Beginning of Essay
After the steam engine was invented in the early 17th century, various attempts were made to apply this source of power to self-propelled road vehicles. Early efforts were unsuccessful, except for those that produced interesting toys such as the machine developed ....

Middle of Essay
.... power unit, wich was the first to have the piston moved by steam at high pressure. In the United States, the inventor Oliver Evans obtained the first patent on a steam carriage in 1789. In 1803, he built a self-propelled steam dredge, wich is regarded as the first self-propelled vehicle to operate over American roads. In France and Germany, meanwhile, attention turned to the development of the internal-combustion engine. By 1980, more than 300 million cars and 85 million trucks and buses were operating throughout the world, forming an indispensable transportation network. Germany’s Volkswagen sent its first shipments of autos, popularly known as ....