3.Ĭarl Benz, Bertha's husband, had patented the first version of the vehicle back in 1886 and introduced the vehicle to the public in July of the same year during a test drive in Mannheim. The woman’s name was Bertha Benz, the teenagers were her sons Richard and Eugen, and the vehicle was the Benz patented motor car No.
The vehicle was apparently travelling under its own power - controlled by a crank which the woman was holding. Nor did the three passengers, a woman and two youngsters, appear to be pedalling. Except that no horses were to be seen anywhere nearby. One day in August 1888, the inhabitants of Wiesloch, Bruchsal and Durlach had every reason to be astonished: A vehicle with three wheels, which looked like a cross between a horse-drawn carriage and bicycle, trundled through the streets of their towns. Our brief history of the internal combustion engine relates the tale of how it was invented, how it came to be used in the first automobiles and what was done to mitigate the risks associated with this high-speed mobile innovation. After the railway had made it possible to transport large quantities of people and goods around in great style, it was the internal combustion engine which fundamentally transformed individual mobility. This did not change until the advent of the innovators and inventors in the late 19th century. You could go on foot, on horseback or travel in a carriage - after the invention of the wheel, the options available to humanity for overland travel barely evolved for 4,000 years.