Did the early cars run on peanut oil?

Question

What did early cars run on? I thought it was some type of vegetable oil?

Answer 1

when rudolph diesel first developed his engine, it WAS designed to run on peanut oil, and in fact ran rather well once he figured out the fuel delivery system. henry ford however believed that we should be running our cars on ethanol, and in fact built his cars to run on alcohol or gasoline. there were also cars that used electricity for power, as well as steam powered cars. however the gasoline powered car won the fuel wars, as it were, mostly because the oil companies were willing to invest huge amounts of money into the infrastructure to refuel the automobile.

Answer 2

Henry Ford and George Washington Carver were good friends and I do recall watching something on I believe the History Channel about them trying to work on a car ran off of peanut oil however I do not recall if they were successful.

The 1st self propelled vehicle was steamed powered by Nicolas Cugnot

Im not sure if he was the first but gasoline powered vehicle has been(at least) dated back to 1870 by Siegfried Marcus

Some of the early cars back were actually electric cars.

Answer 3

No,it was diesel.They had problems with veg oil,till around WW2 when they found heating it to at least 160 degrees made the engines last.

Answer 4

No it did not run on peanut oil on the show

Myth busters

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I remember that stupid one and had to watch it

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You can throw a lit match into peanut oil and it will not catch fire

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Don't do this in the house do this in the driveway away AWAY from all things that cost money or are alive or dead and  grow or use to grow

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Answer 5

You're absolutely right -- the first engines that were developed did run on vegetable oils. In fact, when Rudolf Diesel designed his prototype diesel engine a century ago, his fuel of choice was peanut oil. However, when petroleum diesel fuel arrived in the market, it was cheap, reasonably efficient and readily available, and, therefore, quickly replaced vegetable oils as fuel. For more, see http://www.copperwiki.org/index.php/Bio-...