The Automobile: From Benz to BYD

1885 – 202551 items

carstransport
Workers on Ford’s flywheel magneto assembly line at Highland Park, Michigan, 1913, the first step towards the moving line. Photographer unknown; US National Archives. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Workers on Ford’s flywheel magneto assembly line at Highland Park, Michigan, 1913, the first step towards the moving line. Photographer unknown; US National Archives. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

A hundred and forty years of the car

In January 1886 Karl Benz patented a three-wheeler with a petrol engine of less than one horsepower. Within a lifetime the car had remade cities, wages, wars and the price of oil; within two, the biggest seller of electric cars was a Chinese firm that began by making phone batteries.

This timeline follows the car from the German workshops of Benz and Daimler to Ford’s moving line in Detroit, Toyota’s factories in Japan, India’s Ambassador and Nano, and the electric-car makers of Shenzhen and Shanghai. It also tracks the electric car itself, which was a real rival in 1900, lost, and came back. All dates are in the Gregorian calendar, from whole decades down to single days.

How it is laid out

  • Periods: the pioneer years, the production runs of the Model T, the Beetle and the Hindustan Ambassador, the Toyota Production System, the two oil shocks and the rise of the electric car.

  • Threads to filter by: electric, production, racing, safety, energy and labour, and a country tag for each carmaking nation, from germany, usa, japan, india and china.

  • The map: factories from Detroit to Changchun and from Betim to Ulsan, and the great early drives as routes: Bertha Benz to Pforzheim, Paris to Rouen, Peking to Paris and across the Sahara.

Items

  1. The pioneer years

    ≈ 23 years

  2. Daimler and Maybach’s Riding Car takes its first ride

    Daimler’s garden workshop, Cannstatt

  3. Karl Benz files patent DRP 37435 for his Motorwagen

    Benz & Cie., Mannheim

  4. Bertha Benz drives from Mannheim to Pforzheim

    Bertha Benz’s outward route, Mannheim to Pforzheim

  5. Paris–Rouen, the first motoring competition

    Paris (Porte Maillot) to Rouen

  6. Bridget Driscoll, Britain’s first pedestrian killed by a car

    Crystal Palace grounds, London

  7. La Jamais Contente, an electric car, passes 100 kilometres an hour

    Achères, near Paris

  8. The first Mercedes wins at Nice

    Nice

  9. The Peking to Paris race

    2 months, 1 day · Peking to Paris, the Itala’s route (approximate)

  10. The Model T in production

    ≈ 18 years, 7 months

  11. The Model T goes on sale

    Piquette Avenue Plant, Detroit

  12. Cadillac fits Kettering’s electric self-starter

    Delco, Dayton, Ohio

  13. The moving assembly line at Highland Park

    Ford Highland Park Plant

  14. Ford announces the five-dollar day

    Ford Highland Park Plant

  15. Citroën’s half-tracks cross the Sahara

    21 days · Touggourt to Timbuktu (approximate)

  16. Fiat opens the Lingotto factory

    Lingotto, Turin

  17. Toyota Motor Co. is founded

    Koromo (now Toyota City)

  18. Hitler lays the cornerstone of the Volkswagen works

    Volkswagen works, Wolfsburg

  19. The Beetle in production

    ≈ 57 years · Volkswagen works, Wolfsburg

  20. “She’s a beauty!”: the first Holden

    Fishermans Bend, Melbourne

  21. Toyota builds its production system

    ≈ 23 years · Koromo (now Toyota City)

  22. The US funds the Interstate highways

    Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington

  23. China’s First Automobile Works builds its first truck

    First Automobile Works, Changchun

  24. The Hindustan Ambassador in production

    ≈ 55 years, 10 months · Hindustan Motors, Uttarpara

  25. Volvo delivers the first cars with three-point seat belts

    Kristianstad, Sweden

  26. The first Zhiguli leaves the Togliatti works

    AvtoVAZ, Togliatti

  27. The Beetle passes the Model T

    Volkswagen works, Wolfsburg

  28. The Arab oil embargo

    5 months, 2 days · Kuwait City

  29. The Hyundai Pony, South Korea’s own car

    Hyundai Motor, Ulsan

  30. The second oil shock

    ≈ 1 year

  31. Brazil’s Fiat 147 runs on sugar-cane ethanol

    Fiat, Betim, Minas Gerais

  32. Japan becomes the world’s biggest carmaker

  33. The first Maruti 800 is handed over

    Maruti Udyog, Gurgaon

  34. Shanghai Volkswagen is founded

    Great Hall of the People, Beijing

  35. The Proton Saga, Malaysia’s national car

    Proton, Shah Alam

  36. GM leases the EV1

  37. The Toyota Prius goes on sale in Japan

    Toyota Takaoka Plant, Toyota City

  38. The last original Beetle leaves the line in Puebla

    Volkswagen de México, Puebla

  39. Tata unveils the Nano, the one-lakh car

    Auto Expo, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

  40. Tesla delivers its first Roadster

  41. BYD launches the F3DM, the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid

    BYD, Shenzhen

  42. China becomes the world’s biggest car market

  43. The electric car comes back

    ≈ 14 years, 6 months

  44. The Nissan Leaf, the first mass-market electric car

    Nissan Oppama Plant, Yokosuka

  45. Dieselgate: the EPA accuses Volkswagen of cheating

  46. Tesla hands over the first Model 3s

    Tesla Factory, Fremont, California

  47. Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory delivers its first cars

    Tesla Gigafactory, Lingang, Shanghai

  48. BYD stops building petrol-only cars

  49. BYD outsells Tesla in electric cars for a quarter

  50. One new car in five sold worldwide is electric

  51. BYD outsells Tesla in electric cars for a whole year