Where was the automobile invented?

Answer 1

While there were certainly many prototypes made with an internal combustion engine, this is often credited by historians as being that of Carl Benz which was a three wheeler produced in 1886. While there had been many steam powered vehicles as early as the 1820s, these did not lead to modern automobiles, and so are not considered the ancestors of modern automobiles.

In the same year Gottleib Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach produced their first automobile. Daimler and Maybach had both worked for Otto & Cie (now Deutz AG) to develop the first engines for Nikolaus August Otto which were based on work by the French engineer Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir.

Lenoir created the first internal combustion engine. It ran on "illuminating gas" for its fuel. In 1863 he created an automobile which is now being restored that ran on a liquid fuel, which was probably Ligroin, which was also used by Daimler and Benz for their first engines and historians are now debating whether to give the credit for the first automobile with an internal combustion engine to Lenoir or to keep it with Carl.