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Karl Benz was issued German patent DRP No. 37435 by the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin on January 29th 1886 for a three-wheeled vehicle with gas engine known as the Benz Patent Motorwagen. This patent is seen as a birth certificate of the automobile as it is the world’s first vehicle with an internal combustion engine and electric ignition.

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Karl Benz’s number one competitor in Germany was probably Gottlieb Daimler and his business partner, Willhelm Maybach. Although Benz was the first engineer to build an engine that could vapourize gas effectively, it was Daimler who produced an internal combustion engine in 1884 which would become the model for all feature engine developments. Timing is everything.  Karl Benz submitted his patent application a few weeks before Daimler submitted his patent. Although Daimler died in 1900 and there is no evidence that Benz and Daimler knew each other, their two companies would eventually merge after World War I to become known as Daimler-Benz.  The first real American competitor was probably Henry Ford but he did not set up his own car company in the USA until 1903 which was sixteen years after Karl Benz’s engine was patented and fourteen years after the Benz Patent Motorwagen became the first commercially available automobile in the world.

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In addition to his many years of university training in mechanical engineering, I think the most valuable trait Karl Benz possessed was his perseverance and unwillingness to give up when he met with failure.  He worked at many different jobs (apprentice for seven years in various mechanical engineering companies, draftsman, designer in a scales company, bridge building company, iron construction company), all of which helped him become more knowledgeable about many of the complex components needed to work together in an automobile.  He also had at least two failed partnerships along the way to fulfilling his dream of creating the “horseless carriage” but he kept going.

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Karl Benz needed to know how to build an engine so he would have had to know about mechanical engineering. He also would know about how speed, weight and distance worked together to move and stop an automobile. Putting steering on the car so the car would turn and braking systems to stop quickly would have also been important components. I think what would have been the part that he had trouble in was getting it to start easily, turn effectively and stop safely. All of these issues were dealt with through his many subsequent patents and the various models developed before the car itself was commercially produced.

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This invention has changed the way people live because people used to use horse and buggy or by steam-powered trains.  Now they drive a car which is not only fast but easier to maintain than a horse. People are able to travel much greater distances, too.  The internal combustion engine has also negatively impacted the way people live today because if it wasn’t made then we wouldn’t have as much pollution. To continue to benefit from its invention yet curb these detrimental effects on our environment, contemporary engineers are coming out with electric and hybrid engines so we can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels to power our cars.  It is an indisputable fact that if we didn’t have the first self-powered automobile, then our lives today would been drastically different.

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This invention helped the people of the time as it was getting them from place to place faster. Instead of walking or using a horse and buggy one could now use the Benz Patent Motorwagen to get around. A benefit of having a motor run vehicle to get around is that there would not be any delays resulting from the horse having to stop and rest or defecate (aka poop!).

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The invention of the Benz Patent Motorwagen is rooted in both Mechanical and Locomotive Engineering fields of study.

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The Benz Patent Motorwagen:
a) moves without a horse (first horseless carriage);

b) travels 100 km on 10 litres of gasoline;

c) has a lever that controls the speed; and

d) unlike the steam-powered vehicles, it has breaks and is run by a gas engine.

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Karl Benz invented the first internal engine after many years of experimenting with ways in which to have a self-powered vehicle.  He began dreaming about this as he rode his bicycle everywhere as a young boy.  His father had been a locomotive engineer and Benz eventually followed in his footsteps after graduating from university with a mechanical engineering degree in 1864 at the age of 19.  His first company, called the Iron Foundry and Mechanical Workshop, failed but his fiancee helped turn it around.  From 1872-1879 Karl Benz concentrated on developing new engines.  His two-stroke engine was patented in 1879.  As he continued to make improvements to his invention, he patented many of them along the way.  Without these advancements, the automotive industry would not have advanced so quickly.  Karl Benz is also credited for inventing a speed regulation system (aka speedometer), an ignition system using sparks from a battery (aka automatic start), the spark plug, the carburetor, the clutch, the gear shift and the water radiator. By 1882, needing more funds, he formed another partnership but it too failed just a year later.  In 1883, Karl Benz found a bicycle repair shop and began a partnership with its owners.  Its success allowed Benz to return his focus on designing a self-powered vehicle. Based on his love of bicycles, the prototype of his automobile had wire wheels, unlike the wooden ones of horse-drawn carriages. It was a 3-wheeled wagon with an engine between the back two wheels. He made a platform for the motor behind where people sit and put a internal combustion engine on the platform. The first model, of 1885, was difficult to control (with an engine weighing over 100 kg.) and travelled at a top speed of 16 km/h.  Obviously further refinements were needed. It wasn’t until 1888 that the third model of the Benz Patent Motorwagen was ready for sale commercially.

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Although not officially patented until 1886, the car was first built and driven successfully in Mannheim, Germany in 1885.

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Karl Benz was born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant on November 25 1844 in Germany.  He originally had his mother’s maiden name as his parents did not marry until after his birth.  He then became Karl Benz. He died on April 4, 1929 at the age of eighty-four in Germany.