For the country, see Central African Republic. This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia’s layout guidelines. The reason given is: car cake design layout. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure.

A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Cars were invented in 1886, when German inventor Carl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex. There are costs and benefits to car use. There are around one billion cars in use worldwide. Car usage is increasing rapidly, especially in China, India, and other newly industrialized countries.

Middle English carre “two-wheeled cart”, both of which in turn derive from Gaulish karros “chariot”. Motor car”, attested from 1895, is the usual formal term in British English. Autocar”, a variant likewise attested from 1895 and literally meaning “self-propelled car”, is now considered archaic. This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience. Specifically, detail should be moved to main article and summarized here. The first working steam-powered vehicle was designed by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. The development of external combustion engines is detailed as part of the history of the car but often treated separately from the development of true cars.

In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle. His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 in Mannheim, Germany. In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion flat engine, called boxermotor.