What Leonardo da Vinci invention used gears to move without a person or animal pulling it?

Leonardo da Vinci’s self-propelled cart used gears to move without a person or animal pulling it.

Leonardo designed the cart in the late 15th century, probably as a theatrical device or a machine for court festivities. Springs hidden inside the vehicle supplied the stored energy, while a system of gears transferred that energy to the wheels. The steering mechanism could be programmed by setting small blocks on a wheel.

The machine is frequently described as an early ancestor of the automobile or robot. That comparison is useful, but it can also be misleading: the cart had no engine, no passenger controls, and only a limited programmed route. Its movement depended on wound springs rather than fuel or electricity.

A full-scale reconstruction was built and demonstrated in the early 21st century. Researchers found that the surviving drawing contains enough information to reproduce the basic mechanism, although some details remain open to interpretation. The cart is therefore best understood as an ingenious clockwork vehicle, not a modern car.