Cars

An automobile or motor car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor.

As of 2002, there were 590 million passenger cars worldwide (approximately one car per eleven people). Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007.

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769. François Isaac de Rivaz, a Swiss inventor, designed the first internal combustion engine, in 1806, In November 1881 French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile that was powered by electricity. Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern automobile.

Alternative fuel vehicles are another option that is less polluting than conventional petroleum powered vehicles.