What Leonardo da Vinci invention was a wooden cart that moved without being pushed by people or animals?

Leonardo da Vinci’s self-propelled cart was a wooden cart designed to move without being pushed by people or pulled by animals.

Leonardo sketched the mechanism around 1478–1480. Coiled springs stored energy, while a system of gears transferred that energy to the wheels. The cart could be set to follow a predetermined path, making it an early example of a programmable machine.

The design is often described as an ancestor of the automobile, but it was not powered by an engine and could travel only a limited distance. Modern reconstructions have shown that the mechanism can work, although historians debate the exact purpose Leonardo intended.

It is also sometimes called Leonardo’s automobile or robot cart. Unlike his armored knight, this machine was not designed primarily to resemble a person; its important feature was autonomous movement.