Advantages of Gasoline

The internal combustion engine burns fuel within the cylinders and converts the expanding force of the combustion or "explosion" into rotary force used to propel the vehicle. There are several types of internal combustion engines: two and four cycle reciprocating piston engines, gas turbines, free piston, and rotary combustion engines. The four cycle reciprocating engine has been refined to such a degree that it has almost complete dominance in the automotive field.

The engine is the heart of the automobile. It converts fuel into the energy that powers the automobile. To operate, it requires clean air for the fuel, water for cooling, electricity (which it generates) for igniting the fuel, and oil for lubrication. A battery and electric starter get it going.

Charles and Frank Duryea built the first American automobile in 1892. In the winter of 1895/96 they produced 13 Duryeas, which became the first horseless carriages regularly manufactured in the United States.

In 1900, at the first National Automobile Show in New York City, visitors overwhelmingly chose the electric car. Most people thought the gasoline engine would never last. One critic of the engine wrote that it was noisy, unreliable, and elephantine; that it vibrated so violently as to "loosen one's dentures." He went on to give the opinion that the gasoline motor would never be a factor in America's growing automobile industry. People were afraid that gasoline
engines would explode. Motorweek magazine referred to them as "explosives." At the show, a bucket brigade was standing by every time an "explosive," was cranked. However, just three years later, at the same show, the number of cars with four-stroke internal combustion gasoline engines had risen sharply.

Each "cylinder" of the typical car engine has a "piston" which moves back and forth within the cylinder (this is called "reciprocating"). Each piston is connected to the "crankshaft" by means of a link known as a "connecting rod".