分享汽车工业及其历史小知识：Some facts about the auto industry and its origins

北雁南飞

The Peugeot 308 HDi 110 hatchback now holds the world record for the highest average fuel consumption. It has broken diesel economy records with a 3.1 l/100 km performance here in Australia.

The first Japanese car to be produced in the United States was the Honda Accord in November 1982. In its first year of production, it became the best-selling Japanese car in the United States.

The car that sold more than one million units in 1965 - setting a record that still stands today - is the Chevrolet Impala.

The first ‘pony car’ was introduced in 1964 by Ford Mustang, a new class of automobile which was designed to be more compact and more affordable than the larger muscle cars.

The Tata Nano is now the cheapest car in the world. It is expected to outsell the Maruti 800.

The Templar Touring Roadster was the first automobile that offered a compass and a camera as standard equipment in 1919.

The auto company that introduced the first hand brake was Packard in 1914.

The first laminated safety glass was introduced by Rickenbacker in 1926.

Radios were first offered in automobiles in the year 1923.

Windshield wipers were invented by a woman.

If you are in an automobile when lightning strikes, you are generally safe. This is due to the Faraday Effect in which the electricity dissipates over the area of the car. There is a potential difference between different points across the area, for example the roof of the car. This effect causes circles of electricity to disperse over the entire body of the car, keeping passengers safe.

The first modern petrol-driven internal combustion engine for a car was designed by Gottlieb Daimler.

In India for every 333 people there is one car, while here in Australia close to every second person owns a car.

The first cars did not have steering wheels. Drivers steered with a lever.

The first self-propelled car was built in 1769, when Nicolas Cugnot, a French military engineer designed a steam powered road-vehicle.

The first successful internal combustion engine was a two-stroke gas driven engine patented by Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir of Belgium in 1860.

On average there is about 3000 feet of electrical wiring in every car.

On average, a human being spends two weeks of their entire lives waiting for traffic lights to change.

The longest skid marks on a public road are said to been left by a Jaguar, involved in a motor accident in 1960, near Bedfordshire, UK. The skid marks were 950 feet or 290 metres long.

A blind person invented cruise control: Ralph Teetor, a prolific (and blind) inventor, invented cruise control. Teetor, blind since the age of five, built his first car, a one-cylinder, by the age of 12. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. His first job post-graduation was to develop technology for steam turbine rotors used in torpedo boat destroyers during World War I.

On April 25, 1901 the state of New York became the first state to require car licence plates by law. The very first licence plates were called number plates, which were first issued in 1893 in France by the police.