The automobile, a lightweight, self-propelled wheeled road vehicle, didn't look like what we know today at its inception.
Its development has been a long journey of continuous improvement and innovation over more than a century.
It represents human ingenuity and craftsmanship, benefiting from various industries like petroleum, steel, aluminum, chemicals, plastics, machinery, electricity, road networks, electronics, and finance.
These sectors supported its evolution, enabling automobiles to become diverse in types and specifications and widely used across various sectors of socio-economic life. Since 1970, the global number of automobiles has nearly doubled every 15 years, reaching 87.38 million units produced in 2013.
In 1478, Italian scientist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci first proposed a design for a self-propelled vehicle.
In 1765, James Watt improved the design of the steam engine, creating the first practical steam engine that propelled the development of industrialized society.
In 1769, French engineer Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot manufactured the world's first mechanically driven three-wheeled vehicle in Paris.
In 1885, German inventor Karl Benz designed and built the world's first practical internal combustion engine-powered carriage, a three-wheeled automobile.
In 1886, Karl Benz patented the world's first three-wheeled automobile, earning him the title "Father of the Automobile." In the same year, Gottlieb Daimler, a German, invented the first four-wheeled automobile.
In 1888, French bicycle manufacturer Émile Roger obtained a license from Benz to begin producing commercial automobiles.
In 1908, Ford Motor Company introduced the Model T, selling a total of 15 million units before its discontinuation, making significant contributions to the automotive and manufacturing industries.
In 1913, Ford developed the world's first assembly line, increasing assembly efficiency by about eight times.
Electric propulsion benefits urban environments, shared models alter vehicle ownership structures, smart connectivity changes the interaction between vehicles and the environment, and autonomous driving shifts the relationship between humans and vehicles.
These advancements ultimately support achieving automated travel.
In the over 130-year history of the automobile, the industry has undergone three major transformative phases, each profoundly altering human production and lifestyle, changing the landscapes of cities and rural areas, and exerting broad and far-reaching effects on the progress of human civilization.
In recent years, a plethora of disruptive new technologies, such as new energy sources, new materials, artificial intelligence, 5G, big data, the Internet of Things, and blockchain, have matured and entered commercial applications. Against this backdrop, the history of automotive development is entering a new chapter.
Leveraging new energy sources, mobile internet, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and high-precision navigation, as well as business model innovations like the sharing economy and mobile payments, the automotive industry is embracing the era of electrification, intelligence, and sharing—a "triple revolution."
Whether from a technological or business model perspective, new energy vehicles are becoming the vanguard of a new industrial revolution in the automotive sector. The electrification, intelligence, and sharing—the "triple revolution"—in the future of automobiles and future mobility are integrative innovations that will have a wide-ranging and profound impact.
