A car , or an automobile , is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads , seat one to eight people, have four wheels , and mainly transport people rather than cargo. The modern car—a practical, marketable automobile for everyday use—was invented in , when the German inventor Carl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Commercial cars became widely available during the 20th century. The Oldsmobile Curved Dash and the Ford Model T , both American cars, are widely considered the first mass-produced [ 3 ] [ 4 ] and mass-affordable [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] cars, respectively.
Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced horse-drawn carriages. Cars have controls for driving , parking , passenger comfort, and a variety of lamps.
Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex. These include rear-reversing cameras , air conditioning , navigation systems , and in-car entertainment. Most cars in use in the early s are propelled by an internal combustion engine , fueled by the combustion of fossil fuels.
Electric cars , which were invented early in the history of the car , became commercially available in the s and are predicted to cost less to buy than petrol-driven cars before There are costs and benefits to car use.
The costs to the individual include acquiring the vehicle, interest payments if the car is financed , repairs and maintenance , fuel, depreciation , driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance. Traffic collisions are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide. People's ability to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.
