in the beginning there was the wheel, because with it everything started rolling about 6000 years ago. Emission-free drives, power steering and driver assistance were not developed overnight. the history of the automobile was not written in one night. The evolution of commercial vehicles from carts to horse-drawn vehicles to the first drive variants with steam engines and finally to the internal combustion engine took. The success was fed by the tireless diligence of numerous automotive pioneers.
With the internal combustion engine into the future of commercial vehicles
The year 1895 changed traffic on german roads, the carriage had become the motor vehicle. Carl benz, a pioneer in the automotive industry, motorized the two-axle, four-wheeled landau and brought it into the future. The first gasoline-powered bus in germany ran at five horsepower. The eight-seater reached a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour.
Horsepower: with the power of four-legged vehicles.
Bus: first regular-service bus commutes
At that time, however, the vehicle for everyone was not yet very far advanced. Although the vehicle designed by the innovator carl benz is considered to be the first regular-service bus and shuttled between siegen and netphen for a short time starting in march 1895, the trip was too expensive and the vehicle required too much maintenance. The first large-capacity bus with 52 seats from the south german automobile factory came onto the market in 1905, a decade after the first attempts were made.
The first large-capacity buses in london.
Motorized commercial vehicles: transport rethought
At the end of the 19th century, it wasn’t just passenger transport that made the. advances of the 21st century. Transporting goods by road became increasingly important. As early as 1891, wilhelm maybach and gottlieb daimler were already working together on trucks, and in the same year they managed to produce a truck portfolio of four models with payloads of up to five tons and a maximum of ten horsepower. Five years later, the first truck for road transport is sold. However, the commercial vehicle should not be used in germany. The truck was sold to London.
World exhibition: development of the automobile
Around the turn of the century, the possibility of electric vehicles came into focus alongside fuel-powered vehicles. Whether general berliner omnibus AG or siemens& halske – several manufacturers participate in the further development of the commercial vehicle segment in germany, which is a large field of experimentation at this time. at the 1900 world exhibition in paris, for example, ferdinand porsche caused a sensation with his "lohner porsche. The electric car is considered the first vehicle with both all-wheel and hybrid drives.
E-mobility trend
Larger omnibuses were introduced to the public and the first streetcar omnibuses, powered by electric overhead lines, were used in germany. countless electric variants left the vehicle manufacturers’ workshops at this time: dynamo-electric, otto-electric, hybrid drive, battery-electric motor combinations and many more. In private use, modern commercial vehicles arrived at the beginning of the 20th century. The buses were used less in the first half of the twentieth century, but they were used by fire departments and garbage collectors, for example.
