Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot was a French inventor born on February 26, 1725, and he died on October 2, 1804. He created the world's first working and full-sized self-moving vehicle called the "Fardier à vapeur," which is considered the first automobile ever made.
Background
He was born in Void-Vacon, Lorraine, which is now part of the Meuse department in France. He studied to become a military engineer. In 1765, he started creating models of vehicles powered by steam engines for the French Army. These models were designed to transport cannons.
First self-propelled vehicle
French Army captain Cugnot was one of the first people to successfully use a machine that changed the back-and-forth movement of a steam piston into a spinning motion using a gear system. A smaller version of his three-wheeled steam-powered vehicle, called the "fardier à vapeur" (steam dray), was built and used in 1769. A fardier was a heavy two-wheeled cart pulled by horses, used to move very heavy items like cannon barrels.
In 1770, a full-size version of the fardier à vapeur was created. It was designed to carry four tons and travel two lieue (7.8 kilometers or 4.8 miles) in one hour, but it never reached this goal in practice. The vehicle weighed about 2.5 tonnes when empty and 2.8 tonnes when fully loaded. It had two wheels in the back and one wheel in the front, where horses would usually be. The front wheel held the steam boiler and the engine. The engine was connected to the rest of the vehicle and could be steered from the back using a pair of handles. One report said the vehicle could carry four passengers and move at a speed of 3.6 kilometers per hour (2.25 miles per hour).
The vehicle was reported to be very unstable because the weight was not balanced well. This made it hard to use on rough ground or steep hills. The boiler also did not work well, even by standards of that time. The fire in the boiler had to be relit, and steam had to be made again every 15 minutes or so. This made the vehicle move slowly and cover less distance.
After a few test runs, which took place in different areas near Paris, the project was stopped. This ended the French Army’s first attempt to build a mechanical vehicle. However, in 1772, King Louis XV gave Cugnot a yearly pension of 600 livres for his work. The vehicle was considered interesting enough to be kept at the arsenal. In 1800, it was moved to the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, where it is still on display today.
241 years later, in 2010, a copy of the "fardier de Cugnot" was built by students from ParisTech, working with the town where Cugnot was born, Void-Vacon. The replica worked well, showing that the original idea was correct and that the tests from 1769 were accurate. The replica was shown at the 2010 Paris Motor Show and later displayed in Void-Vacon.
First automobile accident
In 1771, there is a report of a small accident involving an early model vehicle. The vehicle is said to have accidentally knocked down a brick or stone wall, possibly in a Paris garden or part of the Paris Arsenal walls. This might be the first known automobile accident. However, no documents from that time mention the event. The story first appeared in 1804, 33 years after the accident. Some people still believe that Cugnot was arrested and convicted for dangerous driving, which would be the first such case if true.
Later life
After the French Revolution, Cugnot's pension was taken away in 1789. He left the country and went to Brussels, where he lived in poverty. Before his death, Napoleon Bonaparte restored his pension. Cugnot returned to Paris and died on October 2, 1804.