22nd Century - Pages from History

The period of 20th and 21st century was an era when people used automotives run by oil as a primary mode of private transportation. These automobiles had more than 1000 moving parts operating in a highly complex inter linkages; all working towards rotating an axle which in-turn rotated the wheels. It was the time when the engines were driven by use of oil as a fuel. As the oil was the prime and major source of fuel found at that time, all measures were made to minimize the consumption of it in the automobile. However, when automobile was invented, it was run by steam for a shorter period of time. Also, it was the time when whole of the world believed in converting a reciprocating motion to a rotary motion through an engine was the only solution to rotate the wheels of an automobile. The more powerful and sophisticated the automobile, the more the price. The maximum speed it could achieve was 200km/hr and the some of the best in class could achieve up to 600km/hr, which is still is only 1/10th the speed of today’s automotive.

The beginning of 21st century saw emergence of few hybrid automotives. However due to lack of capacity in electricity production and the self interest of large automobile companies (who had invested hugely in their oil run engine automotive production) might have caused the sluggishness in moving towards a newer model of automotive. Also one has to bear in mind that this was the time when power was just growing in stature as a large infrastructure commodity and the whole world’s capacity was just 1/1000th of today’s installed capacity. Although batteries occupied a prime part in an automobile, its functionality stopped at starting the vehicle and lighting it. There were not any significant breakthroughs in battery technology until the birth of 21st century when mankind brought about use of Lithium-ion batteries fueled by the necessity due to growing concerns on availability of oil. Here, it is also worth noting that it was in the 20th century, mankind managed to make a shift from locomotive rail engines to electrical engines in large economies. However in few countries, diesel engines were still predominantly used.

There is little doubt that automotive revolution started not in 1889, when Daimler and Maybach invented gasoline driven automotives, but when Henry Ford mass produced it in 1896 and took the world by storm. There is no denying the fact that highly skilled people over different period of times over 20th and 21st century had mastered engineering and the working and the modeling of the automotive, from reduction of engine noise to optimization of fuel consumption to timing of fuel delivery and so on and on. But mankind of those centuries seemed to have too fixed on basic functionalities of an automobile and carried this on for a quite a long period than it should have. It took them nearly more than 150 years to create the second automotive revolution. The reasons are not clearly known and there seems to be an endless debate. All that we can wish is to see the next automotive revolution in this 22nd century; who knows, our fuel cells could be replaced by a no-fuel automotive or a flying car, which has been so lucrative for few decades.