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A steam car is a car that runs by
steam. After 20 minutes the car stops. Then you have to put more steam in the
car. After, you wind up the car again and you can go for another 20-minute
drive. Nicholas-Joseph Caugnut, who was a French military engineer, built the
first self-operated road vehicles in 1769 and 1770. One of them was made to
carry people and the other one was a three-wheeled steam tractor made for
carrying weapons around.
People kept trying to make more steam powered cars but failed in selling them. They sold only a few because most people used the railroad and stagecoaches for transportation. The steam car was bad because it made a lot of noise, sometimes blew up, damaged roads, frightened horses and dirtied the air with smoke. Steam cars could also only go four miles per hour. In towns a signalman had to walk ahead of the cars swinging a red flag in the daytime and a red lantern at night. |
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In the years 1801 and 1803 Richard Trevithick,
a man from England, demonstrated four-wheel self-working road vehicles, which
were used to carry people. There was one problem; he didn’t have enough money
to continue to make cars.