Cars, Trucks, Etc.

The History of Automobiles

and explain the latest Tesla Model Y

By: Kyler Nguyen, Journalist

March 25, 2025

As of right now, it’s possible that you always take a car ride to wherever you go. But have you ever wondered what original automobiles look like when it was invented for the first time ever? Well, we will dive in the history of automobiles anyways.

Steam-Powered Vehicle (1672)

This was the first ever automobile made in history. However, this didn’t work. The inventor, Ferdinand Verbiest, was a member of a Jesuit mission in China. The vehicle was meant for the Kangxi Emperor. It was pretty small and couldn’t even hold the driver. But it was the first automobile made in history.

Steam-Powered Self-Propelled Vehicle (1770)

The inventor for the steam-powered self-propelled vehicle was Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. However, his first ever vehicle was rejected when he tried to provide this to the government. So he made another version of it which works just fine. This was mainly used to transport animals, but it can also transport people too. Which marks it’s successful invention.

Oil-fired Steam Car (1816)

Josef Bozek, the inventor, invented the oil-fired steam car in 1816. This car works just fine, but that’s all we know about this car. There isn’t much information told about this oil-fired steam car. Though, the name explains itself of how it works. This works by firing oil to make the car move. It’s basically firing gas out just like today.

Standard Vanguard (1947)

Around in this era, cars were developing at it’s peak. We went from weak powered vehicles to gas powered vehicles that pack a punch in speed. This car works pretty well for an old modeled car. This car was pretty popular for a post World War 2 vehicle. But this production of cars was halted at 1963.

Tesla Model Y (2025)

Tesla introduces electric cars as this marks the rise of electric cars. The latest Tesla Model Y has the range of 327 miles. It can also charge for 15 minutes with 169 miles. It is also capable of driving by itself. There’s many futuristic like features like camera cars detection where it detects vehicles that are surrounded by you, auto drives itself to you when your about to leave a place, and also drive by itself safely. For example, after you go to a store, you go to the parking lot and you don’t know where your car is, so you go to the sidewalk to where a car can park temporarily. You tap the button and your car drives itself out of the parking lot. Then it drives to you. We went from a simple a wooden wheel with big pots that shoot out chemicals to drive, to an electric car that doesn’t use gas to boost but uses electricity instead. The past 4 centuries of these auto mobiles was worth it.