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  • Welcome to Spotlight.

  • I'm Roger Basick.

  • And I'm Katy Blake.

  • Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.

  • It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

  • A woman drives a black convertible over a hill.

  • Her hair flows behind her out of this open-roofed vehicle.

  • At the top of the hill, the road bends around sharp rocks.

  • The sea crashes below.

  • And, out above the sea, the sun begins to set.

  • The woman parks her car and looks out over the ocean.

  • The engine of her electric-powered car is quiet.

  • Its sound disappears into the wind.

  • Cars are everywhere.

  • They take people to remote places.

  • They take people to work and to their homes.

  • Usually, these automobiles are powered by gasoline or petrol.

  • But things were not always this way, and they may not always be either.

  • Today's Spotlight is on the history and future of the automobile.

  • People have dreamed about creating cars for a very long time.

  • They wanted a way to transport people and goods without animals.

  • But it took a very long time to make one that worked.

  • Nicholas Cugnot was a French inventor.

  • He built the first car in the late 1700's.

  • It used steam to power its engines.

  • And it could drive at speeds of about 7 kilometres per hour.

  • But steam engines were very large.

  • And they took a lot of work to run.

  • Horses cost less money.

  • They could also transport people more quickly.

  • Many other inventors tried to build a smaller steam-powered car that was easier to use.

  • But cars did not become popular until someone invented a different kind of engine.

  • The engine that powers many of the cars you see on the road today is called an internal

  • combustion engine.

  • Many people helped to create the internal combustion engine.

  • But the first person to use it in a car was Karl Benz, in 1885.

  • Internal combustion engines are smaller than steam engines.

  • They use gasoline to fuel the engine.

  • And they can produce more power to push a car faster.

  • This new engine made cars more popular around the world.

  • But for a long time, only the very wealthy could buy them.

  • Cars cost a lot of money because of the way people made them.

  • One or two people made each car by hand.

  • So cars took a long time to make.

  • Also, each car was different so they cost a lot of money to fix.

  • But in the early 1900s a man from the United States changed how cars were made.

  • His name was Henry Ford.

  • Ford was an car engineer.

  • At first, he made cars the traditional way.

  • But he believed he could make them more easily.

  • He did this by designing one car model that many different people could help him make.

  • He used simple parts.

  • Then his workers simply followed the same design plan for every car.

  • He even made the cars all the same color.

  • This let Ford produce many cars that were all the same in a short amount of time.

  • Ford's method changed the way industry works around the world.

  • He designed a system that made it easy to produce large amounts of his product.

  • He paid his workers enough money so that they could buy his product.

  • Ford made it possible for many people to buy an car.

  • Ford's most popular car was called the Model T.

  • By the 1920s, Ford had produced over 15,000,000 Model T cars.

  • Many other car companies also used Ford's methods.

  • Cars began to cost less money all over the world.

  • But the number of cars on the road also created a problem.

  • Every car needed gasoline for fuel.

  • Burning gasoline worked very well to power cars.

  • But it also creates a lot of pollution.

  • The number of cars made some cities difficult to live in.

  • People exposed to too much vehicle pollution develop problems with their breathing.

  • Burning gasoline also creates carbon dioxide.

  • Carbon dioxide is a gas that leads to global climate change.

  • Using gasoline was a great idea when people started making cars.

  • There were not many cars in the beginning, so the pollution did not affect much.

  • But today there are more than one and a half billion cars on the road.

  • The success of the car has turned gasoline use into a danger.

  • Kate Brunton is a representative from Amber.

  • Amber is a Dutch car company that makes electric, self driving vehicles.

  • She spoke to the University Network about the problem of gasoline cars.

  • The problem is that owning cars, especially cars that use fuel, is bad.

  • But there is no real choice.

  • It is bad for consumers, because the cost of owning most cars is high.

  • It is bad for the environment.

  • It does not work well.

  • Most cars spend 90 percent of their time standing still.”

  • Today many car companies are working to make cars that do not need gasoline.

  • For example, many large vehicle manufacturers have begun to produce electric vehicles.

  • Instead of burning fuel, electric vehicles store energy in batteries.

  • For a long time, electric vehicles were not very popular.

  • They could not go very far or very fast.

  • This changed in 2003 with the creation of the Tesla Motor company.

  • Tesla worked for many years to create an electric engine that worked as well as gasoline engines.

  • And, in 2008, they released the Tesla Roadster.

  • The roadster was just as fast as a gasoline-powered car.

  • And it could travel over 300 kilometers on a single charge!

  • Another newer creation is the hybrid vehicle.

  • Hybrid cars use technology from both gasoline and electric engines.

  • Hybrids have gasoline engines like normal cars.

  • But the engines do not give power to push the car forward.

  • Instead, they give power to the battery.

  • The battery makes the car go forward.

  • You do not need to charge the battery in a hybrid car.

  • The gasoline engine provides the power to the battery.

  • But the battery can power the car at low speeds, so the engine does not have to turn on.

  • Hybrid engines are smaller than gasoline engines.

  • And they require less gasoline to operate.

  • Other companies have been experimenting with different fuels.

  • For example, it is possible to fuel a car with hydrogen.

  • Many large car companies are researching this new technology.

  • Right now, it is difficult to use hydrogen because it does not last very long.

  • One tank full of hydrogen may only be able to fuel a car for a very short time.

  • But people are hopeful that new technologies will help make hydrogen work in the future.

  • There are many possible paths for the future of the car.

  • How we travel has changed many times over the past hundred years.

  • And it will change again.

  • It may be possible that there will be no single replacement for the internal combustion engine.

  • In the future, there may be many different kinds of cars, each with different fuels.

  • Or people may use cars less.

  • Either way, it is important to continue to invest in these new technologies.

  • It is important not only for the future of the car, but for the future of humanity.

  • Do you own a car?

  • What kind of engine does it have?

  • Do you use busses or trains more often?

  • Do you use a motorbike or a bicycle to travel?

  • You can leave a comment on our website.

  • Or email us at radio@radioenglish.net.

  • You can also comment on Facebook at facebook.com/spotlightradio.

  • The writer of this program was Dan Christmann.

  • The producer was Michio Ozaki.

  • The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom.

  • All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.

  • You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.radioenglish.net.

  • This program is called 'The History and Future of the Automobile'.

  • You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our

  • free official Spotlight English app.

  • We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program.

  • Goodbye.

Welcome to Spotlight.

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