INGENIEUR
Orient Express. Despite the cost, this route is
incredibly popular with tourists, who flood the lines
for what amounts to a 20-second ride. Not only is
it incredibly expensive to travel this route, it is also
impractical. When factoring in the time it takes
to get in and out of the stations, it’s quicker—and
cheaper—to walk.
History of Steam-Powered Cars – Mary
Bellis
The automobile as we know it today was not
invented in a single day by a single inventor. Rather,
the history of the automobile reflects an evolution
that took place worldwide, a result of more than
100,000 patents from several inventors.
And there were many firsts that occurred along
the way, starting with the first theoretical plans for
a motor vehicle that had been drawn up by both
Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton. However,
it's important to bear in mind that the earliest
practical vehicles were powered by steam.
Nicolas Joseph Cugnot's Steam Vehicles
In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle
was a military tractor invented by French engineer
and mechanic, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. He used a
steam engine to power his vehicle, which was built
under his instructions at the Paris Arsenal. The
steam engine and boiler were separate from the
rest of the vehicle and placed in the front. It was
used by the French Army to haul artillery at a speed
of 2½ mph on only three wheels. The vehicle
even had to stop every ten to fifteen minutes to
build up steam power. The following year, Cugnot
built a steam-powered tricycle that carried four
passengers.However, the problem was that steam
engines added so much weight to a vehicle that
they proved a poor design for road vehicles.
Still, steam engines were successfully used in
locomotives. And historians who accept that early
steam-powered road vehicles were technically
automobiles often consider Nicolas Cugnot to
be the inventor of the first automobile.
Arrival of Electric Cars
Steam engines were not the only engines used
in early automobiles as vehicles with electrical
engines also gained traction around the same
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time. Sometime between 1832 and 1839,
Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first
electric carriage. They relied on rechargeable
batteries that powered a small electric motor.
The vehicles were heavy, slow, expensive and
needed to be recharged frequently. Electricity was
more practical and efficient when used to power
tramways and streetcars, where a constant supply
of electricity was possible.
Yet around 1900, electric land vehicles in
America came to outsell all other types of cars.
Then in the several years following 1900, sales of
electric vehicles took a nosedive as a new type of
vehicle powered by gasoline came to dominate the
consumer market.
Futuristic high speed ground travel
system - Hyperloop
Our fascination with high-speed travel has
resulted in the development of some incredibly
fast machines.
Concorde, once the world’s fastest commercial
passenger jet, travelled at speeds of over 2,000
kph – more than twice the speed of sound.
And when the magnetic-levitation bullet train
was introduced in Japan, it became the world's
fastest train, reaching speeds of 600 kph.
Now we’re awaiting the hyperloop, the futuristic,
high-speed ground travel system first proposed by
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2012. One of
its developers, Virgin Hyperloop One, says it can
travel at speeds of up to 1,200kph (760 mph).
A prototype of the pods designed to carry
passengers was unveiled in Dubai, where the first
operational hyperloop system is scheduled to be
built, possibly as soon as 2021.
The hyperloop uses an electromagnetic
propulsion system to accelerate through a vacuum
tube, Virgin says. The vehicle is d esigned to float
above a track and glides at high speeds for long
distances due to low aerodynamic drag. Hyperloop
will also be fully autonomous and enclosed,
eliminating pilot error and weather hazards, Virgin
adds.
Passengers travelling on the Dubai hyperloop
would be able to get from the city to Abu Dhabi,
around 140km in 12 minutes. Currently, this trip
takes about two hours.