Since The 20th Century
Before diesel fuel had been standardised, diesel engines typically ran on cheap fuel oils. In the United States, these were distilled from petroleum, whereas in Europe, coal-tar creosote oil was used. Some diesel engines were fuelled with mixtures of several different fuels, such as petrol, kerosine, rapeseed oil, or lubricating oil, because they were untaxed and thus cheap. The introduction of motor-vehicle diesel engines, such as the , in the 1930s meant that higher quality fuels with proper ignition characteristics were needed. At first no improvements were made to motor-vehicle diesel fuel quality. After World War II, the first modern high quality diesel fuels were standardised. These standards were, for instance, the DIN 51601, VTL 9140-001, and NATO F 54 standards. In 1993, the DIN 51601 was rendered obsolete by the new EN 590 standard, which has been used in the European Union ever since. In sea-going watercraft, where diesel propulsion had gained prevalence by the late 1970s due to increasing fuel costs caused by the , cheap are still used instead of conventional motor-vehicle diesel fuel. These heavy fuel oils can be used in diesel-powered and steam-powered vessels.
FAME used as fuel is specified in and ASTM D6751 standards.
are the source for the lower oxidation stability. They react with oxygen and form peroxides and result in degradation byproducts, which can cause sludge and lacquer in the fuel system.
The Future Of Electric Cars
Its hard to tell where the future will take electric vehicles, but its clear they hold a lot of potential for creating a more sustainable future. If we transitioned all the light-duty vehicles in the U.S. to hybrids or plug-in electric vehicles using our current technology mix, we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 30-60 percent, while lowering the carbon pollution from the transportation sector by as much as 20 percent.
To help reach these emissions savings, in 2012 President Obama launched the EV Everywhere Grand Challenge an Energy Department initiative that brings together Americas best and brightest scientists, engineers and businesses to make plug-in electric vehicles more as affordable as todays gasoline-powered vehicles by 2022. On the battery front, the Departments Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory is working to overcome the biggest scientific and technical barriers that prevent large-scale improvements of batteries.
And the Departments Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy is advancing game-changing technologies that could alter how we think of electric vehicles. From investing in new types of batteries that could go further on a single charge to cost-effective alternatives to materials critical to electric motors, ARPA-Es projects could transform electric vehicles.
In the end, only time will tell what road electric vehicles will take in the future.
The First Mass Produced Car
The first practical cars featured gasoline/petrol-powered internal-combustion engines. These cars were built by numerous German inventors, with Karl Benzs invention being considered as the first practical car in the world. Benz replaced the horse of a horse-carriage with an engine that was able to run on fuel. The vehicle had three tires and had a front wheel that was smaller and lighter than the rear wheels in order to ensure that the car performed well in hilly terrain. Benz’s engine weighed about 220 pounds, was capable of generating about 0.75 horsepower, and was the most efficient engine at that time. His first car was built in Mannheim, Germany in 1885, and subsequently patented on January 29, 1886. Mass production of Benz’s car began in 1888 after a successful trip with his family from Mannheim to Pforzheim in August of that year.
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Gasoline And Electric Vehicles Today
Both gasoline and electric vehicles today have come a long way since the first steam, gasoline, and electric powered vehicle was introduced. Today, there are a lot of electric-powered vehicles out there that can easily overtake and have overtaken some prominent gasoline-powered vehicles. Not to mention that the internal combustion engines are as fuel-efficient and reliable as they have ever been. Then, there are hybrid vehicles as well that offer the best of both worlds.
When it comes to gasoline-powered vehicles, one can consider Ferrari, Toyota, and BMW that are known to produce some of the finest engines in the world. However, when it comes to electric-powered vehicles, Tesla takes the top spot. More so, Toyota had also introduced its Hydrogen powered vehicle but it will be time until the trend catches on. The availability of charging ports in many countries is still a problem and that is why electric cars are finding it a bit difficult to make their way into some of the most potential markets.
Early History Of The Car
Benz patented the first gasoline-powered car, but he wasn’t the original visionary of self-propelled vehicles. Some highlights in the history of the car:
- Leonardo da Vinci had sketched a horseless, mechanized cart in the early 1500s. Like many of his designs, it wasn’t built in his lifetime. However, a replica is on display at the Chateau Clos Lucé , Leonardo’s last home and now a museum.
- Sailing chariots, propelled by the wind were in use in China when the first Westerners visited, and in 1600, Simon Steven of Holland built one that carried 28 people and covered 39 miles in two hours, according to General Motors.
- Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot, a Frenchman, built a self-propelled vehicle with a steam engine in 1769. The cart, designed to move artillery pieces, moved at a walking pace and had to stop every 20 minutes to build a new head of steam.
“The word ‘car’ has meant different things at different times. At the end of the 19th Century, a car was a streetcar i.e. a tram. Streetcars before that were ‘horse cars’ which were omnibuses pulled by horses on rails. The word ‘car’ became available to what was previously called a ‘horseless carriage’ or possibly a motor car. The ‘automobile’, as they call it in America, was itself an import from the French,” Tom Standage, author of “A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next ” told All About History magazine.
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The First Gasoline Powered Car Was Made In 1885
In the 1800s, mass-producing hydrogen gas was unfeasible. Liquid gasoline is easier to refine. But liquid fuels do not work for internal combustion. Then, the invention of the carburetor made it possible to mix liquid gas and air. As a result, the internal combustion engine became viable for widespread use.
Several inventors attempted to merge carburetor technology with internal combustion technology. But it was Karl Benz who first perfected a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine in 1878. He won a patent in 1879.
Benz mounted his engine on the back of a tall, three-wheeled buggy. The motor spun a pair of chains which in turn drove the back wheel. Therefore, he called his invention the Benz Motorwagen. It was the first gasoline, internal combustion car. Consequently, he was granted a patent in early 1886. The Patent Benz Motorwagen went on sale in 1888. But while this was a major automotive milestone, the first car was made in 1769over a hundred years earlier.
What Was The First Car In The World
The first car, or true automobile, in the world has long been recognised as the MotorWagen, patented by Karl Benz in 1886.
It was a two-seater, three-wheeled motor car, with three-spoke wheels like a kind of common ancestor between horse-drawn buggies and other early cars.
It used a compact single-cylinder, four-stroke internal combustion engine, installed at the back, and was the first car to be practically useful.
Benz car company still exists today as the Daimler Group.
As well as the car, Benz also patented many automobile components, including his own throttle system, spark plugs, gear shifters, a water radiator, and carburetor.
Benz car also had an automatic intake slide, a controlled exhaust valve, and a high-voltage electrical vibrating ignition.
The first electric car came over 50 years before Benzs invention, and was made by Robert Anderson in the 1830s.
Electric and gasoline cars were initially developed at similar rates, but in the early 20th century the petrol car became cheaper to produce and run.
If the electric car had won out at the time, we would probably refer today to Andersons electric car as the first.
Now electric vehicles are seen as cleaner, cheaper, and less politically complicated, they are being produced, or planned, by most car manufacturers.
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Steam And Electricity Power The Earliest Vehicles
You may be surprised to find electric vehicles arent a new concept. The first automobiles actually ran on steam and electricity. You may also be surprised to learn the first vehicles were developed in the late 1700s.
Those first vehicles were powered by steam. It was an energy source that had been used for many years to power trains. However, it wasnt until the 1870s that steam power became more practical for small vehicles. Despite improvements, there were still a lot of shortcomings. Steam-powered vehicles took a very long time to start up and the range was limited.
In the early 1800s, inventors around the world began building electric-powered buggies. A few decades later inventors in England and France created vehicles that were much closer to modern-day EVs. In 1890, William Morrison built the first electric car in the U.S. The car could go 14 miles per hour and fit six people. It was very rudimentary, but it got interest going in America.
Within 10 years a third of the vehicles in the U.S. were electric. Electric vehicles were popular because they werent as difficult to start as steam and gas combustion engines and operation didnt involve difficult gear shifts. Like today, the first EVs were quiet and didnt emit smelly air pollution.
Meanwhile, in 1898, Ferdinand Porsche did something revolutionary. He created the first hybrid vehicle that was powered by electricity and gas. It was a blueprint for the hybrids that would be built more than 100 years later.
Floating Liquefied Natural Gas
is an innovative technology designed to enable the development of offshore gas resources that would otherwise remain untapped due to environmental or economic factors which currently make them impractical to develop via a land-based LNG operation. FLNG technology also provides a number of environmental and economic advantages:
- Environmental â Because all processing is done at the gas field, there is no requirement for long pipelines to shore, compression units to pump the gas to shore, dredging and jetty construction, and onshore construction of an LNG processing plant, which significantly reduces the environmental footprint. Avoiding construction also helps preserve marine and coastal environments. In addition, environmental disturbance will be minimised during decommissioning because the facility can easily be disconnected and removed before being refurbished and re-deployed elsewhere.
- Economic â Where pumping gas to shore can be prohibitively expensive, FLNG makes development economically viable. As a result, it will open up new business opportunities for countries to develop offshore gas fields that would otherwise remain stranded, such as those offshore East Africa.
Natural gas is primarily used in the northern hemisphere. North America and Europe are major consumers.
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Algae Microbes And Water Contamination
There has been much discussion and misunderstanding of in diesel fuel. Algae need light to live and grow. As there is no sunlight in a closed fuel tank, no algae can survive, but some can survive and feed on the diesel fuel.
These microbes form a colony that lives at the interface of fuel and water. They grow quite fast in warmer temperatures. They can even grow in cold weather when fuel tank heaters are installed. Parts of the colony can break off and clog the fuel lines and fuel filters.
Water in fuel can damage a fuel . Some diesel also trap water. Water contamination in diesel fuel can lead to freezing while in the fuel tank. The freezing water that saturates the fuel will sometimes clog the fuel injector pump. Once the water inside the fuel tank has started to freeze, gelling is more likely to occur. When the fuel is gelled it is not effective until the temperature is raised and the fuel returns to a liquid state.
When Did The First Car Come Out
Benzs invention didnt look anything like the gas-powered cars we know today. The three-wheel vehicle was nearly identical to a horse buggy, with a front wheel replacing the equine animal. He knew a four-wheel would be more stable but was dissatisfied with the steering systems available at the time. Benz solved the problem by inventing his own solution: double-pivot steering.
With his new steering system installed, Benz was ready to introduce his four-wheel car to the public. The Benz Velo was unveiled in 1894 at the World Exposition in Chicago. It would ultimately prove to be an unmitigated success. More than 1,200 units were manufactured in total, bestowing the Velo the title of the worlds first production car.
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The True Origins Of The American Gasoline Car
In short, Selden was the first American to design a gasoline engine-powered car, but not the first to actually make one. So who was it that actually holds this claim to fame?
The first Americans to actually build a successful gasoline car were the Duryea brothers, Charles and Frank. The brothers built and tested their first vehicle in 1893, and founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1896. While the brothers’ car might not have technically been the first American car, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company was for sure the first American car company.
The first car that the brothers made was pretty primitive, but at the very least it was a solid proof of concept. The car itself was essentially just a modified horse-drawn buddy fitted with a single-cylinder engine that produced 4 horsepower.
In general, Charles Duryea handled the financial aspects of the company, and it was mainly him who searched for potential investors and the like. Frank Duryea, on the other hand, mostly dealt with the manufacturing and design aspects of the business.
Despite this, however, the brothers unfortunately entered into a bit of a feud over who exactly was mainly responsible for the success of the car. Charles claimed that the car had become successful thanks to his direction, while Frank claimed that it was his work in particular on the car’s engine and transmission that made it work so well.
William Ayrton & John Perry
William Ayrton & John Perry, both from England, built an electric tricycle. It had two large wheels in the back and one in the front. It also had electric lights. The electric tricycle was run by 10 lead-acid cells and had ½ horsepower. The driver could change the speed of the electric tricycle by turning the lead-acid batteries on and off one at a time. The tricycle could achieve a speed of nine mph and drive for 10 to 25 miles.
Thomas Parker’s Electric car 1880s, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
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Charles And Frank Duryea
America’s first gasoline-powered commercial car manufacturers were Charles and Frank Duryea. The brothers were bicycle makers who became interested in gasoline engines and automobiles and built their first motor vehicle in 1893, in Springfield, Massachusetts. By 1896, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company had sold thirteen models of the Duryea, an expensive limousine, which remained in production into the 1920s.
Gas Shortages Spark Interest In Electric Vehicles
Over the next 30 years or so, electric vehicles entered a sort of dark ages with little advancement in the technology. Cheap, abundant gasoline and continued improvement in the internal combustion engine hampered demand for alternative fuel vehicles.
Fast forward to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Soaring oil prices and gasoline shortages — peaking with the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo — created a growing interest in lowering the U.S.s dependence on foreign oil and finding homegrown sources of fuel. Congress took note and passed the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 1976, authorizing the Energy Department to support research and development in electric and hybrid vehicles.
Around this same time, many big and small automakers began exploring options for alternative fuel vehicles, including electric cars. For example, General Motors developed a prototype for an urban electric car that it displayed at the Environmental Protection Agencys First Symposium on Low Pollution Power Systems Development in 1973, and the American Motor Company produced electric delivery jeeps that the United States Postal Service used in a 1975 test program. Even NASA helped raise the profile of the electric vehicle when its electric Lunar rover became the first manned vehicle to drive on the moon in 1971.
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The Idea Stood The Test Of Time
The Benz Patent Motorwagen’s parts and features may have been short-lived and quickly improved upon, but the basic ideas have remained the foundation upon which modern cars are built. For instance, the vehicle only rode on three wheels because Benz was yet to figure out how to steer a four-wheeled vehicle.
While the engine produced meager outputs, it incorporated parts and details that form the essentials of a modern internal combustion engine, from positive intake and exhaust-valve actuation to the float controlled and exhaust-heated carburetor and the ignition system featuring a spark plug, coil, and battery.
The History Of The Electric Car
Introduced more than 100 years ago, electric cars are seeing a rise in popularity today for many of the same reasons they were first popular.
Whether its a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or all-electric, the demand for electric drive vehicles will continue to climb as prices drop and consumers look for ways to save money at the pump. Currently more than 3 percent of new vehicle sales, electric vehicles sales could to grow to nearly 7 percent — or 6.6 million per year — worldwide by 2020, according to a report by Navigant Research.
With this growing interest in electric vehicles, we are taking a look at where this technology has been and where its going. Travel back in time with us as we explore the history of the electric car.
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