It sounds strange but ironically it is true, “horseless carriage” was the forefather of the today’s cars. The days before 1885 were described as a “bad old days” because at that time the world had not seen convenient means of transportation instead horse ride and bicycle were the common means of transportation, but some genius minds were working to reshape the means of transportation.
Karl Benz is the genius mind who known to invent the first car of the world. He developed first proper automobile in 1886. Three-wheeled Patent-Motorwagen known to be the first vehicle ever produced. The race for diesel, electric, even steam engine automobile began after the invention of Motorwagen. And by the end of 19th century significant development had been made.
The beginning of the 20th century had seen a new era of the automobile, the cities were emerging and absorbing new cultures. The car became integral part of the lives of wealthy people and affluent families.
Henry Ford revolutionized the automobile world with the invention of the assembly line. Before the Great Depression, some of the leading automobile companies such as Cadillac, Duesenberg and Bugatti were producing cars for wealthy and super rich people. It is also defined as pre-war-era.
The World War II had have drastic impacts on every walk of life, the auto industry is no exception. The leading automobile manufacturers started manufacturing vehicles for military purposes. The “jeep” was the invention of that time. It was used for rough road surface and rugged lands. The modern SUV is a grandson of the war era jeep.
The post war era had noted considerable developments of the car industry, the Volkswagen first launched the “people’s car”, it was known as the VW Beetle, Beetle gain worldwide popularity as a small car. There was an old saying about Beetle “without it, there would be no Corolla, no Civic, no Focus.
The decade of 1960 had observed the need for faster cars, there was one, believe of that time; “go faster” although modern era has seen a complete new range of sportswear but there were great super speed cars of that era such as Barracuda, E-Type and 911.
The family Wagons emerged in the wake of oil shortage dilemma in 1970s, the shortage of traditional fuels highlighted the need for smaller and fuel efficient engines. The family-Wagon with better engine performance emerged on the global sphere of auto-industry in the early 1980s.
However the SUV came into its final shape in the period of 1990 when the Ford first launched Explorer and Grand Cherokee, these two models changed the meaning of family car forever.
The 21st century had seen the paradigm shift of auto-industry such as wagons were replaced by SUV, whereas pickup Trucks became a wonderful choice instead of a car, can’t say it was a complete replacement but best alternative to cars. The Ford F-150 became the most sold vehicle of 2004 with more than million sales.
The emergence of greener vehicles was the other notable change of auto-industry during the first-decade of the 21st century. The race for hybrid and electric cars has increased rapidly as all the leading automobile companies are bringing their best hybrid cars for the world, such as Toyota introduced the Prius in 2001 in the US market.
The hydrogen fuel-cell-powered cars are looking forward to say welcome to the future of cars, the battery powered cars are the thing of the near future. They will replace the traditional fuels powered cars.
Not to forget, the future of fully autonomous cars is not so far. The leading tech giants have already unleashed the potential demand of fully autonomous cars in the near future like Google and Apple promise to bring fully autonomous car in the world by 2020.
