The Invention Of The Automobile Analysis

In the United States as of 2015, there were 263,610,219 registered motor vehicles on the road. This is a drastic change compared to the number of cars just a century ago. The idea of the automobile dates back to the late seventeenth century when a small steam powered vehicle was invented for the Chinese Emperor. The actual practical automobile, however, dates back to the late nineteenth century in Germany with Karl Benz’s Motorwagen. Widespread use of the automobile in the United States began in 1908 when Henry Ford began mass producing his Model T. The efficiency of his mass production system allowed Ford to sell his cars for a much more reasonable price than before. The increased recognition and use of the automobile in the early nineteenth

According to the U.S history website, the automobile allowed people to travel to areas unavailable before. It states that the automobile allowed people to find new vacation spots, allowed urban citizens to see the countryside, and it allowed rural citizens to reach cities (“Age of the Automobile”). As a result of the invention of the car, Americans were able to have additional sources of leisure and commerce. The Center for Lifelong Learning and Design, from the University of Colorado Boulder, also explains the increased opportunity for mobility the automobile created. It writes that the automobile greatly increased mobility compared to the ten to fifteen miles per day that wagon travel allowed (“History of the Automobile”). The automobile therefore increased not only the distance possible for daily commutes but increased the distance possible and lessened the time needed for large scale travel. As a result of this increased mobility, the United States became more connected and seemed to be much

The Union of Concerned Scientists explains the effects the car has. They state that, “Collectively, cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all US emissions, emitting around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases for every gallon of gas” (“Car Emissions”). The automobile produces much of the emissions coming from the United States, and adding on top of that all the years that the car has been commonly used, and therefore has been emitting gases, and the emissions become an enormous amount. Not only the use cars but the production of cars as well produces gases dangerous to the environment. According to Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark from The Guardian, “Producing a medium-sized new car costing £24,000 may generate more than 17 tons of CO2e” (Berners-Lee, Clark). These statistics show that both use and production of automobiles produce large amounts of gases that are harmful to the environment. This situation therefore is not just a problem for the United States, but the entire