document_title: Boston Marathon bombing

question_text: how did they capture the boston marathon bombers

question_tokens: how did they capture the boston marathon bombers

text: Boston Marathon bombing

text: Bombing[edit]

text: The 117th annual Boston Marathon was run on Patriots' Day, April 15, 2013. At 2:49 p.m. EDT (18:49 UTC), two bombs detonated about 210 yards (190 m) apart at the finish line on Boylston Street near Copley Square.[22][23][24][25] The first exploded outside Marathon Sports at 671–673 Boylston Street at 2:49:43 p.m.[22] At the time of the first explosion, the race clock at the finish line showed 04:09:43,[26] reflecting the elapsed time since the Wave 3 start at 10:40 a.m. The second bomb exploded at 2:49:57 p.m.,[23][27] about 12 seconds later and one block farther west at 755 Boylston Street.[10] The explosions took place nearly three hours after the winner crossed the finish line,[27] but with more than 5,700 runners yet to finish.[28]

text: The blasts blew out windows on adjacent buildings but did not cause any structural damage.[27][29] Runners continued to cross the line until 2:57 p.m., 8 minutes after the explosions.[30]

text: Casualties and initial response[edit]

text: Rescue workers and medical personnel, on hand as usual for the marathon, gave aid as additional police, fire, and medical units were dispatched,[31][32] including from surrounding cities as well as private ambulances from all over the state. The explosions killed 3 civilians and injured an estimated 264 others, who were treated at 27 local hospitals. At least 14 people required amputations, with some suffering traumatic amputations as a direct result of the blasts.[5]

text: Police, following emergency plans, diverted arriving runners to Boston Common and Kenmore Square. The nearby Lenox Hotel and other buildings were evacuated.[25] Police closed a 15-block area around the blast site; this was reduced to a 12-block crime scene on April 16.[29][33][25] Boston police commissioner Edward F. Davis recommended that people stay off the streets.[29]

text: Dropped bags and packages, abandoned as their owners fled from the blasts, increased uncertainty as to the possible presence of more bombs.[22][34] There were false reports of more bombs.[11][25][35][36][37][38][39] An unrelated electrical fire at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in nearby Dorchester was initially feared to be a bomb.

text: The airspace over Boston was restricted, and departures halted from Boston's Logan International Airport.[40] Some local transit service was halted as well.[27]

text: The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency suggested people trying to contact those in the vicinity use text messaging instead of voice calls because of crowded cellphone lines.[27] Cellphone service in Boston was congested but remained in operation, despite some local media reports stating that cell service was shut down to prevent cell phones from being used as detonators.[41]

text: The American Red Cross helped concerned friends and family receive information about runners and casualties.[42][43] The Boston Police Department also set up a helpline for people concerned about relatives or acquaintances to contact and a line for people to provide information.[44] Google Person Finder activated their disaster service under Boston Marathon Explosions to log known information about missing persons as a publicly viewable file.[45]

text: Due to the closure of several hotels near the blast zone, a number of visitors were left with nowhere to stay; many Boston-area residents opened their homes to them.[46]

text: Investigation[edit]

text: The Federal Bureau of Investigation led the investigation, assisted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Drug Enforcement Administration,[47] and named two official suspects.[48]

text: United States government officials stated that there had been no intelligence reports that indicated such a bombing would take place. Representative Peter King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said: "I received two top secret briefings last week on the current threat levels in the United States, and there was no evidence of this at all."[49]

text: Following the identification of the suspects, their father claimed that the FBI had been watching his family and questioned his sons in Cambridge, Massachusetts, five times in relation to possible explosions on the streets of Boston.[50]

text: Evidence found near the blast sites included bits of metal, nails, ball bearings,[51] black nylon pieces from a backpack.[52] remains of an electronic circuit board, and wiring.[51][53] A pressure cooker lid was found on a nearby rooftop.[54] Both of the improvised explosive devices were pressure cooker bombs, manufactured by the bombers.[55][56][57][58] Authorities reportedly confirmed that the brothers used bomb making instructions found in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire.[59][60] After the suspects were identified, The Boston Globe reported that Tamerlan purchased fireworks from a fireworks store in New Hampshire.[61]

text: On April 19, the FBI, West New York Police Department, and Hudson County Sheriff's Department seized computer equipment from the suspects' sister's apartment located in West New York, New Jersey.[62]

text: On April 24, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security reported that its investigators had preliminarily reconstructed the bombs, and believed they had been triggered by remote controls used for toy cars.[63]

text: Events of April 18–19[edit]

text: Release of suspect photos[edit]

text: Jeff Bauman, who was immediately adjacent to one of the bombs and lost both legs, wrote in the hospital: "Bag, saw the guy, looked right at me".[65] He later gave a detailed description which enabled the photo to be identified and circulated quickly.[65][66][67]

text: At 5:20 p.m. on April 18, the FBI released images of two suspects carrying backpacks, asking the public's help in identifying them.[68][69] The FBI said it was doing this in part to limit harm to persons wrongly identified by news reports and on social-media.[70] As seen on video, the suspects stayed to observe the chaos after the explosions, then walked away casually. The public sent authorities a deluge of photographs and videos, which were scrutinized by both authorities and online public social networks.[69]

text: MIT shooting and carjacking[edit]

text: A few hours after the photos were released, the suspects shot Sean A. Collier of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Department six times[71] in an attempt to steal his gun, which they could not get out because of the holster's retention system.[72] Collier, aged 27, was seated in his police car near the Stata Center (Building 32), on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus.[18][73] He died soon after.[18][74]

text: The duo then carjacked a Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston; Tamerlan took the owner hostage and told him that he was responsible for the Boston bombing and for killing a police officer.[18] Dzhokhar followed them in the green Honda, later joining them in the Mercedes-Benz. Interrogation later allegedly revealed that the brothers "decided spontaneously" that they wanted to go to New York and bomb Times Square.[75]

text: The suspects forced the hostage to use his ATM cards to obtain $800 in cash.[76][77] They transferred objects to the Mercedes-Benz and one brother followed it in their Honda Civic,[78] for which an all-points bulletin was issued. The car's owner, Chinese national Dun Meng (referred to as "Danny" in early reports),[79] escaped while the suspects stopped at a gas station; he ran across the street to another gas station, asking the clerk to call 911.[80][81] His cell phone remained in the vehicle, allowing the police to focus their search on Watertown.[82]

text: Watertown shootout[edit]

text: Shortly after midnight on April 19, a Watertown police officer, Joseph Reynolds, identified the brothers in a Honda Civic and the stolen SUV. A gunfight followed on the 100 block of Laurel St, between the brothers and police arriving at the scene.[6][18][83] An estimated 200 to 300 rounds of ammunition were fired and at least one further bomb and several "crude grenades" were thrown.[83][84]

text: According to Watertown Police Chief Edward Deveau, the brothers had an "arsenal of guns."[85] After Tamerlan ran out of ammunition he threw his empty pistol at an officer, who tackled him together with another officer.[86][87] The younger brother Dzhokhar then drove the stolen SUV toward Tamerlan and police who unsuccessfully tried to drag Tamerlan out of his path;[86][87] the car ran over Tamerlan and dragged him a short distance down the street.[18][86][88][89][90] A half-mile away Dzhokhar abandoned the car and escaped on foot.[18][82][91][92]

text: Tamerlan Tsarnaev died at 1:35 a.m. at a Boston hospital. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police Officer Richard H. Donohue Jr.[93] was also critically wounded[94] but survived.[95] Boston Police Department officer Dennis Simmonds was injured by a hand grenade and died April 10, 2014. Fifteen other officers were also injured.[6] A later report by Harvard Kennedy School's Program on Crisis Leadership concluded that lack of coordination among police agencies had put the public at excessive risk during the shootout.[96]

text: Only one firearm, a Ruger 9 mm pistol with a defaced serial number, was recovered at the scene.[97][98]

text: Identification and search for suspects[edit]

text: The suspects were identified via registration records on their Honda, left at the scene,[99] as two brothers whose family had immigrated to the United States as asylees around 2002: 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev[a] and 19-year-old Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev.[b][100][101]

text: The FBI released additional photos of the two during the Watertown incident.[102] Early on April 19, Watertown residents received reverse 911 calls asking them to stay indoors.[103] On the morning of April 19, Governor Patrick asked residents of Watertown and adjacent cities and towns (Boston, Belmont, Brookline, Cambridge, Newton, and Waltham)[104][105] to "shelter in place".[106] Somerville residents also received a reverse-911 call with orders to shelter in place.[107]

text: A 20-block area of Watertown was cordoned off and residents were told not to leave their homes or answer the door as officers in tactical gear scoured the area. Helicopters circled the area and SWAT teams in armored vehicles moved through in formation, with officers going door-to-door.[108] On the scene were the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard, the Boston and Watertown Police departments and the Massachusetts State Police. The show of force was the first major field test of the interagency task forces created in the wake of the September 11 attacks.[109]

text: The entire public transit network, as well as most Boston taxi service,[c] was suspended, as was Amtrak service to and from Boston.[73][111] Logan International Airport remained open under heightened security.[111] Universities, schools, many businesses, and other facilities were closed as thousands of law enforcement personnel participated in an unprecedented door-to-door manhunt in Watertown, as well as following up other leads, including at the house the brothers shared in Cambridge. Seven improvised explosive devices were recovered by bomb squads.[112]

text: The brothers' father, speaking from his home in Makhachkala, Dagestan, encouraged his son to: "Give up. Give up. You have a bright future ahead of you. Come home to Russia." He continued, "If they killed him, then all hell would break loose."[113] On television, Dzhokhar's uncle from Montgomery Village, Maryland, pleaded with him to turn himself in.[114]

text: On the evening of April 19, two hours after the shelter-in-place order had been lifted,[115] a Watertown resident outside the search area noticed that the tarp of his parked boat was loose,[116] then saw a body lying inside in a pool of blood.[117] Authorities surrounded the boat and verified movement through a thermal imaging device in a police helicopter.[6][118] When the person inside started poking at the tarp, police shot at the boat.[119]

text: According to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Watertown Police Chief Deveau, Tsarnaev was shooting from inside the boat at police, "exchanging fire for an hour",[120] but was found to have no weapon when he was captured.[121] He was arrested at 8:42 p.m.[122][123] and taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition[124] with gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs and hand.[125] Initial reports that the neck wound represented a suicide attempt were contradicted by the fact that he was unarmed.[126]

text: Legal proceedings[edit]

text: Interrogation[edit]

text: United States Senators Kelly Ayotte, Saxby Chambliss, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain, and Representative Peter T. King, suggested that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a U.S. citizen, should be tried as an unlawful enemy combatant rather than as a criminal, potentially preventing him from obtaining legal counsel.[127][128] Other sources, including Alan Dershowitz, a prominent American legal scholar and lawyer, said that doing so would be illegal and would jeopardize the prosecution.[129][130] The government decided to try Dzhokhar in the federal criminal court system and not as an enemy combatant.[131]

text: Dzhokhar was questioned for 16 hours by investigators but stopped communicating with them on the night of April 22 after Judge Marianne Bowler read him a Miranda warning.[75][132] Dzhokhar had not previously been given a Miranda warning, as federal law enforcement officials invoked the warning's public safety exception.[133] This raised doubts whether the suspect's statements during this investigation would be admissible as evidence and led to a debate surrounding Miranda rights.[134][135][136]

text: Charges and detention[edit]

text: On April 22, 2013, formal criminal charges were brought against Tsarnaev in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts during a bedside hearing while he was hospitalized. He was charged with use of a weapon of mass destruction, and with malicious destruction of property resulting in death.[7] Some of the charges carry potential sentences of life imprisonment or the death penalty.[137] Tsarnaev was judged to be awake, mentally competent, and lucid, and he responded to most questions by nodding. When the judge asked him whether he was able to afford an attorney, he responded "no"; he was represented by the Federal Public Defender's office.[138] On April 26, Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was moved from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to the Federal Medical Center at Fort Devens, about 40 miles (64 km) from Boston. FMC Devens is a federal prison medical facility at a former Army base[139] where he was held in solitary confinement at a segregated housing unit[140] with 23-hour-per-day lockdown.[141][142]

text: On July 10, 2013, Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to 30 charges in his first public court appearance, including a murder charge for MIT police officer Sean Collier.[143] He was back in court for a status hearing on September 23,[144] and his lawyers requested more time to prepare their defense.[145] On October 2, Tsarnaev's attorneys asked the court to lift the special administrative measures (SAMs) imposed by Attorney General Holder in August, saying the measures had left Tsarnaev unduly isolated from communication with his family and lawyers, and that no evidence suggests he poses a future threat.[146]

text: Trial and sentencing[edit]

text: Jury selection began on January 5, 2015 and on March 3 the jury of eight men and 10 women (including six alternates), was selected.[147] The trial began on March 4 with Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb describing the bombing and painting Dzhokhar as "a soldier in a holy war against Americans" whose motive was "reaching paradise". He called the brothers equal participants.[148]

text: Defense attorney Judy Clarke admitted that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had placed the second bomb and was present at the murder of Sean Collier, the carjacking of Dun Meng, and the Watertown shootout, but emphasized the influence his older brother had on him, portraying him as a follower.[149] Between March 4 and 30, prosecutors called more than 90 witnesses, including bombing survivors who described losing limbs in the attack, and the government rested its case on March 30.[150] On March 31, after calling four witnesses, the defense rested as well.[151]

text: Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts on April 8.[152] The sentencing phase of the trial began April 21,[153] and on May 15 a further verdict was reached recommending Tsarnaev be put to death,[154] and on June 24 Tsarnaev, after apologizing to the victims, was sentenced to death.[155]

text: Motives and backgrounds of Tsarnaev brothers[edit]

text: Motives[edit]

text: According to FBI interrogators, Dzhokhar and his brother were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs, but "were not connected to any known terrorist groups"; instead learning to build explosive weapons from an online magazine published by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen.[19] They further alleged that "[Dzhokhar and] his brother considered suicide attacks and striking [the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular] on the Fourth of July;[156] but ultimately decided to use pressure cooker bombs (capable of remote detonation) and other IEDs." Fox News reported that the brothers "chose the prestigious race as a 'target of opportunity' ... [after] the building of the bombs came together more quickly than expected".[157][158]

text: Dzhokhar said he and his brother wanted to defend Islam from the U.S., which conducted the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan, in the view of the brothers, against Muslims.[8][131][159] Later a CBS report revealed that a note scrawled by Dzhokhar with a marker on the interior wall of the boat where he was hiding said the bombings were "retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq", and called the Boston victims "collateral damage", "in the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in U.S. wars around the world."[160][161] Photographs of the note were later used in the trial.[162][163]

text: Despite the outwardly religious motivation of the Tsarnaev brothers, some political science and public policy scholars suggest that Islam may have played a secondary role in the attacks.[164] Sympathy towards the political aspirations in the Caucasus region and Tamerlan's inability to become fully integrated into American society appear to be the primary motives, in their opinion.[164] According to the Los Angeles Times, a law enforcement official said Dzhokhar "did not seem as bothered about America's role in the Muslim world" as his brother Tamerlan had been.[60] Dzhokhar identified Tamerlan as the "driving force" behind the bombing, and said that his brother had only recently recruited him to help.[131][165]

text: Backgrounds[edit]

text: Tamerlan Tsarnaev was born in 1986 in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, North Caucasus.[166] Dzhokhar was born in 1993 in Kyrgyzstan, although some reports say his family claims he was born in Dagestan.[167] The family spent time in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, and in Makhachkala, Dagestan.[77][168] They are half Chechen through their father, Anzor, and half Avar[169] through their mother, Zubeidat. Although they never lived in Chechnya, the brothers self-identified as Chechen.[167][170][171][172]

text: The Tsarnaev family emigrated in 2002 to the United States,[18][170][173][174] where they applied for political asylum, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[101] Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended Bunker Hill Community College but dropped out to become a boxer. His goal was a place on the U.S. Olympic boxing team saying that "unless his native Chechnya becomes independent" he would "rather compete for the United States than for Russia".[175][176] He was married on July 15, 2010, in the Masjid Al Quran Mosque[177] in the Dorchester section of the city, to a U.S. citizen, Katherine Russell, who was pregnant with their daughter.[178] He stated that he "didn't understand" Americans and had not a single American friend. He had a history of violence, including an arrest in July 2009 for assaulting his then-girlfriend.[179]

text: The brothers are Muslim, with Tamerlan's aunt stating that he had recently become a devout Muslim.[171][172] Tamerlan, since 2009, became more devout and religious,[180][181] and a YouTube channel in his name linked to Salafist[180] and Islamist[178][182][183] videos. The FBI was informed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2011 that he was a "follower of radical Islam."[182] In response, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan and his family, and searched databases, but did not find any evidence of "terrorism activity, domestic or foreign."[184][185][186][187][188][189] During the 2012 trip to Dagestan, Tamerlan was reportedly a frequent visitor at a mosque on Kotrova Street in Makhachkala,[190][191][192] believed by the FSB to be linked with radical Islam.[191] Some experts believe "they were motivated by their faith, apparently an anti-American, radical version of Islam" acquired in the U.S.,[193] while others believe the turn to radicalism happened in Dagestan.[194]

text: At the time of the bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, with a major in marine biology.[195] Dzhokhar became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012.[196] Tamerlan's boxing coach reported to NBC that the young brother was greatly affected by his brother and admired him.[197][198]

text: Tamerlan Tsarnaev was previously connected, but at the time not a suspect, to the triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, on the evening of September 11, 2011.[199][200] Brendan Mess, Erik Weissman and Raphael Teken were murdered in Mess's apartment. All had their throats slit from ear to ear, with such great force that they were nearly decapitated. The local district attorney said that it appeared that the killer and the victims knew each other, and that the murders were not random.[201] Tamerlan Tsarnaev had previously described murder victim Brendan Mess as his "best friend."[202] After the bombing and subsequent revelations of Tsarnaev's personal life, the Waltham murders case was reexamined in April 2013 with Tsarnaev as a new suspect.[199] Both ABC and The New York Times have reported that there is strong evidence that implicates Tsarnaev in this triple homicide.[202][203]

text: Some analysts claim the Tsarnaev brothers' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, is a radical extremist and supporter of jihad, who influenced her sons' behavior.[204][205] This prompted the Russian government to warn the U.S. government about the family's behavior, on two occasions. Both Tamerlan and his mother were placed on a terrorism watch list about 18 months before the bombing took place.[206]

text: Other arrests, detentions, and prosecutions[edit]

text: Persons detained and released[edit]

text: On April 15, several people who were near the scene of the blast were taken into custody and questioned about the bombing, including a Saudi man whom police stopped as he was walking away from the explosion, and detained when some of his responses to questions "made them uncomfortable."[207][208][209][210] Law enforcement searched his residence in a Boston suburb. The man was found to have no connection to the attack; an unnamed U.S. official said, "he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time."[36][211][212]

text: On the night of April 18, two men riding in a taxi in the vicinity of the shootout were arrested and released shortly thereafter when police determined they were not involved in the Marathon attacks.[213] Another man was arrested several blocks from the site of the shootout and was forced to strip naked by police who feared he might have concealed explosives. He was released that evening after a brief investigation determined that he was an innocent bystander.[214][215]

text: Ibragim Todashev[edit]

text: On May 22, the FBI interrogated Ibragim Todashev, a Chechen from Boston, in Orlando, Florida. During the interrogation he was shot and killed by an FBI agent who claimed that Todashev attacked him.[216] The New York Times quoted an unnamed law enforcement official as saying that Todashev had confessed to a triple homicide and implicated Tsarnaev as well.[217] Todashev's father claims that his son is innocent and that federal investigators are biased against Chechens and made up their case against him.[218]

text: Dias Kadyrbayev, Azamat Tazhayakov, and Robel Phillipos[edit]

text: Personal backgrounds[edit]

text: Robel Phillipos, 19, was a U.S. citizen of Ethiopian descent living in Cambridge, was arrested and faced charges of knowingly making false statements to police.[219][220] He graduated from high school in 2011 with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.[221] Dias Kadyrbayev, 19, and Azamat Tazhayakov, 20, were Kazakhstan natives living in the U.S.[222][223][224] They were Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's roommates in an off-campus housing complex at which Tsarnaev had sometimes stayed in New Bedford, Massachusetts.[219]

text: Phillipos, Kadyrbayev, Tazhayakov, and Tsarnaev entered the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in the fall of 2011 and knew each other well. After seeing photos of the as-yet unidentified Tsarnaev on television, the three men traveled to Tsarnaev's dorm room, where they retrieved a backpack and laptop belonging to Tsarnaev. The backpack was discarded, but police recovered the backpack and contents in a nearby New Bedford landfill on April 26. During interviews, the men initially denied visiting the dorm room but later admitted their actions.[219][225]

text: Arrests and legal proceedings[edit]

text: During the night of April 18–19, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were arrested by police at the off-campus housing complex. An unidentified girlfriend of one of the men was also arrested.[222][223][224] All three were soon released.[219]

text: On April 20, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were re-arrested in New Bedford, and held on immigration-related violations. On May 1, they appeared before a federal immigration judge and were charged with overstaying their student visas.[226][227][228] That same day, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were charged criminally with:

text: willfully conspir(ing) with each other to commit an offense against the United States ... by knowingly destroying, concealing and covering up objects belonging to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, namely, a backpack containing fireworks and a laptop computer, with the intent to impede, obstruct, and influence the criminal investigation of the Marathon bombing.[229][230]

text: On August 8, 2013, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice for helping Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dispose of a laptop computer, fireworks, and a backpack after the bombing. Each faced up to 25 years in prison, and deportation if convicted.[231] On July 21, 2014, Tazhayakov was convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy.[232]

text: On August 22, 2014, Kadyrbayev pleaded guilty to obstruction charges.[233] Sentencing was delayed pending the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Yates v. United States.[234] In June 2015, Kadyrbayev was sentenced to six years in prison.[235]

text: Tazhayakov pleaded not guilty and went to trial, arguing that "Kadyrbayev was the mastermind behind destroying the evidence and that Tazhayakov only 'attempted obstruction.'" Jurors returned a guilty verdict against Tazhayakov, however, and in June 2015, Tazhayakov was sentenced to 42 months in prison, which equated to three and a half years. Judge Douglas Woodlock gave a lighter sentence to Tazahayakov than to Kadyrbayev, who was viewed as more culpable.[235] Tazhayakov was released in May 2016 and subsequently deported.[236]

text: Phillipos was arrested and faced charges of knowingly making false statements to police.[219][220] He was released on $100,000 bail, and placed under house confinement with an ankle bracelet.[221] On October 28, 2014, Phillipos was convicted on two charges of lying about being in Tsarnaev's dorm room. He later acknowledged he had been in that room while two other friends removed a backpack containing potential evidence relating to the bombing.[237]

text: Phillipos faced a maximum sentence of eight years' imprisonment on each count.[238] In June 2015, U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock sentenced him to three years in prison.[239] Phillipos filed an appeal, but on February 28, 2017, his sentence was upheld in court.[240]

text: Khairullozhon Matanov[edit]

text: On May 30, 2014, a federal indictment against Khairullozhon Matanov was unsealed, charging him with "one count of destroying, altering, and falsifying records, documents, and tangible objects in a federal investigation, specifically information on his computer, and three counts of making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements in a federal terrorism investigation." Matanov bought dinner for the two Tsarnaev brothers forty minutes after the bombing. After the Tsarnaev brothers' photos were released to the public, Matanov viewed the photos on the CNN and FBI websites before attempting to reach Dzhokhar, and then tried to give away his cell phone and delete hundreds of documents from his computer. Prosecutors said that Matanov attempted to mislead investigators about the nature of his relationship with the brothers and to conceal that he shared the brothers' philosophy of violence.[241][242]

text: Matanov was originally from Kyrgyzstan, came to the U.S. in 2010 on a student visa, and later claimed asylum. He attended Quincy College for two years before dropping out to become a taxicab driver. He was living in Quincy, Massachusetts at the time of his arrest, and was a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.[242]

text: In March 2015, Matanov pleaded guilty to all four counts.[242][243] In June 2015, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison.[242]

text: Victims[edit]

text: Deaths[edit]

text: Three civilians were killed in the bombing: Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, a restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts;[244] Lü Lingzi (Chinese: 吕令子),[245][246] 23, a Chinese national and Boston University graduate student from Shenyang, Liaoning;[247][248][249][250] and Martin William Richard, an eight-year-old boy from the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, who was killed by the second bomb.[251][252]

text: On April 18, at about 10:48 p.m., Sean A. Collier, 27, an MIT police officer (formerly with the Somerville Auxiliary Police Department from 2006 to 2009)[253] of Wilmington, Massachusetts, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, was ambushed in his police car and died from multiple gunshot wounds from the bombing suspects.[254] Boston Police Department officer Dennis Simmonds died on April 10, 2014 (nearly a year later), as a result of injuries he sustained from a hand grenade at the Watertown shootout.[4]

text: Injuries[edit]

text: According to the Boston Public Health Commission, 264 civilians were treated at 27 local hospitals.[5][255] Eleven days later, 29 remained hospitalized, one in critical condition.[256] Many victims had lower leg injuries and shrapnel wounds,[257] which indicated the devices were low to the ground.[258] At least 16 civilians lost limbs, at the scene or by amputation in a hospital, and three lost more than one limb.[259][260][261][262]

text: Doctors described removing "ball-bearing type" metallic beads a little larger than BBs, and small carpenter-type nails about 1 to 2.5 centimeters (0.4 to 1 in) long.[263] Similar objects were found at the scene.[51] The New York Times cited doctors as saying because the bombs were low to the ground, they mainly injured legs, ankles and feet instead of fatally injuring abdomens, chests, shoulders and heads.[264] Some victims had perforated eardrums.[258]

text: During a firefight with the suspects just after midnight on April 19, 33-year-old MBTA police officer Richard H. Donohue Jr. was critically wounded.[93] He lost almost all of his blood, and his heart stopped for 45 minutes, during which time he was kept alive by cardiopulmonary resuscitation.[265] The Boston Globe reported that Donohue may have been accidentally shot by a fellow officer.[94]

text: Marc Fucarile, who lost his right leg and received severe burns and shrapnel wounds, was the last victim released from hospital care, on July 24, 2013.[266]

text: Reactions[edit]

text: Law enforcement, local and national politicians, and various heads of state reacted quickly to the bombing, generally condemning the act and expressing sympathies for the victims.[52][267]

text: Aid to victims[edit]

text: The One Fund Boston, established by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston mayor Thomas Menino and administered by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, expects to make distributions to bombing victims by June 30.[268][269] "In my 20 years as mayor, I've never seen the business community come together so quickly," said Mayor Menino.[270] A week after the bombing, crowdfunding websites, such as GoFundMe, GiveForward, FundRazr, YouCaring and Fundly, received more than 23,000 pledges promising more than $2 million for the victims, their families, and others affected by the bombing.[271] On May 30, 2013 the Boston Strong concert at the TD Garden in Boston benefitted the One Fund. The concert featured Aerosmith, James Taylor, Boston, J. Geils Band, Dropkick Murphys, New Kids on the Block, Bell Biv DeVoe, Boyz II Men, Jimmy Buffett, Carole King, Extreme, Buffalo Springfield, The Monkees, Neil Young, and Jason Aldean.

text: The Israel Trauma Coalition for Response and Preparedness sent six psychologists and specialists from Israel to help Boston emergency responder, government administrators, and community stakeholders develop post-terrorist attack recovery strategies.[272]

text: Following a $212,000 donation from Health Bridge Management on September 12, 2013, the One Fund Boston had received more than $69.8 million in donations.[273]

text: Local[edit]

text: As a safety precaution, the NHL postponed from April 15 to April 28 a Boston Bruins home game against the Ottawa Senators at TD Garden.[274] The Boston Symphony Orchestra canceled its performance of April 15.[275] On April 16, the MBTA public transit system, which was partly shut down, was under heavy National Guard and police presence and it was shut down a second time April 19 during the manhunt.[73][111][276] The NBA's Boston Celtics game scheduled for April 16 against the Indiana Pacers was canceled since both teams' playoff seedings were already set.[274] The Boston Red Sox game at Fenway, the Bruins game, and the Big Apple Circus performance scheduled for April 19, were postponed to support efforts of law enforcement officers.[277] The NCAA announced on April 19 that the 2013 NCAA Men's Division III Volleyball Championship, scheduled for April 26–28 at the MIT campus in Cambridge, would be moved to Nazareth College near Rochester, New York.[278]

text: In the days after the bombing, makeshift memorials began to spring up all along the cordoned off area surrounding Boylston Street. The largest was initially located on Arlington Street, the easternmost edge of the barricades. Starting with flowers, tokens and T-shirts,[279] the makeshift memorial at Arlington Street quickly expanded prior to the move of the easternmost edge of the barricade westward from Arlington Street to Berkeley Street, as well as the move of the memorial from Arlington Street to Berkeley Street.[280] The growth of the memorial at Berkeley Street was rapid over the proceeding days starting with a small pile of assorted mementos on April 17, 2013,[281][282] and growing to a substantial shrine on April 18, 2013.[283] By April 19, 2013, the memorial was beginning to swell outwards toward Berkeley Street itself.[284] With the reopening of Copley Square to the Public, the memorials along the boundaries of Boylston street, including the largest one at Berkeley Street, were consolidated and moved into Copley Square.[285] In June the Makeshift Memorial located in Copley Square was taken down and the memorial objects located there were moved to the archives in West Roxbury for cleaning, fumigation, and archiving.[286]

text: Boston University established a scholarship in honor of Lü Lingzi, a student who died in the bombing.[287] University of Massachusetts Boston did the same in honor of alum and casualty of the bombing Krystle Campell.[288]MIT also established a scholarship and erected a sculpture (unveiled on April 29, 2015), both in memory of MIT Police officer Sean Collier.

text: On April 26, 2013, the Celtics honored the bombing victims and first responders before their playoff game against the Knicks at home in the TD Garden.[289] The Bruins' home playoff games held tributes to the Marathon bombing victims and first responders before the opening face-off.[290] After the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Bruins in the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals, the Blackhawks took out a full-page ad in The Boston Globe thanking the city of Boston for respect and sportsmanship during the Cup Finals and praising their recovery from the bombing.[291] On September 12, the New England Patriots honored 25 first responders with special jerseys in a ceremony before their opening home game against the New York Jets at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.[292] After the Red Sox won the 2013 World Series, the team used their celebratory parade on November 2, 2013, to honor the victims of the bombing at a dedication on the marathon finish line, a move considered to help the city "reclaim" its spirit that was lost after the bombing.[293]

text: A couple, Christian Williams and Caroline Reinsch, who both had sustained injuries in the bombing, and who had learned they were expecting while in hospital, had a daughter on December 18, 2013.[294]

text: National[edit]

text: President Barack Obama addressed the nation after the attack.[295] He said although the perpetrator(s) were still unknown, the government would "get to the bottom of this" and that those responsible "will feel the full weight of justice".[296] The next day, he said, "Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror."[297] He ordered flags to half-staff until April 20 on all federal buildings as "a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on April 15, 2013, in Boston, Massachusetts."[298] On April 18, he addressed an interfaith service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston to honor the victims of the attacks.[299]

text: Moments of silence were held at various events across the country, including at the openings of the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and NYMEX on the day after the bombing.[300]

text: A Boston Remembrance Run held in Portland, Oregon, on April 17, drew over 1,000 runners in a silent show of support.[301] The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon organizers asked runners, volunteers, and spectators to wear red socks. Marathon organizer Andrea Miles said, "As Oklahomans and folks participating in the OKC Memorial Marathon, we have such a deep connection to not only the marathon but the events from the Murrah bombing that have led to this memorial," Miles said. "So now we're not just running to remember the 168 people who were lost in 1995 but also to honor Boston and stand in solidarity with them.".[302] The marathon in Lansing, Michigan was the first marathon ran in the United States after the bombing. The events featured a moment of silence led by Mayor Virg Benero in respect for those affected by the incidents in Boston. This was preceded by Benero joining a Michigan resident who, after stopping short of the finish in Boston due to the bombing, finished the remaining half-mile of the race in Lansing.[303]

text: On June 7, 2013, a cross-country relay, One Run for Boston,[304] left Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California, for Boston. Organized by three Britons—Danny Bent, Kate Treleaven and James Hay—to support the Boston One Fund, the relay included more than 2,000 runners in 319 stages of 5 to 12 miles for a total of more than 3,000 miles in 14 states. The GPS baton carried to track the relay's progress crossed the Boston Marathon Finish Line around 1:00 a.m. on July 1, 2013.

text: International[edit]

text: The bombing was denounced and condolences were offered by many international leaders as well as leading figures from international sport. Security measures were increased worldwide in the wake of the attack.[305][306][307][308]

text: In China, users posted condolence messages on Weibo in response to the death of Lü Lingzi.[309] Chris Buckley of The New York Times said "Ms. Lu's death gave a melancholy face to the attraction that America and its colleges exert over many young Chinese."[248] Laurie Burkitt of The Wall Street Journal said "Ms. Lu's death resonates with many in China" due to the one-child policy.[310]

text: Organizers of the London Marathon, which was held six days after the Boston bombing, reviewed security arrangements for their event. Hundreds of extra police officers were drafted in to provide a greater presence on the streets, and a record 700,000 spectators lined the streets. Runners in London observed a 30-second silence in respect for the victims of Boston shortly before the race began, and many runners wore black ribbons on their vests. Organisers also pledged to donate US$3 to a fund for Boston Marathon victims for every person who finished the race.[311][312][313]

text: Organizers of the 2013 Vancouver Sun Run, which was held on April 21, 2013, donated $10 from every late entry for the race to help victims of the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Jamie Pitblado, vice-president of promotions for The Vancouver Sun and The Province, said the money would go to One Fund Boston, an official charity that collected donations for the victims and their families. Sun Run organizers raised anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000. There were over 48,000 participants, many dressed in blue and yellow (Boston colors) with others wearing Boston Red Sox caps.[314]

text: Petr Gandalovic, ambassador of the Czech Republic, released a statement after noticing much confusion on Facebook and Twitter between his nation and the Chechen Republic. "The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities – the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation."[315]

text: Security was also stepped up in Singapore in response to online threats made on attacking several locations in the city-state and the Singapore Marathon in December. Two suspects were investigated and one was eventually arrested for making false bomb threats.[316]

text: Russian reaction[edit]

text: The Russian government said special attention would be paid to security at upcoming international sports events in Russia, including the 2014 Winter Olympics.[317] According to the Russian embassy in the U.S., President Vladimir Putin condemned the bombing as a "barbaric crime" and "stressed that the Russian Federation will be ready, if necessary, to assist in the U.S. authorities' investigation."[318] He urged closer cooperation of security services with Western partners[319] but other Russian authorities and mass media blamed the U.S. authorities for negligence as they warned the US of the Tsarnaevs.[320] Moreover Russian authorities and mass media since the spring of 2014 blame USA for politically motivated false information about lack of response from Russian authorities after subsequent U.S. requests.[citation needed] As proof a letter from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was shown to the members of an official U.S. Congressional delegation to Moscow during their visit. This letter with information about Tsarnaev (including his biography details, connections and phone number) had been sent from FSB to FBI and CIA during March 2011.[321]

text: Republican U.S. Senators Saxby Chambliss and Richard Burr reported that Russian authorities had separately asked both the FBI (at least twice: during March and November 2011) and the CIA (September 2011) to look carefully into Tamerlan Tsarnaev and provide more information about him back to Russia.[322][323] Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) secretly recorded phone conversations between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother (they vaguely and indirectly discussed jihad) and sent these to the FBI as evidence of possible extremist links within the family.[324] However, while Russia offered US intelligence services warnings that Tsarnaev planned to link up with extremist groups abroad, an FBI investigation yielded no evidence to support those claims at the time. In addition, subsequent U.S. requests for additional information about Tsarnaev went unanswered by the Russians.[325]

text: Chechen reactions[edit]

text: On April 19, 2013, the press-secretary of the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, issued a statement that, inter alia, read: "The Boston bombing suspects have nothing to do with Chechnya".[326][327] On the same day, Kadyrov was reported by The Guardian to have written on Instagram:[328]

text: Any attempt to make a link between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs, if they are guilty, is in vain. They grew up in the U.S., their views and beliefs were formed there. The roots of evil must be searched for in America. The whole world must battle with terrorism. We know this better than anyone. We wish recover  [sic] to all the victims and share Americans' feeling of sorrow.

text: Akhmed Zakayev, head of the secular wing of the Chechen separatist movement, now in exile in London, condemned the bombing as "terrorist" and expressed condolences to the families of the victims. Zakayev denied that the bombers were in any way representative of the Chechen people, saying that "the Chechen people never had and can not have any hostile feelings toward the United States and its citizens."[329]

text: The Mujahideen of the Caucasus Emirate Province of Dagestan, the Caucasian Islamist organization in both Chechnya and Dagestan, denied any link to the bombing or the Tsarnaev brothers and stated that it was at war with Russia, not the United States. It also said that it had sworn off violence against civilians since 2012.[330][331][332]

text: Terrorist organizations[edit]

text: In the Turkistan Islamic Party's Turkestan Al-Islamiyya magazine, Issue 13, the Rohingya cleric Abu Dhar 'Azzam (Abu Dhar Al-Burmi) congratulated the Tsarnaev brothers on their terrorist attack in the Boston Marathon bombing, saying, "In the very house of unbelief, two Chechen brothers destroyed the infidels' fortresses on April 16, 2013. During the [ensuing] search [by the authorities for the perpetrators], the elder brother died as a martyr in the field of glory and honor, Allah willing. The younger brother, Dzokhar, remained, and told his dear nation: 'We did this operation as revenge for what America does in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan.' He didn't mention his homeland Chechnya, since this jihad is a jihad of [an entire] nation, not [a campaign] for the liberation of a single land.... The Muslims' lands are one and their honor is one."[333]

text: Criticism of "shelter-in-place" directive and house-to-house searches[edit]

text: During the manhunt for the perpetrators of the bombing, Governor Deval Patrick said "we are asking people to shelter in place." The request was highly effective; most people stayed home, causing Boston, Watertown, and Cambridge to come to a virtual standstill. According to Time magazine, "media described residents complying with a 'lockdown order,' but in reality the governor's security measure was a request." Scott Silliman, emeritus director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke Law School, said that the shelter-in-place request was voluntary.[334]

text: The shelter-in-place directive was criticized by some commentators. Michael Cohen of The Observer said that Americans have little experience with daily terrorism compared to some countries and "are more primed to … assume the absolute worst."[335] Cohen wrote that it was not the first time dangerous murderers have been on the loose in a large American city (citing Christopher Dorner in 2013 and the Beltway sniper attacks in 2002), but noted that "lockdown" measures were not used in those cases.[335] Former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, criticized what he described as a "military-style takeover of parts of Boston" during the investigation and wrote that "this unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself."[336]

text: Haaretz's Chemi Salev wrote that "in terms of cost-benefit analysis, from the evil terrorist's point of view, the Boylston Street bombings and their aftermath can only be viewed as a resounding triumph" since the "relatively amateurish" terrorists managed to intimidate a vast number of people and got a maximum amount of publicity.[337] Responding to Salev in The New York Times, Ross Douthat commented that the massive manhunt operation might deter other amateur terrorists, but not hard-core terrorists such as Mohammed Atta.[338] Douthat argued that out-of-the-ordinary measures can only be used when terrorism itself is out-of-the-ordinary: if attacks started to occur more often, people would not be as willing to comply with shelter-in-place commands, yet once a terrorist has been hunted with such an operation, it is hard to justify why such measures should not be taken the next time.[338]

text: The National Lawyers Guild and some news outlets questioned the constitutionality of the door-to-door searches conducted by law enforcement officers looking for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.[339][340][341]

text: Conflicting reports[edit]

text: On the afternoon of the bombing, the New York Post reported that a suspect, a Saudi Arabian male, was under guard and being questioned at a Boston hospital.[342] That evening, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said that there had not been an arrest.[343] The Post did not retract its story about the suspect, leading to widespread reports by CBS News, CNN, and other media that a Middle Eastern suspect was in custody.[344] The day after the bombing, a majority of outlets were reporting that the Saudi was a witness, not a suspect.[345]

text: The New York Post on its April 18 front page showed two men, and said they were being sought by the authorities. The two were not the ones being sought as suspects. They were a 17-year-old boy and his track coach. The boy, from Revere, Massachusetts, turned himself over to the police immediately and was cleared after a 20-minute interview in which they advised him to deactivate his Facebook account.[346][347] New York Post editor Col Allan stated, "We stand by our story. The image was emailed to law enforcement agencies yesterday afternoon seeking information about these men, as our story reported. We did not identify them as suspects." The two were implied to be possible suspects via crowdsourcing on the websites Reddit[347] and 4chan.[348]

text: Several other people were mistakenly identified as suspects.[349] Two of those wrongly identified as suspects on Reddit were a 17-year-old track star and Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student missing since March.[350][351] Tripathi was found dead on April 23 in the Providence River.[352]

text: On April 17, the FBI released the following statement:

text: Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack. Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.[353][354]

text: The decision to release the photos of the Tsarnaev brothers was made in part to limit damage done to those misidentified on the Internet and by the media, and to address concerns over maintaining control of the manhunt.[70]

text: Film adaption[edit]

text: A film about the Boston Marathon bombing, Patriots Day, was released in 2016.


document_title: History of the automobile

question_text: who built the first practical motor car in the united states

question_tokens: who built the first practical motor car in the united states

root

text: History of the automobile

text: Power sources[edit]

text: The early history of the automobile was concentrated on the search for a reliable portable power unit to propel the vehicle.

tag: p

text: Steam-powered wheeled vehicles[edit]

text: 17th and 18th centuries[edit]

text: Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built a steam-powered vehicle around 1672 as a toy for the Chinese Emperor. It was small scale and could not carry a driver but it was, quite possibly, the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile').[3][4]

text: Steam-powered self-propelled vehicles large enough to transport people and cargo were first devised in the late 18th century. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrated his fardier à vapeur ("steam dray"), an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor, in 1770 and 1771. As Cugnot's design proved to be impractical, his invention was not developed in his native France. The center of innovation shifted to Great Britain. By 1784, William Murdoch had built a working model of a steam carriage in Redruth [5] and in 1801 Richard Trevithick was running a full-sized vehicle on the roads in Camborne. The first automobile patent in the United States was granted to Oliver Evans in 1789.

text: 19th century[edit]

text: During the 19th century attempts were made to introduce practical steam powered vehicles. Innovations such as hand brakes, multi-speed transmissions and better steering developed. Some commercially successful vehicles provided mass transit until a backlash against these large vehicles resulted in the passage of legislation such as the United Kingdom Locomotive Act (1865), which required many self-propelled vehicles on public roads to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This effectively halted road auto development in the UK for most of the rest of the 19th century; inventors and engineers shifted their efforts to improvements in railway locomotives. The law was not repealed until 1896, although the need for the red flag was removed in 1878.

text: In 1816, a professor at Prague Polytechnic, Josef Bozek, built an oil-fired steam car.[6]:p.27 Walter Hancock, builder and operator of London steam buses, in 1838 built a 2 seated car phaeton.[6]:p27

text: In 1867, Canadian jeweller Henry Seth Taylor demonstrated his 4-wheeled "steam buggy" at the Stanstead Fair in Stanstead, Quebec and again the following year.[7] The basis of the buggy, which he began building in 1865, was a high-wheeled carriage with bracing to support a two-cylinder steam engine mounted on the floor.[8]

text: One of the first "real" automobiles was produced by Frenchman Amédée Bollée in 1873, who built self-propelled steam road vehicles to transport groups of passengers.

text: The first carriage-sized automobile suitable for use on existing wagon roads in the United States was a steam-powered vehicle invented in 1871 by Dr. J.W. Carhart, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Racine, Wisconsin.[1][9][self-published source] It induced the State of Wisconsin in 1875 to offer a $10,000 award to the first to produce a practical substitute for the use of horses and other animals. They stipulated that the vehicle would have to maintain an average speed of more than 5 miles per hour (8.0 km/h) over a 200-mile (320 km) course. The offer led to the first city to city automobile race in the United States, starting on 16 July 1878 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and ending in Madison, via Appleton, Oshkosh, Waupun, Watertown, Fort Atkinson, and Janesville. While seven vehicles were registered, only two started to compete: the entries from Green Bay and Oshkosh. The vehicle from Green Bay was faster, but broke down before completing the race. The Oshkosh finished the 201-mile (323 km) course in 33 hours and 27 minutes, and posted an average speed of six miles per hour. In 1879, the legislature awarded half the prize.[10][11][12]

text: 20th century[edit]

text: Steam-powered road vehicles, both cars and wagons, reached the peak of their development in the early 1930s with fast-steaming lightweight boilers and efficient engine designs. Internal combustion engines also developed greatly during WWI, becoming simpler to operate and more reliable. The development of the high-speed diesel engine from 1930 began to replace them for wagons, accelerated in the UK by tax changes making steam wagons uneconomic overnight. Although a few designers continued to advocate steam power, no significant developments in production steam cars took place after Doble in 1931.

text: Whether steam cars will ever be reborn in later technological eras remains to be seen. Magazines such as Light Steam Power continued to describe them into the 1980s. The 1950s saw interest in steam-turbine cars powered by small nuclear reactors[citation needed] (this was also true of aircraft), but the dangers inherent in nuclear fission technology soon killed these ideas.

text: Electric automobiles[edit]

text: In 1828, Ányos Jedlik, a Hungarian who invented an early type of electric motor, created a tiny model car powered by his new motor.[14] In 1834, Vermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport, the inventor of the first American DC electric motor, installed his motor in a small model car, which he operated on a short circular electrified track.[15] In 1835, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands and his assistant Christopher Becker created a small-scale electrical car, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.[16] In 1838, Scotsman Robert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of 4 miles per hour (6 km/h). In England, a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of tracks as conductors of electric current, and similar American patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in 1847.

text: Sources point to different creations as the first electric car. Between 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain) Robert Anderson of Scotland invented a crude electric carriage, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[17] But others regard the Flocken Elektrowagen of 1888 by German inventor Andreas Flocken as the first true electric car.[13]

text: Electric cars enjoyed popularity between the late 19th century and early 20th century, when electricity was among the preferred methods for automobile propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time. Advances in internal combustion technology, especially the electric starter, soon rendered this advantage moot; the greater range of gasoline cars, quicker refueling times, and growing petroleum infrastructure, along with the mass production of gasoline vehicles by companies such as the Ford Motor Company, which reduced prices of gasoline cars to less than half that of equivalent electric cars, led to a decline in the use of electric propulsion, effectively removing it from important markets such as the United States by the 1930s. However, in recent years, increased concerns over the environmental impact of gasoline cars, higher gasoline prices, improvements in battery technology, and the prospect of peak oil, have brought about renewed interest in electric cars, which are perceived to be more environmentally friendly and cheaper to maintain and run, despite high initial costs, after a failed reappearance in the late-1990s.

text: Internal combustion engines[edit]

text: Early attempts at making and using internal combustion engines were hampered by the lack of suitable fuels, particularly liquids, therefore the earliest engines used gas mixtures.

text: Early experimenters used gases. In 1806, Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built an engine powered by internal combustion of a hydrogen and oxygen mixture.[18] In 1826, Englishman Samuel Brown tested his hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine by using it to propel a vehicle up Shooter's Hill in south-east London. Belgian-born Etienne Lenoir's Hippomobile with a hydrogen-gas-fuelled one-cylinder internal combustion engine made a test drive from Paris to Joinville-le-Pont in 1860, covering some nine kilometres in about three hours.[19] A later version was propelled by coal gas. A Delamare-Deboutteville vehicle was patented and trialled in 1884.

text: About 1870, in Vienna, Austria (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), inventor Siegfried Marcus put a liquid-fuelled internal combustion engine on a simple handcart which made him the first man to propel a vehicle by means of gasoline. Today, this car is known as "the first Marcus car". In 1883, Marcus secured a German patent for a low-voltage ignition system of the magneto type; this was his only automotive patent. This design was used for all further engines, and the four-seat "second Marcus car" of 1888/89. This ignition, in conjunction with the "rotating-brush carburetor", made the second car's design very innovative. His second car is on display at the Technical Museum in Vienna. During his lifetime he was honored as the originator of the motorcar but his place in history was all but erased by the Nazis during World War II. Because Marcus was of Jewish descent, the Nazi propaganda office ordered his work to be destroyed, his name expunged from future textbooks, and his public memorials removed, giving credit instead to Karl Benz.[20]

text: It is generally acknowledged[according to whom?] that the first really practical automobiles with petrol/gasoline-powered internal combustion engines were completed almost simultaneously by several German inventors working independently: Karl Benz built his first automobile in 1885 in Mannheim. Benz was granted a patent for his automobile on 29 January 1886,[21] and began the first production of automobiles in 1888, after Bertha Benz, his wife, had proved – with the first long-distance trip in August 1888, from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back – that the horseless coach was absolutely suitable for daily use. Since 2008 a Bertha Benz Memorial Route commemorates this event.[22]

text: Soon after, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart in 1889 designed a vehicle from scratch to be an automobile, rather than a horse-drawn carriage fitted with an engine. They also are usually credited with invention of the first motorcycle in 1886, but Italy's Enrico Bernardi of the University of Padua, in 1882, patented a 0.024 horsepower (17.9 W) 122 cc (7.4 cu in) one-cylinder petrol motor, fitting it into his son's tricycle, making it at least a candidate for the first automobile and first motorcycle;.[6]:p.26 Bernardi enlarged the tricycle in 1892 to carry two adults.[6]:p.26

text: The first four-wheeled petrol-driven automobile in Britain was built in Walthamstow by Frederick Bremer in 1892.[23] Another was made in Birmingham in 1895 by Frederick William Lanchester, who also patented the disc brake. The first electric starter was installed on an Arnold, an adaptation of the Benz Velo, built in Kent between 1895 and 1898.[6]:p.25

text: George F. Foss of Sherbrooke, Quebec built a single-cylinder gasoline car in 1896 which he drove for 4 years, ignoring city officials' warnings of arrest for his "mad antics."[7]

text: In all the turmoil, many early pioneers are nearly forgotten. In 1891, John William Lambert built a three-wheeler in Ohio City, Ohio, which was destroyed in a fire the same year, while Henry Nadig constructed a four-wheeler in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It is likely they were not the only ones.[6]:p.25

text: Eras of invention[edit]

text: Veteran era[edit]

text: The first production of automobiles was by Karl Benz in 1888 in Germany and, under license from Benz, in France by Emile Roger. There were numerous others, including tricycle builders Rudolf Egg, Edward Butler, and Léon Bollée.[6]:p.20–23 Bollée, using a 650 cc (40 cu in) engine of his own design, enabled his driver, Jamin, to average 45 kilometres per hour (28.0 mph) in the 1897 Paris-Tourville rally.[6]:p.23 By 1900, mass production of automobiles had begun in France and the United States.

text: The first motor car in Central Europe was produced by the Austro-Hungarian company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra in today's Czech Republic) in 1897, the Präsident automobile.[24]

text: The first company formed exclusively to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France, which also introduced the first four-cylinder engine.[6]:p.22 Formed in 1889, Panhard was quickly followed by Peugeot two years later. By the start of the 20th century, the automobile industry was beginning to take off in Western Europe, especially in France, where 30,204 were produced in 1903, representing 48.8% of world automobile production that year.[25]

text: The American George B. Selden filed for a patent on 8 May 1879. His application included not only the engine but its use in a 4-wheeled car. Selden filed a series of amendments to his application which stretched out the legal process, resulting in a delay of 16 years before the patent was granted on 5 November 1895.[26] This patent did more to hinder than encourage development of autos in the United States. Selden licensed his patent to most major American automakers, collecting a fee on every car they produced.

text: In the United States, brothers Charles and Frank Duryea founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1893, becoming the first American automobile manufacturing company. The Autocar Company, founded in 1897, established a number of innovations still in use[27] and remains the oldest operating motor vehicle manufacturer in the United States However, it was Ransom E. Olds and his Olds Motor Vehicle Company (later known as Oldsmobile) who would dominate this era of automobile production. Its production line was running in 1901. The Thomas B. Jeffery Company developed the world's second mass-produced automobile, and 1,500 Ramblers were built and sold in its first year, representing one-sixth of all existing motorcars in the United States at the time.[28] Within a year, Cadillac (formed from the Henry Ford Company), Winton, and Ford were also producing cars in the thousands.

text: Within a few years, a dizzying assortment of technologies were being used by hundreds of producers all over the western world. Steam, electricity, and petrol/gasoline-powered automobiles competed for decades, with petrol/gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Dual- and even quad-engine cars were designed, and engine displacement ranged to more than a dozen litres. Many modern advances, including gas/electric hybrids, multi-valve engines, overhead camshafts, and four-wheel drive, were attempted, and discarded at this time.

text: In 1898, Louis Renault had a De Dion-Bouton modified, with fixed drive shaft and differential, making "perhaps the first hot rod in history" and bringing Renault and his brothers into the car industry.[29] Innovation was rapid and rampant, with no clear standards for basic vehicle architectures, body styles, construction materials, or controls, for example many veteran cars use a tiller, rather than a wheel for steering. During 1903, Rambler standardized on the steering wheel[30] and moved the driver's position to the left-hand side of the vehicle.[31] Chain drive was dominant over the drive shaft, and closed bodies were extremely rare. Drum brakes were introduced by Renault in 1902.[32] The next year, Dutch designer Jacobus Spijker built the first four-wheel drive racing car;[33] it never competed and it would be 1965 and the Jensen FF before four-wheel drive was used on a production car.[34]

text: Innovation was not limited to the vehicles themselves, either. Increasing numbers of cars propelled the growth of the petroleum industry,[35] as well as the development of technology to produce gasoline (replacing kerosene and coal oil) and of improvements in heat-tolerant mineral oil lubricants (replacing vegetable and animal oils).[36]

text: There were social effects, also. Music would be made about cars, such as "In My Merry Oldsmobile" (a tradition that continues) while, in 1896, William Jennings Bryan would be the first presidential candidate to campaign in a car (a donated Mueller), in Decatur, Illinois.[37] Three years later, Jacob German would start a tradition for New York City cabdrivers when he sped down Lexington Avenue, at the "reckless" speed of 12 mph (19 km/h).[38] Also in 1899, Akron, Ohio, adopted the first self-propelled paddy wagon.[38]

text: By 1900, the early centers of national automotive industry developed in many countries, including Belgium (home to Vincke, which copied Benz; Germain, a pseudo-Panhard; and Linon and Nagant, both based on the Gobron-Brillié),[6]:p,25 Switzerland (led by Fritz Henriod, Rudolf Egg, Saurer, Johann Weber, and Lorenz Popp),[6]:p.25 Vagnfabrik AB in Sweden, Hammel (by A. F. Hammel and H. U. Johansen at Copenhagen, in Denmark, which only built one car, ca. 1886[6]:p.25), Irgens (starting in Bergen, Norway, in 1883, but without success),[6]:p.25–26 Italy (where FIAT started in 1899), and as far afield as Australia (where Pioneer set up shop in 1898, with an already archaic paraffin-fuelled centre-pivot-steered wagon).[6] Meanwhile, the export trade had begun, with Koch exporting cars and trucks from Paris to Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, and the Dutch East Indies.[6]:p25 The Studebaker brothers, having become the world's leading manufacturers of horse-drawn vehicles, made a transition to electric automobiles in 1902, and gasoline engines in 1904, but also continued to build horse-drawn vehicles until 1919.[39]:p.90

text: In 1908, the first South American automobile was built in Peru, the Grieve.[40] Motor cars were also exported very early to British colonies and the first motor car was exported to India in 1897.

text: Throughout the veteran car era, however, the automobile was seen more as a novelty than as a genuinely useful device. Breakdowns were frequent, fuel was difficult to obtain, roads suitable for traveling were scarce, and rapid innovation meant that a year-old car was nearly worthless. Major breakthroughs in proving the usefulness of the automobile came with the historic long-distance drive of Bertha Benz in 1888, when she traveled more than 80 kilometres (50 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, to make people aware of the potential of the vehicles her husband, Karl Benz, manufactured, and after Horatio Nelson Jackson's successful transcontinental drive across the United States in 1903.

text: The 1908 New York to Paris Race was the first circumnavigation of the world by automobile. German, French, Italian and American teams began in New York City 12 February 1908 with three of the competitors ultimately reaching Paris. The US built Thomas Flyer with George Schuster (driver) won the race covering 22,000 miles in 169 days. While other automakers provided motorists with tire repair kits, Rambler was first in 1909 to equip its cars with a spare tire that was mounted on a fifth wheel.[41]

text: Brass or Edwardian era[edit]

text: This period lasted from roughly 1905 through to 1914 and the beginning of World War I. It is generally referred to as the Edwardian era, but in the United States is often known as the Brass era from the widespread use of brass in vehicles during this time.

text: Within the 15 years that make up this era, the various experimental designs and alternate power systems would be marginalised. Although the modern touring car had been invented earlier, it was not until Panhard et Levassor's Système Panhard was widely licensed and adopted that recognisable and standardised automobiles were created. This system specified front-engined, rear-wheel drive internal combustion engined cars with a sliding gear transmission. Traditional coach-style vehicles were rapidly abandoned, and buckboard runabouts lost favour with the introduction of tonneaus and other less-expensive touring bodies.

text: By 1906, steam car development had advanced, and they were among the fastest road vehicles in that period.[citation needed]

text: Throughout this era, development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included the electric ignition system (by dynamotor on the Arnold in 1898,[42] though Robert Bosch, 1903, tends to get the credit), independent suspension (actually conceived by Bollée in 1873),[42] and four-wheel brakes (by the Arrol-Johnston Company of Scotland in 1909).[6]:p27 Leaf springs were widely used for suspension, though many other systems were still in use, with angle steel taking over from armored wood as the frame material of choice. Transmissions and throttle controls were widely adopted, allowing a variety of cruising speeds, though vehicles generally still had discrete speed settings, rather than the infinitely variable system familiar in cars of later eras. Safety glass also made its debut, patented by John Wood in England in 1905.[32] (It would not become standard equipment until 1926, on a Rickenbacker.)[32]

text: Between 1907 and 1912 in the United States, the high-wheel motor buggy (resembling the horse buggy of before 1900) was in its heyday, with over seventy-five makers including Holsman (Chicago), IHC (Chicago), and Sears (which sold via catalog); the high-wheeler would be killed by the Model T.[6]:p.65 In 1912, Hupp (in the United States, supplied by Hale & Irwin) and BSA (in the UK) pioneered the use of all-steel bodies,[43] joined in 1914 by Dodge (who produced Model T bodies).[32] While it would be another two decades before all-steel bodies would be standard, the change would mean improved supplies of superior-quality wood for furniture makers.[6]

text: Some examples of cars of the period included:[citation needed]

text:
1907 In Japan, the Hatsudoki Seizo Co. Ltd. is formed, which was later renamed in 1951 as Daihatsu Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha. Also in April 1907, the aforementioned Komanosuke Uchiyama produced the Takuri, the first entirely Japanese-made gasoline engine car.[44]
1908–1927 Ford Model T — the most widely produced and available 4-seater car of the era. It used a planetary transmission, and had a pedal-based control system. Ford T was proclaimed as the most influential car of the 20th century in the international Car of the Century awards.
1909 Morgan Runabout – a very popular cyclecar, cyclecars were sold in far greater quantities than 4-seater cars in this period[45]
1910 Mercer Raceabout — regarded as one of the first sports cars, the Raceabout expressed the exuberance of the driving public, as did the similarly conceived American Underslung and Hispano-Suiza Alphonso.
1910–1920 Bugatti Type 13 — a notable racing and touring model with advanced engineering and design. Similar models were the Types 15, 17, 22, and 23.
1914–1917, the Kaishinsha Motor Works operated by Masujiro Hashimoto in Tokyo, while importing, assembling and selling British cars, also manufactured seven units of a two-cylinder, 10-horsepower “all-Japanese” car called Dattogo. Kaishinsha was the first automobile manufacturing business in Japan.[44]
1917 Japanese company Mitsubishi builds the Mitsubishi Model A, all hand built in limited numbers for Japanese executives.

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text: Vintage era[edit]

text: The vintage era lasted from the end of World War I (1918), through to the Wall Street Crash at the end of 1929. During this period the front-engined car came to dominate with closed bodies and standardised controls becoming the norm. In 1919, 90% of cars sold were open; by 1929, 90% were closed.[6]:p.7 Development of the internal combustion engine continued at a rapid pace, with multi-valve and overhead camshaft engines produced at the high end, and V8, V12, and even V16 engines conceived for the ultra-rich. Also in 1919, hydraulic brakes were invented by Malcolm Loughead (co-founder of Lockheed); they were adopted by Duesenberg for their 1921 Model A.[32] Three years later, Hermann Rieseler of Vulcan Motor invented the first automatic transmission, which had two-speed planetary gearbox, torque converter, and lockup clutch; it never entered production.[32] (Its like would only become an available option in 1940.)[32] Just at the end of the vintage era, tempered glass (now standard equipment in side windows) was invented in France.[32] In this era the revolutionary ponton design of cars without fully articulated fenders, running boards and other non-compact ledge elements was introduced in small series but mass production of such cars was started much later (after WWII).

text: American auto companies in the 1920s expected they would soon sell six million cars a year, but did not do so until 1955. Numerous companies disappeared.[46] Between 1922 and 1925, the number of U.S. passenger car builders decreased from 175 to 70. H. A. Tarantous, managing editor of "MoToR Member Society of Automotive Engineers", in a New York Times article from 1925, suggested many were unable to raise production and cope with falling prices (due to assembly line production), especially for low-priced cars. The new pyroxylin-based paints, eight cylinder engine, four wheel brakes, and balloon tires as the biggest trends for 1925.[47]

text: Examples of period vehicles:[citation needed]

text:
1922–1939 Austin 7 — one of the most widely copied vehicles ever, serving as a template for cars around the world, from BMW to Nissan.
1922–1931 Lancia Lambda — very advanced car for the time, first car to feature a load-bearing monocoque and independent front suspension.[citation needed]
1924–1929 Bugatti Type 35 — one of the most successful racing cars of all time, with over 1,000 victories in five years.[citation needed]
1925–1928 Hanomag 2 / 10 PS — early example of ponton styling.
1927–1931 Ford Model A (1927-1931) — after keeping the brass era Model T in production for too long, Ford broke from the past by restarting its model series with the 1927 Model A. More than 4 million were produced, making it the best-selling model of the era. The Ford Model A was a prototype for the beginning of Soviet mass car production (GAZ A).
1930 Cadillac V-16 — developed at the height of the vintage era, the V16-powered Cadillac would join Bugatti's Royale as the most legendary ultra-luxury cars of the era.

text: Pre-war era[edit]

text: The pre-war part of the classic era began with the Great Depression in 1930, and ended with the recovery after World War II, commonly placed at 1946. It was in this period that integrated fenders and fully closed bodies began to dominate sales, with the new saloon/sedan body style even incorporating a trunk or boot at the rear for storage. The old open-top runabouts, phaetons, and touring cars were largely phased out by the end of the classic era as wings, running boards, and headlights were gradually integrated with the body of the car.

text: By the 1930s, most of the mechanical technology used in today's automobiles had been invented, although some things were later "re-invented", and credited to someone else. For example, front-wheel drive was re-introduced by André Citroën with the launch of the Traction Avant in 1934, though it had appeared several years earlier in road cars made by Alvis and Cord, and in racing cars by Miller (and may have appeared as early as 1897). In the same vein, independent suspension was originally conceived by Amédée Bollée in 1873, but not put in production until appearing on the low-volume Mercedes-Benz 380 in 1933, which prodded American makers to use it more widely.[42] In 1930, the number of auto manufacturers declined sharply as the industry consolidated and matured, thanks in part to the effects of the Great Depression.

text: Exemplary pre-war automobiles:[citation needed]

text:
1932–1939 Alvis Speed 20 — the first with all-synchromesh gearbox[citation needed]
1932–1948 Ford V-8 (Model B) — introduction of the flathead V8 in mainstream vehicles
1934–1938 Tatra 77 — first serial-produced car with aerodynamical design
1934–1940 Bugatti Type 57 — a singular refined automobile for the wealthy
1934–1956 Citroën Traction Avant — the first mass-produced front-wheel drive car, built with monocoque chassis
1936–1955 MG T series — sports cars
1938–2003 Volkswagen Beetle — a design that was produced for over 60 years with over 20 million units assembled in several counties
1936–1939 Rolls-Royce Phantom III — V12 engine

text: Post-war era[edit]

text: A major change in automobile design since World War II was the popularity of ponton style, in which running boards were eliminated and fenders were incorporated into the body. Among the first representatives of the style were the Soviet GAZ-M20 Pobeda (1946), British Standard Vanguard (1947), United States Studebaker Champion and Kaiser (1946), as well as the low-production Czech luxury Tatra T600 Tatraplan (1946) and the Italian Cisitalia 220 sports car (1947).

text: Automobile design and production finally emerged from the military orientation and other shadow of war in 1949, the year that in the United States saw the introduction of high-compression V8 engines and modern bodies from General Motors' Oldsmobile and Cadillac brands. Hudson introduced the "step-down" design with the 1948 Commodore, which placed the passenger compartment down inside the perimeter of the frame, that was one of the first new-design postwar cars made and featured trend-setting slab-side styling.[48] The unibody/strut-suspended 1951 Ford Consul joined the 1948 Morris Minor and 1949 Rover P4 in the automobile market in the United Kingdom. In Italy, Enzo Ferrari was beginning his 250 series, just as Lancia introduced the revolutionary V6-powered Aurelia.

text: Throughout the 1950s, engine power and vehicle speeds rose, designs became more integrated and artful, and automobiles were marketed internationally. Alec Issigonis' Mini and Fiat's 500 diminutive cars were introduced in Europe, while the similar kei car class became popular in Japan. The Volkswagen Beetle continued production after Hitler and began exports to other nations, including the United States. At the same time, Nash introduced the Nash Rambler, the first successful modern compact car made in the United States,[49] while the standard models produced by the "Big Three" domestic automakers grew ever larger in size, featuring increasing amounts of chrome trim, and luxury was exemplified by the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. The markets in Europe expanded with new small-sized automobiles, as well as expensive grand tourers (GT), like the Ferrari America.

text: The market changed in the 1960s, as the United States "Big Three" automakers began facing competition from imported cars, the European makers adopted advanced technologies and Japan emerged as a car-producing nation. Japanese companies began to export some of their more popular selling cars in Japan internationally, such as the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Corona, Nissan Sunny, and Nissan Bluebird in the mid-1960s. The success of American Motors' compact-sized Rambler models spurred GM and Ford to introduce their own downsized cars in 1960.[50] Performance engines became a focus of marketing by United States automakers, exemplified by the era's muscle cars. In 1964, the Ford Mustang developed a new market segment, the pony car. New models to compete with the Mustang included the Chevrolet Camaro, AMC Javelin, and Plymouth Barracuda. Captive imports and badge engineering increased in the United States and the UK as amalgamated groups such as the British Motor Corporation consolidated the market. BMC's space-saving and trend-setting transverse engined, front-wheel-drive, independent suspension and monocoque bodied Mini, which first appeared in 1959, was marketed under the Austin and Morris names, until Mini became a marque in its own right in 1969.[51] Competition increased, with Studebaker, a pioneering automaker, shutting down, and the trend for consolidation reached Italy where niche makers like Maserati, Ferrari, and Lancia were acquired by larger companies. By the end of the decade, the number of automobile marques had been greatly reduced.

text: Technology developments included the widespread use of independent suspensions, wider application of fuel injection, and an increasing focus on safety in automotive design. Innovations during the 1960s included NSU's Wankel engine, the gas turbine, and the turbocharger. Of these, only the last endured, pioneered by General Motors, and adopted by BMW and Saab, later seeing mass-market use during the 1980s by Chrysler. Mazda continued developing its Wankel engine, in spite of problems in longevity, emissions, and fuel economy. Other Wankel licensees, including Mercedes-Benz and GM, never put their designs into production because of engineering and manufacturing problems, as well as the lessons from the 1973 oil crisis.

text: The 1970s were turbulent years for automakers and buyers with major events reshaping the industry such as the 1973 oil crisis, stricter automobile emissions control and safety requirements, increasing exports by the Japanese and European automakers, as well as growth in inflation and the stagnant economic conditions in many nations. Smaller-sized grew in popularity. The United States saw the establishment of the subcompact segment with the introduction of the AMC Gremlin, followed by the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto. The station wagons (estate, break, kombi, universal) body design was popular, as well as increasing sales of non-commercial all-wheel drive off-road vehicles.

text: To the end of the 20th century, the United States Big Three (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) partially lost their leading position, Japan became for a while the world's leader of car production and cars began to be mass manufactured in new Asian, East European, and other countries.

text: Notable exemplary post-war cars:[citation needed]

text:
1946–1958 GAZ-M20 Pobeda — Soviet car with full ponton design
1947–1958 Standard Vanguard — British mass-market car with full ponton design
1948–1971 Morris Minor – an early post-war car exported around the world
1953–1971 Chevrolet Bel Air and 1953–2002 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham – first generations were representative of tailfin design
1955–1976 Citroën DS — aerodynamic design and innovative technology, awarded third place as Car of the 20th Century
1959–2000 Mini — a radical and innovative small car that was manufactured for four decades; awarded second place as Car of the 20th Century
1960-1990 Volkswagen Brasília
1961–1975 Jaguar E-type — a classic sports car design
1963–1989 Porsche 911 – a sports car was awarded fifth place as Car of the 20th Century
1964–present Ford Mustang — the pony car that became one of the best-selling cars of the era
1966–end of the 20th century Fiat 124 — an Italian car that was produced under license in many other counties including the Soviet Union
1966–1971 Subaru 1000 – one of the first Japanese built sedans using a boxer engine, front wheel drive and introducing the "double offset joint" drive shaft to the front wheels
1967 NSU Ro 80 — the basic wedge profile of this design was emulated in subsequent decades,[52] unlike its Wankel engine
late 1960s-early 1980s Gurgel BR-800
late 1960s-early 1980s Gurgel Supermini
1969 Datsun 240Z — Japanese sports car[53]
1980–1988 AMC Eagle — the first mass-produced full-time all-wheel drive car[54]

text: Modern era[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

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text: The modern era is normally defined as the 25 years preceding the current year.[citation needed] The modern era has been one of increasing standardisation, platform sharing, computer-aided design, to reduce costs and development time and increasing use of electronic for both engine management and entertainment systems.

text: Some particular contemporary developments are the proliferation of front- and all-wheel drive, the adoption of the diesel engine, and the ubiquity of fuel injection. Most modern passenger cars are front-wheel-drive monocoque/unibody designs, with transversely mounted engines.

text: Body styles have changed as well in the modern era. Three types, the hatchback, sedan, and sport utility vehicle, dominate today's market.[citation needed] All originally emphasised practicality, but have mutated into today's high-powered luxury crossover SUV, sports wagon[ and two-volume Large MPV. The rise of pickup trucks in the United States and SUVs worldwide has changed the face of motoring with these "trucks" coming to command more than half of the world automobile market.[citation needed] There was also the introduction of the MPV class (smaller non-commercial passenger minivans), among the first of which were the French Renault Espace and the Chrysler minivan versions in the United States

text: The modern era has also seen rapidly improving fuel efficiency and engine output. The automobile emissions concerns have been eased with computerised engine management systems.

text: The economic crisis of 2008 cut almost a third of light vehicle sales from Chrysler, Toyota, Ford, and Nissan. It also subtracted about a fourth of Honda's sales and about a seventh of sales from General Motors.[55]

text: Since 2009, China has become the world's largest car manufacturer with production greater than Japan, the United States, and all of Europe. Besides large growth of car production in Asian and other countries, there has been growth in transnational corporate groups, with the production of transnational automobiles sharing the same platforms as well as badge engineering or re-badging to suit different markets and consumer segments.

text: Since the end of the 20th century, several award competitions for cars and trucks have become widely known, such as European Car of the Year, Car of the Year Japan, North American Car of the Year, World Car of the Year, Truck of the Year, and International Car of the Year. Also, a Car of the Century award was held in which in the US the Ford Model T was named as most influential car of the 20th century.[citation needed]

text: Exemplary modern cars:[citation needed]

text:
1966–present Toyota Corolla – a Japanese saloon/sedan that has become the best-selling nameplate of all time, with over 40 million sold across 11 generations through July 2013.[56]
1966–1992 Oldsmobile Toronado – Introduced electronic anti-lock braking system,[57] and airbag [58] First modern-era American car with front wheel drive.
1973–present Mercedes-Benz S-Class – Seat belt pretensioner, and electronic traction control system
1975–present BMW 3 Series – the 3 Series has been on Car and Driver magazine's annual Ten Best list 17 times
1977–present Honda Accord saloon/sedan — a Japanese sedan that became popular in the United States
1983–present Chrysler minivans – the two-box minivan design nearly pushed the station wagon out of the market
1984–present Renault Espace — first mass one-volume car of non-commercial MPV class
1986–present Ford Taurus — this mid-sized front-wheel drive sedan dominated the United States market in the late-1980s
1997–present Toyota Prius, launched in the Japanese market and became the best known hybrid electric vehicle and also the world's top selling hybrid.[59]
1998–present Ford Focus — one of the most popular hatchbacks and Ford's best selling world car
2008–present Tata Nano — an inexpensive (₹100,000, ≈ $2200), rear-engined, four-passenger city car aimed primarily at the Indian domestic market
2008–2012 Tesla Roadster — first highway-capable all-electric vehicle in serial production for sale in the United States in the modern era. Sold about 2,500 units worldwide.
2008–2013 BYD F3DM – first highway-capable series production plug-in hybrid, launched in China in December 2008, sold over 2,300 units.[60][61]
2009–present, Mitsubishi i-MiEV – first highway-capable series production all-electric car, launched in Japan in July 2009 for fleet customers, and in April 2010 for retail customers. Rebadged versions of the i MiEV are sold in Europe by PSA Peugeot Citroën (PSA) as the Peugeot iOn and Citroën C-Zero.[62][63]
2010–present, Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt — all-electric car and plug-in hybrid correspondingly, launched in December 2010, are the world's top selling mass production vehicles of their kind.[64] As of early December 2015, global Volt sales totaled over 100,000.[65] Nissan Leaf global sales achieved the 300,000 unit milestone in January 2018, making the Leaf the world's all-time best-selling highway-capable electric car in history.[66]
2012–present, Tesla Model S – Plug-in electric vehicle was ranked as the world's best selling plug-in electric vehicle in 2015.[67] It was also named car of the century by Car and Driver.[68]