I remember correctly, it was completed in 1885 and received a patent in early 1886."
"Isn't that the world's first 'automobile'?"

The answer is: Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Still wrong!

The word "automobile" in Chinese includes "汽" (meaning "steam" in this context, not gasoline). The actual inventor of the automobile, or the creator of the world's first automobile, was a French military engineer: Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. He began developing it in 1765, primarily for military purposes, specifically to tow cannons. The prototype was completed in 1769, using a twin-cylinder steam engine that powered the front wheels. This marked the creation of humanity’s first non-animal-powered vehicle driven by a heat engine, and in October of the same year, the first test drive was conducted. This event marked the transition from the horse-drawn carriage era to the automobile era.

The history of automobiles should be written starting from 1769. This vehicle had a simple name, Fardier à vapeur, which in French means "steam wagon." Its nickname was "Cabriot"—yes, the same term used for modern convertibles.

After further improvements, the steam car could carry four tons of cargo at a speed of 3.6 kph.

Image: The first automobile inventor in human history, French military engineer Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, was born on February 26, 1725, and passed away on October 2, 1804. When he died, neither Gottlieb Daimler, the founder of Daimler, nor Karl Benz, the founder of Benz & Cie, had been born.

Image: This is the first automobile in human history. It originated in France and was powered by steam. The Chinese character "汽" in "汽车" refers to steam, not gasoline. Gasoline was an unexpected byproduct of petroleum refining and was rarely seen until the 1870s. It was not industrially produced until 1891. The gasoline engine that is widely used today was invented in 1876 by German engineers Nicolaus Otto and Eugen Langen, and was later improved and made practical by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach.

Image: In 1800, this first automobile was transferred to the French National Academy of Arts, where it remains on display to this day.

Image: The first recorded traffic accident in history occurred in November 1770. The involved vehicle was the second prototype, and the driver at the time was Cugnot himself. As a result, he was arrested and found guilty. However, interestingly, the court applied horse carriage regulations to convict him.

The first "automobile" was born in 1769, over 100 years before gasoline-powered cars. Observant readers may notice that the earliest gasoline-powered vehicles actually adopted many design elements from steam-powered automobiles, the most obvious being the tiller steering mechanism.

But this still doesn’t fully reflect France's contribution to automobiles. In 1807, Frenchman François Isaac de Rivaz invented the world’s first internal combustion engine, named the de Rivaz engine. It used a spark plug to ignite a hydrogen-oxygen mixture. Although it was not commercially successful, the design principles greatly influenced later internal combustion engines.

Image: This is the first internal combustion engine, invented by François Isaac de Rivaz. However, it ran on hydrogen and oxygen, making it unsafe and inefficient. This was in 1807, before gasoline had even been discovered.

Many people mistakenly believe that Daimler's V2 engine and Karl Benz's horizontally opposed twin-cylinder engine were the earliest automobile engines. In reality, they were not inventors but refiners who improved the designs to make them commercially viable.

The first commercially viable internal combustion engine was developed by Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir, a Belgian-born French engineer. He built upon the principles of de Rivaz's 1807 engine and successfully achieved commercial application.

In 1859, Lenoir developed an engine that mixed coal gas and air, ignited by a coil system. He patented it in 1860, and in 1863, he installed a 2,543cc engine in a three-wheeled vehicle, producing 1.5 horsepower. In 1865, mass production began, with 143 units sold that year. Ultimately, fewer than 500 units were produced, with horsepower ranging from 6 to 20. A significant number were produced in Germany under license.

Image: The world’s first commercially produced internal combustion engine: Lenoir motor. Even Nicolaus Otto's Otto-cycle engine was based on this design. Does this historical fact challenge the belief that "German engineering is the best"?

Image: Since it was used commercially, it had to be road-tested. This 1863 internal combustion engine car was delivered to 143 customers in Paris alone—isn’t that commercialization?

Karl Benz built a single-cylinder engine in 1885 and installed it in a three-wheeled vehicle, securing an automobile patent in early 1886. A few months later, Daimler and Maybach installed their single-cylinder engine in a four-wheeled carriage, creating the world's first four-wheeled gasoline-powered automobile. They also installed a similar engine in a bicycle-like frame, resulting in the first gasoline-powered motorcycle.

However, they only received patents in Germany, not worldwide. The main reason is that France issued a gasoline-powered automobile patent on February 12, 1884—two years earlier. This patent was granted to Édouard Delamare Deboutteville and his assistant Léon Charles Paul Malandin, who started their research in 1883.

Image: Although the first test failed due to chassis damage, and the project was terminated in 1887, this gasoline engine still received a French patent on February 14, 1884.

By 1903, France was the world’s leading automobile producer, manufacturing 30,124 cars, accounting for 49% of global production. It wasn’t until 1933 that France lost its automotive supremacy to Britain.

One last important fact:

Left-hand drive cars were introduced during the French Revolution (1789) as a rejection of the old feudal system. Napoleon later enforced this practice across Europe and the world—during the very period when steam-powered automobiles first emerged.