Who invented self starters in automobiles?

There's no single inventor of the automotive self-starter. It was a gradual development with contributions from several people. However, Charles Kettering is most widely credited with inventing the practical, reliable electric self-starter that became the standard in automobiles. His design, developed while working for the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO), was first used in a Cadillac in 1912. While others had experimented with self-starting mechanisms before, Kettering's was the first to be truly successful and commercially viable.