When were cars first created?

The answer depends on how "car" is defined. People sometimes use the term "car" to refer to a motor carriage – that is, any road-going vehicle powered by an engine. In that case, the first car was built by Cugnot in 1769.

This steam-powered vehicle was incapable of self-propulsion and instead had to stop every 20 minutes when the boiler needed to be replenished with water. In many ways, it resembled the horse-drawn coaches that were still common at the time.

Cars that more closely resemble what we think of today's passenger vehicles only came into existence around the end of the 1800s, with the internal combustion engine powered Benz Patent-Motorwagen.