The document provides a detailed history of the automobile from its early origins to modern developments. It discusses key milestones and inventors including:
- The first self-propelled road vehicle in 1769 powered by a steam engine. Early vehicles relied on steam power but were inefficient.
- Inventors in the late 1800s who developed early gasoline and diesel internal combustion engines, including Nikolaus Otto's 1876 four-stroke engine and Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach's 1885 vertical cylinder engine with a carburetor.
- Karl Benz's 1885 patent for the first practical three-wheeled automobile and his later four-wheeled designs in the 1880s, considered the first modern