PRIME MOVERS FOR MOTOR VEHICLES

The motion of all vehicles requires the expenditure of a certain quantity of mechanical energy, and in motor vehicles the system that supplies such energy (in most cases an internal combustion engine) is on board. The lack of an adequate prime mover is the main reason that mechanical vehicles could be built only at the end of the industrial revolution, and enter mass production only in the Twentieth Century, in spite of attempts dating back to ancient times. For a mechanical vehicle to be built, a prime mover able to move not only itself, but the vehicle structure and payload...