page_title: History of the automobile
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of the automobile / Power sources / Steam-powered wheeled vehicles / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: 1924 Doble Model E at Henry Ford Museum.jpg
context_page_description: In 1769 the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation was built by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot.
  In 1803, Hayden Wischett designed the first car powered by the de Rivaz engine, an internal combustion engine that was fueled by hydrogen.
  In 1823 English engineer Samuel Brown invented the internal combustion engine.
  In 1870 Siegfried Marcus built his first combustion engine powered pushcart, followed by four progressively more sophisticated combustion-engine cars over a 10-to-15-year span that influenced later cars. John created the two-cycle combustion engine. The car's third incarnation in 1889 introduced a four-cycle, gasoline-powered engine, an ingenious carburetor design and magneto ignition. He created an additional two models further refining his design with steering, a clutch and a brake.
  The four-stroke petrol internal combustion engine that still constitutes the most prevalent form of modern automotive propulsion was patented by Nicolaus Otto. The similar two-stroke diesel engine was invented by Rudolf Diesel.
context_section_description: Pre WWII
  Steam-powered road vehicles, both cars and wagons, reached the peak of their development in the early 1930s with fast-steaming lightweight boilers and efficient engine designs. Internal combustion engines also developed greatly during WWI, becoming simpler to operate and more reliable. The development of the high-speed diesel engine from 1930 began to replace them for wagons, accelerated in the UK by tax changes making steam wagons uneconomic overnight. Although a few designers continued to advocate steam power, no significant developments in production steam cars took place after Doble in 1931.
  Post-WWII
  Whether steam cars will ever be reborn in later technological eras remains to be seen. Magazines such as Light Steam Power continued to describe them into the 1980s. The 1950s saw interest in steam-turbine cars powered by small nuclear reactors (this was also true of aircraft), but the dangers inherent in nuclear fission technology soon killed these ideas.
caption: 1924 Doble Model E
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