June 19, 2019 at 21:55The first ones. A Tesla-Free Story
2016 year. Heat. Nizhny Novgorod. People were crowding in the parking lot of the Beijing-Paris retro rally, a guy stood near the huge La France and muttered something, pointing his smartphone at every detail. I listened, he noticed my attention and asked in surprise: “Is it really here ?!” Indeed, our city was a rally stage with a length of more than 14 thousand km, and at that time cars from 1907 to 1972 onwards almost two-thirds of the way passed. Many of them were not just retro cars - they were models on which something appeared for the first time, which were the basis of the entire automotive industry. They were those without which there would not be heated debate on Habré about Tesla or BMW. They were the first. Chain drive, wooden wheel spokes, authentic interior - La France. Yes she could
The first attempts to create something similar to an internal combustion engine existed in the XVIII century, when scientists were puzzled by the question of how to take and convert fuel energy into mechanical energy. The first, perhaps, were the Nieppes brothers (France), who invented the piraeophore - a coal dust engine. However, their innovation was not recognized, and the engine remained on the drawings.
Then there were Etienne Lenoir’s successful and not very successful experiments - a two-stroke engine with a carburetor and spark ignition from an extraneous source of coal gas, then a Siegfried Marcus single-cylinder carburetor engine (first worked from the combustion of oil products and was installed on a “car” that squeezes 10 mph) , in 1873, a literally huge George Brighton engine appeared ... But a breakthrough was made by Nicholas Otto.
The four-stroke internal combustion engine was first built by Nicholas Otto in 1878, and this invention affected the entire automotive industry. The merit of creating the first car with ICE belongs to Karl Benz and dates from 1885. The first single-cylinder Benz engine had less than one horsepower.
However, the first production car with a diesel engine appeared much later - in 1936, it became the Mercedes-Benz 260D.
However, as often happened in the history of science, the right to invent a horse-free carriage with an internal combustion engine was disputed by other car builders, for example, Siegfried Marcus in 1883 and Gottlieb Daimler in 1886. Daimler essentially developed a prototype of a modern gas engine with vertical cylinders and carburetor. It was a compact model, the main task of which was to ensure an acceptable high speed of movement of the car.
So, the engine was invented, but cars can’t climb a relatively steep hill, they don’t have enough “strength”. The thing is. that ICEs are able to develop the necessary operating power in a small speed range, but how then to change the torque, not limited to the capabilities of the engine? There was a need for a mechanism that will transmit engine torque to the wheels of the car. Such a mechanism was invented by Louis Renault ... or not?
Not really. It all started with the invention of Karl Benz. In 1890, Karl’s wife, Bert, together with the inventor’s son secretly from her husband and father set off on a journey of 80 km in length to show the world her husband’s car and prove that it was not a “devilish car”. It was a terrible, unbearably hard way: leather brakes wore out, and it was necessary to collect fuel at pharmacies and shops - naphtha, a means for removing stains. 0.8 h.p. the engine lacked power and Bert and his son were constantly forced to push the car. Following the trip, Mr. Benz sat down at the blueprints.
A recent Mercedes movie about Bert's exploit. A journey that changed everything.
The first version was primitive: two pulleys of different diameters on the drive axle, which was connected to the motor shaft by a belt. All. This design worked on the basis of simple physics, changing the torque on the drive wheels. If the pulley located on the motor shaft rotated the axle pulley of a larger diameter, the torque was amplified and the machine started to move. If the small pulley rotated, the angular speed of the wheels increased and the engine effort became smaller. A little later, the belt was replaced with a chain, the pulleys with asterisks (remember the car at the beginning of the post? Is it just that).
La France
And what about Louis Renault? Error in the facts? Not.
A more modern gearbox was invented in 1898 and was first used in Renault Voiturette (Renault "Avtomobilchik"). On December 24, 1898, Louis Renault defiantly drove his car along one of the coolest streets of Paris - without a gearbox this would have been impossible. But front-wheel drive first appeared only in 1929 on a Cord L29 car, although it reached mass production in the post-war years.
So what did Louis Renault invent then? In fact, the driveshaft. The production model of the Voiturette Type A had 1.75 hp engine power. and was equipped with the world's first gearbox with three “forward” speeds and one rear. Direct drive with a propeller shaft, invented by the founder of Renault, is used in rear-wheel drive cars to this day.
We are talking, of course, about a manual transmission, but automatic transmission appeared in the USA in 1939 in Oldsmobile Custom 8 Cruiser cars.
The first cars were equipped with tiller wheels - control levers; there was no talk of any round steering wheel. The control was obvious, but ineffective at high speed: the driver pulled the lever to the right or left and the car turned in the indicated direction. Actually, it was a thirst for speed (well, for those times of speed) that gave impetus to the introduction of a round rudder. With the advent of cars, the first races began to appear at the end of the 19th century, at which tiller control turned into a driver’s nightmare.
1889 Daimler Car with ICE with Tiller
In 1894, Alfred Wacheron mounted a round steering wheel on his Panhard 4hp and performed well at the Paris-Rouen race. By 1898, the entire Panhard was equipped with a steering wheel. Other carmakers followed suit. The first steering wheels (the first ones there - first up to the 30s, and then up to the 50s of the 20th century) had a rigid unregulated steering pad, which led to terrible injuries to drivers sometimes even in not very serious accidents.
Panhard with a steering wheel
By the way, in 1910 the first electric horn appeared.
And that was the horn of one of the 2016 Rolls-Royce rally
Guess who invented the three-point seat belts? If you are passionate about cars, then you probably guessed the word "safety" - of course, Volvo. They first appeared in the Volvo PV 544. Before that, of course, they existed for more than a hundred years, but were not reliable and efficient - ordinary fasteners with two points.
Volvo PV 544
Among the first cars have their own superheroes, who turned out to be the "carriers" of several devices at once. One of these was the 1912 Cadillac Model 30 Self Starter: the model presented to the public had a starter, ignition and the first headlights with tungsten filament (rather than fragile carbon). As for the starter, it replaced the crooked starter (the same handle that started the first engines. However, this handle is still relevant for some cars, for example, for some UAZs). By the way, it was the invention of the starter that partly threw back the existence of electric vehicles many years ago: the use of internal combustion engines became simple and the motivation for the development of electric motors was gone, it was necessary to develop internal combustion engines.
Cadillac Model 30 Self Starter
Stop, what other electric motors?
The first production electric car is the 2009 Mitsubishi i-MiEV ... Stop! We are not interested in 2009, we are interested in 1828, when the Hungarian physicist Anosh Istvan Yedlik invented the electric carriage. The experiments with Tesla's ancestors did not end there: in 1834 the blacksmith Thomas Davenport created his version of the electric car, followed by the Dutchman Sibrand Stratting and his assistant Christopher Becker, who equipped their invention with a rechargeable battery. But the most advanced and more or less “tenacious” car was obtained in 1890 by William Morrison - he developed a speed of up to 22 km / h. These were not one-time experiments - by the beginning of the 20th century, 30% of all cars in the USA were electric.
Electric car of William Morrison, 1890
La Jamais Contente electric car of 1899, reaching a speed of 100 km / h. Pay attention to the ergonomics and, at that time, super-futuristic design.
We already mentioned the starter, which probably became the killer of an electric car, but in fact there was a more obvious killer - the Ford T. Henry Ford used a conveyor to assemble the cars, thereby significantly reducing the cost vehicle. And then it was a matter of brilliant commerce: the great millionaire abandoned margin and earned money on sales, making the first national car in history. Ford T was three times cheaper than an electric car - the winner of the competitive race was determined.
Ford T - the "killer" of electric vehicles
Cars of the past continue to excite the thoughts of both engineers and fans - imagine, they are ready to prepare their car and pay a fee of $ 65,000 to start from Beijing, drive through the steppes of Mongolia and Kazakhstan, cross Altai, drive across Russia and get to Paris in a rally where everyone is already a winner. This year we are waiting for the Beijing-Paris rally in Nizhny Novgorod on June 24 and are preparing for a professional and warm meeting. Because there is nothing to compare with these cars, thanks to which the story took place.
PS On the official rally website you can see the route and find out in which cities there will be intermediate stages - do not miss in your city!
Internal combustion engine
The first attempts to create something similar to an internal combustion engine existed in the XVIII century, when scientists were puzzled by the question of how to take and convert fuel energy into mechanical energy. The first, perhaps, were the Nieppes brothers (France), who invented the piraeophore - a coal dust engine. However, their innovation was not recognized, and the engine remained on the drawings.
Then there were Etienne Lenoir’s successful and not very successful experiments - a two-stroke engine with a carburetor and spark ignition from an extraneous source of coal gas, then a Siegfried Marcus single-cylinder carburetor engine (first worked from the combustion of oil products and was installed on a “car” that squeezes 10 mph) , in 1873, a literally huge George Brighton engine appeared ... But a breakthrough was made by Nicholas Otto.
The four-stroke internal combustion engine was first built by Nicholas Otto in 1878, and this invention affected the entire automotive industry. The merit of creating the first car with ICE belongs to Karl Benz and dates from 1885. The first single-cylinder Benz engine had less than one horsepower.
However, the first production car with a diesel engine appeared much later - in 1936, it became the Mercedes-Benz 260D.
However, as often happened in the history of science, the right to invent a horse-free carriage with an internal combustion engine was disputed by other car builders, for example, Siegfried Marcus in 1883 and Gottlieb Daimler in 1886. Daimler essentially developed a prototype of a modern gas engine with vertical cylinders and carburetor. It was a compact model, the main task of which was to ensure an acceptable high speed of movement of the car.
Transmission
So, the engine was invented, but cars can’t climb a relatively steep hill, they don’t have enough “strength”. The thing is. that ICEs are able to develop the necessary operating power in a small speed range, but how then to change the torque, not limited to the capabilities of the engine? There was a need for a mechanism that will transmit engine torque to the wheels of the car. Such a mechanism was invented by Louis Renault ... or not?
Not really. It all started with the invention of Karl Benz. In 1890, Karl’s wife, Bert, together with the inventor’s son secretly from her husband and father set off on a journey of 80 km in length to show the world her husband’s car and prove that it was not a “devilish car”. It was a terrible, unbearably hard way: leather brakes wore out, and it was necessary to collect fuel at pharmacies and shops - naphtha, a means for removing stains. 0.8 h.p. the engine lacked power and Bert and his son were constantly forced to push the car. Following the trip, Mr. Benz sat down at the blueprints.
A recent Mercedes movie about Bert's exploit. A journey that changed everything.
The first version was primitive: two pulleys of different diameters on the drive axle, which was connected to the motor shaft by a belt. All. This design worked on the basis of simple physics, changing the torque on the drive wheels. If the pulley located on the motor shaft rotated the axle pulley of a larger diameter, the torque was amplified and the machine started to move. If the small pulley rotated, the angular speed of the wheels increased and the engine effort became smaller. A little later, the belt was replaced with a chain, the pulleys with asterisks (remember the car at the beginning of the post? Is it just that).
La France
And what about Louis Renault? Error in the facts? Not.
A more modern gearbox was invented in 1898 and was first used in Renault Voiturette (Renault "Avtomobilchik"). On December 24, 1898, Louis Renault defiantly drove his car along one of the coolest streets of Paris - without a gearbox this would have been impossible. But front-wheel drive first appeared only in 1929 on a Cord L29 car, although it reached mass production in the post-war years.
So what did Louis Renault invent then? In fact, the driveshaft. The production model of the Voiturette Type A had 1.75 hp engine power. and was equipped with the world's first gearbox with three “forward” speeds and one rear. Direct drive with a propeller shaft, invented by the founder of Renault, is used in rear-wheel drive cars to this day.
We are talking, of course, about a manual transmission, but automatic transmission appeared in the USA in 1939 in Oldsmobile Custom 8 Cruiser cars.
Steering wheel
The first cars were equipped with tiller wheels - control levers; there was no talk of any round steering wheel. The control was obvious, but ineffective at high speed: the driver pulled the lever to the right or left and the car turned in the indicated direction. Actually, it was a thirst for speed (well, for those times of speed) that gave impetus to the introduction of a round rudder. With the advent of cars, the first races began to appear at the end of the 19th century, at which tiller control turned into a driver’s nightmare.
1889 Daimler Car with ICE with Tiller
In 1894, Alfred Wacheron mounted a round steering wheel on his Panhard 4hp and performed well at the Paris-Rouen race. By 1898, the entire Panhard was equipped with a steering wheel. Other carmakers followed suit. The first steering wheels (the first ones there - first up to the 30s, and then up to the 50s of the 20th century) had a rigid unregulated steering pad, which led to terrible injuries to drivers sometimes even in not very serious accidents.
Panhard with a steering wheel
By the way, in 1910 the first electric horn appeared.
And that was the horn of one of the 2016 Rolls-Royce rally
There are no trifles
Guess who invented the three-point seat belts? If you are passionate about cars, then you probably guessed the word "safety" - of course, Volvo. They first appeared in the Volvo PV 544. Before that, of course, they existed for more than a hundred years, but were not reliable and efficient - ordinary fasteners with two points.
Volvo PV 544
One line inventions
- Airbags appeared late - in 1972. They were first installed on the Ford Taunus 20M P7B and Oldsmobile Toronado, but gained wide popularity in more than a decade.
- Air conditioning appeared in 1939 on the Packard Twelve Sedan. It was very expensive and extremely inconvenient to use.
- The first audio system appeared in 1930, it was a Motorola radio installation, in 1932 the famous Blaupunkt appeared on the German Studebaker.
- But the wipers were invented by a woman, the American Mary Anderson, who invented and patented a mechanical drive for the brushes with which the drivers cleaned the windshields. The electric wipers were invented by Charlotte Bridgewood 14 years later, in 1917. But the massive "hanging" wipers merit Bosch.
- Turn signals, as we know them, appeared on the Buick Roadmaster in 1939, they replaced mechanical arrows and uncomfortable flashlights.
- The first power steering appeared on the luxurious Chrysler Crown Imperial in 1951, changing pneumatic systems and the strength of human muscles. Three years later, GUR reached Europe - in the French Citroen DS 19. By the way, it was the Citroen DS 19 that became the first owner of disc brakes. Anyway, it was an amazingly advanced car in its time.
- Drum brakes on all wheels first appeared on the Lancia Lambda in 1922.
Among the first cars have their own superheroes, who turned out to be the "carriers" of several devices at once. One of these was the 1912 Cadillac Model 30 Self Starter: the model presented to the public had a starter, ignition and the first headlights with tungsten filament (rather than fragile carbon). As for the starter, it replaced the crooked starter (the same handle that started the first engines. However, this handle is still relevant for some cars, for example, for some UAZs). By the way, it was the invention of the starter that partly threw back the existence of electric vehicles many years ago: the use of internal combustion engines became simple and the motivation for the development of electric motors was gone, it was necessary to develop internal combustion engines.
Cadillac Model 30 Self Starter
Stop, what other electric motors?
Two centuries before Tesla
The first production electric car is the 2009 Mitsubishi i-MiEV ... Stop! We are not interested in 2009, we are interested in 1828, when the Hungarian physicist Anosh Istvan Yedlik invented the electric carriage. The experiments with Tesla's ancestors did not end there: in 1834 the blacksmith Thomas Davenport created his version of the electric car, followed by the Dutchman Sibrand Stratting and his assistant Christopher Becker, who equipped their invention with a rechargeable battery. But the most advanced and more or less “tenacious” car was obtained in 1890 by William Morrison - he developed a speed of up to 22 km / h. These were not one-time experiments - by the beginning of the 20th century, 30% of all cars in the USA were electric.
Electric car of William Morrison, 1890
La Jamais Contente electric car of 1899, reaching a speed of 100 km / h. Pay attention to the ergonomics and, at that time, super-futuristic design.
We already mentioned the starter, which probably became the killer of an electric car, but in fact there was a more obvious killer - the Ford T. Henry Ford used a conveyor to assemble the cars, thereby significantly reducing the cost vehicle. And then it was a matter of brilliant commerce: the great millionaire abandoned margin and earned money on sales, making the first national car in history. Ford T was three times cheaper than an electric car - the winner of the competitive race was determined.
Ford T - the "killer" of electric vehicles
Cars of the past continue to excite the thoughts of both engineers and fans - imagine, they are ready to prepare their car and pay a fee of $ 65,000 to start from Beijing, drive through the steppes of Mongolia and Kazakhstan, cross Altai, drive across Russia and get to Paris in a rally where everyone is already a winner. This year we are waiting for the Beijing-Paris rally in Nizhny Novgorod on June 24 and are preparing for a professional and warm meeting. Because there is nothing to compare with these cars, thanks to which the story took place.
If you are from Nizhny Novgorod, then time and place are here. Of course, visiting the checkpoint and parking is completely free.
PS On the official rally website you can see the route and find out in which cities there will be intermediate stages - do not miss in your city!
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