Introduction

Inventors have dreamed about creating cars for a very long time. Nicholas Kuneau was a French inventor who built the first car in the late 1700s. He used steam to power its engines and it could drive at speeds of 7 km per hour. But steam engines were large and took a lot of work to run. Many other inventors tried to build a smaller steam-powered car. That was easier to use, but someone invented an internal combustion engine. This new engine made cars more popular around the world. For a long time, only the very wealthy could buy them. Today's spotlight is on the history and future of the automobile.