History
Although Nicolas Joseph Cugnot is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769 by adapting an existing horse-drawn vehicle, this claim is disputed by some, who doubt Cugnot's three-wheeler ever ran or was stable. Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in china, built the first steam-powered vehicle around 1672 which was of small scale and designed as a toy for the Chinese Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger, but quite possibly, was the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile'). What is not in doubt is that Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive in 1801, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle although it was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods, and would have been of little practical use.
In Russia, in the 1780s, Ivan Kulibin developed a human-pedalled, three-wheeled carriage with modern features such as a flywheel, brake, gear box and bearing; however, it was not developed further.
Froncois isaac de Rivan a Swiss inventor, designed the first internal combustion engine, in 1806, which was fueled by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen and used it to develop the world's first vehicle, albeit rudimentary, to be powered by such an engine. The design was not very successful, as was the case with others such as samuel brown, samuel morey and etienna with hus hippomobile , who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.
In November 1881 French inventor Gustave demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile that was powered by electricity. This was at the International Exhibition of Electricity in Paris.
Although several other German engineers were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern automobile.
An automobile powered by his own four-stroke cycle gasoline engine was built in Mannheim, Germany by Karl Benz in 1885 and granted a patent in January of the following year under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883. It was an integral design, without the adaptation of other existing components and including several new technological elements to create a new concept. This is what made it worthy of a patent. He began to sell his production vehicles in 1888.
A photograph of the original Benz Patent Motorwagen, first built in 1885 and awarded the patent for the concept.
In 1879 Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle.
His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 and he was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on January 29, 1886. Benz began promotion of the vehicle on July 3, 1886 and approximately 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced along with a model intended for affordability. They also were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. France already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz automobile to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early automobiles, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany.
In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion engine , called a boxermotor in German. During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest automobile company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint stock company.
Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler motoren (Daimler Motor Company, DMG) in cannstatt in 1890 and under the brand name, Daimler, sold their first automobile in 1892, which was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, that they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after falling out with their backers. Benz and the Maybach and Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each other's early work. They never worked together because by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG.
Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler-Mercedes, that was placed in a specially-ordered model built to specifications set by Emil. This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG automobile was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers.
Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie. when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following the First world war, but the directors of DMG refused to consider it initially. Negotiations between the two companies resumed several years later when these conditions worsened and, in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest, valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, and sales and they advertised or marketed their automobile models jointly—although keeping their respective brands.
On June 28, 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its automobiles Mercedes Benz as a brand honoring the most important model of the DMG automobiles, the Maybach design later referred to as the 1902 Mercedes-35hp, along with the Benz name. Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of Daimler-Benz until his death in 1929 and at times, his two sons participated in the management of the company as well.
