Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot
French inventor (1725-1804) · France · Scientists · Died at 79
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is read about 267 times a day, in 43 languages.
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Something wrong?He built a steam-powered wagon in 1769 that could move under its own power - no horses, no rails - making him the builder of what's arguably the first automobile, a century before the internal combustion engine.
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About this person
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot was born on 26 February 1725 in France. He designed and constructed the "Fardier à vapeur," the world's first full-size, working self-propelled mechanical land-vehicle. The machine ran on steam and moved without external power - a functional automobile before the concept had a name. He died on 2 October 1804, having demonstrated that a vehicle could carry itself forward by its own engine decades before anyone else managed it at scale.
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