Leonardo da Vinci’s self-propelled cart was designed to move by itself.
Leonardo sketched the cart around 1478–1480. Unlike an ordinary wagon, it used coiled springs as a power source. As the springs unwound, gears transferred motion to the wheels. The design also included steering-related mechanisms that could make the cart follow a predetermined path.
The cart is often called an early automobile because it could move without being pulled by a horse or pushed by a person. That comparison is useful but limited: it had no engine, and its stored spring energy would have provided only a short period of motion. The cart may have been intended for theatrical or ceremonial displays rather than transportation.
A reconstruction demonstrated the feasibility of the mechanism in the early 21st century. Leonardo’s original drawing does not answer every engineering question, so reconstructions have interpreted some details. The key distinction is that the cart was self-propelled, not motorized in the modern internal-combustion sense.