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Vehicle

[[File:Luxury Car 2.jpg|thumb|right|Automobiles are among the most commonly used engine-powered vehicles]] A '''vehicle''' () is a mechanical means of conveyance, a carriage or transport. Most often they are manufactured (e.g. bicycles, automobile|cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft), although some other means of transport which are not made by humans also may be called vehicles; examples include icebergs and floating tree trunks. Vehicles may be propelled or pulled by engines or animals including humans, for instance, a chariot, a stagecoach, a mule-drawn barge, an ox-cart or rickshaw. However, animals on their own, though used as a means of transport, are not called vehicles, but rather beasts of burden or draft animals. This distinction includes humans carrying another human, for example a child or a disabled person. Means of transport without a vehicle or animal would include walking, running, crawling, or Human swimming|swimming. Vehicles that do not travel on land often are called craft (vehicle)|craft, such as watercraft, sailcraft, aircraft, hovercraft, and spacecraft Land vehicles are classified broadly by what is used to apply steering and drive forces against the ground: wheeled vehicle|wheeled, tracked vehicle|tracked, railed vehicle|railed, or Ski#Use on vehicles|skied.

History of vehicles

- The oldest boats to be found by archaeological excavation are logboats from around 7,000-9,000 years ago,
- a 7,000 year-old seagoing boat made from reeds and tar has been found in Kuwait.
- Boats were used between 4000BCE-3000BCE in Sumer,Denemark 2000, page 208 ancient Egypt and in the Indian Ocean.
- There is evidence of camel pulled wheeled vehicles about 3000-4000 BCE.http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/26/wheeled-vehicle-camel.html
- The earliest evidence of a wagonway, a predecessor of the railway, found so far was the 6 to 8.5 km long ''Diolkos'' wagonway, which transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece since around 600 BC.Verdelis, Nikolaos: "Le diolkos de L'Isthme", ''Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique'', Vol. 81 (1957), pp. 526-529 (526)Cook, R. M.: "Archaic Greek Trade: Three Conjectures 1. The Diolkos", ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'', Vol. 99 (1979), pp. 152-155 (152)Drijvers, J.W.: "Strabo VIII 2,1 (C335): Porthmeia and the Diolkos", ''Mnemosyne'', Vol. 45 (1992), pp. 75-76 (75)Raepsaet, G. & Tolley, M.: "Le Diolkos de l’Isthme à Corinthe: son tracé, son fonctionnement", ''Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique'', Vol. 117 (1993), pp. 233–261 (256)Lewis, M. J. T., "Railways in the Greek and Roman world", in Guy, A. / Rees, J. (eds), ''Early Railways. A Selection of Papers from the First International Early Railways Conference'' (2001), pp. 8-19 (11) Wheeled vehicles pulled by men and animals ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element, preventing the wagons from leaving the intended route.
- Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a stained-glass window in the Freiburg Minster|Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau dating from around 1350.
- In 1515, Matthäus Lang|Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug, a funicular|funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Castle in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope, and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel.
- 1769 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is often credited with building the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle or automobile in about 1769, by adapting an existing horse-drawn vehicle, this claim is disputed by some, who doubt Cugnot's three-wheeler ever ran or was stable.
- In Russia, in the 1780s, Ivan Kulibin developed a human-pedalled, three-wheeled carriage with modern features such as a flywheel, brake, gear box, and Bearing (mechanical)|bearings; however, it was not developed further.
- 1783 Montgolfier brothers first Balloon (aircraft)|Balloon vehicle
- Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his ''Puffing Devil'' road locomotive in 1801, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle, although it was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods, and would have been of little practical use.
- push bikes Dandy horse|draisines, or hobby horses were the first human means of transport to make use of the two-wheeler principle, the draisine (or ''Laufmaschine'', "running machine"), invented by the Germany|German Freiherr|Baron Karl Drais|Karl von Drais, is regarded as the forerunner of the modern bicycle (and motorcycle). It was introduced by Drais to the public in Mannheim in summer 1817.
- 1885 Otto Lilienthal began experimental gliding (flight)|gliding, and achieved the first sustained, controlled, reproducible flights.
- 1903 Wright brothers flew the first controlled, powered aircraft
- 1928 Opel RAK.1 rocket car
- 1961 Vostok vehicle carried first man (Yuri Gagarin) into space
- 1969 Apollo Program first manned vehicle lands on the moon

Power source

Vehicles may be powered by fuels, such as petroleum or Diesel fuel|diesel, nuclear power, wind, surf board|waves, Battery (electricity)|batteries, electrical power, solar energy, gravity, human or animal power and other chemical reactions and physical sources of energy have seen some use.

Motors

The power is converted into some kind of motion by a "motor". Engines commonly include steam engines, internal combustion engines (including jet engines and gas turbines) or electric motors. Muscles perform this function in animals. Other schemes are sometimes used.

Movement

Vehicles use different means to permit or ease movement. These are commonly in the form of wheels, boat or submarine hull (watercraft)|hulls, skis, caterpillar tracks, skates, wings, rotorcraft|rotors or hovercraft|cushions of air or VTOL|jets of air. Ballooning|Lighter than air lifting and rocket power have also been used. Trains use tracks, either with wheels resting on them, or in a few cases using magnetic levitation. Cable cars are suspended from cables which move. Legs are used on experimental mechanical systems. One of the studies of vehicle movement is vehicle dynamics. In terms of dynamics, some vehicles such as bicycles and motorcycles leave essentially a Single-track vehicle|single track and are unstable at rest.

Propulsion

Propulsion is achieved in different ways. It can be achieved by an animal's legs that pulls a vehicle or by wheels that provide torque, by jet propulsion, a propeller or sometimes linear electric motors. Cables can also be attached to a vehicle, as in some funiculars. Wind powered vehicles such as yachts are nearly always directly propelled by the wind, but some unusual forms use the power of the wind to turn wheels. Some gravity powered vehicles such as glider aircraft, street luge and Soapbox (car)|soapbox cars have no in-built propulsion system.

Vehicle metrics

There are a broad range of metrics that denote the relative capabilities of various vehicles. Most of them apply to all vehicles while others are type-specific.

Types of vehicles

Bicycle

[[File:Quadracycling15Jul07.jpg|thumb|A pedal-powered Quadracycle (human-powered vehicle)|quadracycle parked on a Canada|Canadian urban street amongst the cars]]
- :''see Bicycles (see also Vehicular Cycling)''
- :''see main article History of the bicycle''

Rickshaw

A rickshaw is a vehicle that may carry a human and be powered by a human, but it is the mechanical form or cart that is powered by the human that is labeled as the vehicle. For some human-powered vehicles the human providing the power is labeled as a ''driver''.

Tricycle

- :''see Tricycle''

Quadracycle

- :''see Quadracycle (human-powered vehicle)''

Velomobile

- :''see Velomobile'' A velomobile is an enclosed human powered vehicle.

Electric road carriages

- :''see electric vehicle
- :''see history of the electric vehicle

Steam road carriage

- :''see steam car

Steam tricycle

- ''See steam tricycle'' At the other end of the scale, much lighter steam vehicles have been constructed such as the steam tricycle from the Comte de Dion in 1887.

Petroleum (gasoline / diesel) motor-carriages

- ''See Benz Patent Motorwagen''
- ''See Model T|Ford's model T''
- ''See Automobile''

Road trains

A road train consists of a conventional heavy truck pulling three trailers or more, used in rural areas of Australia to move bulky loads such as livestock efficiently.

Motorcycles

- ''See Motorcycle''
- ''See Motorcycle sidecar''
- ''See Gottlieb Daimler

Rail-vehicles

- ''see Trains''
- ''see Trams''

Road vehicles

- ''see Automobile|Cars
- ''see Buses
- ''see Trucks
- ''see Vans

Water vehicles

- ''see Boats''
- ''see Ships''

Under-water vehicles

- ''see submarines''
- ''see submersibles''
- ''see diving bells''
- ''see diving chambers''

Land and water vehicles

- ''see Amphibious vehicle
- ''see Amphibious ATV
- ''see Hovercraft

Air vehicles

- ''see aircraft''
- ''see Wing-In-Ground effect vehicle

Rocket and space vehicles

- ''see spacecraft''
- ''see rocket''
- ''see launch escape system|launch escape capsule''
- ''see ejection seat''

Snow vehicles

- ''see snowmobile''
- ''see sleds''

Other types of vehicles

File:Cycle rickshaw Beijing.jpg|thumb|A rickshaw is a vehicle that is powered by a human
- Rickshaw
- Auto rickshaws
- Coach (vehicle)|Coaches
- Vans
- skateboard
- land yacht
- :Category:Vehicles|More...

Legislation

Motor vehicle and trailer categories are defined according to the following international classification:http://www.acea.be/images/uploads/rf/DEFINITION_OF_VEHICLE_CATEGORIES.pdf
- Category M: passenger vehicles.
- Category N: motor vehicles for the carriage of goods.
- Category O: trailer (vehicle)|trailers and semi-trailers.

European Union

In the European Union the classifications for vehicle types are defined by Scadplus: Technical Harmonisation For Motor Vehicles:
- Commission Directive 2001/116/EC of 20 December 2001, adapting to technical progress Council Directive 70/156/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailersCouncil Directive 70/156/EEC, about Type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers, Commission Directive 2001/116/EC of 20 December 2001, adapting to technical progress Council Directive 70/156/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers
- Directive 2002/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 March 2002 relating to the type-approval of two or three-wheeled motor vehicles and repealing Council Directive 92/61/EEC European Community, is based on the Community's WVTA (whole vehicle type-approval) system. Under this system, manufacturers can obtain certification for a vehicle type in one Member State if it meets the EC technical requirements and then market it EU-wide with no need for further tests. Total technical harmonization already has been achieved in three vehicle categories (passenger cars, motorcycles, and tractors) and soon will be extended to other vehicle categories (Coach (vehicle)|coaches and utility vehicles). It is essential that European car manufacturers be ensured access to as large a market as possible. While the Community type-approval system allows manufacturers to benefit fully from the opportunities offered by the internal market, worldwide technical harmonization in the context of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) offers them a market which extends beyond European borders.

Acronyms and abbreviations

References

External links

- Green Vehicle Guide
- Strangest Vehicles In The World
- Council Directive 70/156/EEC, about Type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers.
- Council Directive 80/1267/EEC: Amendment of Directive 70/156/EEC
- Council Directive 80/1268/EEC Fuel consumption of motor vehicles.
- EU Motor Vehicle Type Approval.
- List of all motor vehicles produced in US, Mexico, & Canada Category:Transportation Category:Vehicles| Category:Vehicle categories simple:Vehicle

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