Numerous steam cars at the beginning of the 20th century
Steam was for a long time the most popular fuel in the automobile industry, but for example, a total of 485 of the 909 automobiles registered in the United States in 1902 were powered by steam.
Ever since the 17th century, inventors have experimented with steam-powered vehicles, but it was not until the 1880s that mass-produced steam vehicles began to drive on the roads in Europe and America.
In steam vehicles, many decades of experience from railway production were used, and at first steam cars were considered to be ahead of gasoline-powered ones.
However, the invention of the electric self-starter caused a revolution when it came on the market in 1912.
It was both difficult and dangerous to start a gasoline engine with a hand crank, and with the automatic self-starter you only had to press a button. Steam engines could not start until some time had passed, because first the water had to boil.
From shovel wheel to piston engine – steam powered the first cars
The mass production of the automobile manufacturer Ford also meant that gasoline-powered cars became both cheaper and more efficient than steam-powered ones.
In the years following the introduction of gasoline-powered automobiles, factories that produced steam cars closed one after the other. The last factory to produce steam cars, Doble, eventually went bankrupt and closed its doors in 1931.
