Leonardo da Vinci’s self-propelled cart is often described as an early programmable vehicle.
Leonardo designed the cart around 1478–1480. Springs wound inside its wooden body supplied the driving force, while control mechanisms set the direction and distance of its movement. Because the cart could be arranged to follow a preselected path without a rider, it is sometimes compared with a modern robot or programmable machine.
The surviving drawing does not provide every construction detail, so historians and engineers have debated how the original mechanism operated. The cart may have been intended for theatrical displays or court festivities rather than transport.
A reconstruction displayed at the 2006 Florence science festival showed that the design could work when built according to Leonardo’s surviving drawings. It was not an automobile in the modern sense, but it was an important experiment in automatic motion.