Leonardo da Vinci designed a self-propelled cart often described as an early programmable vehicle.
The cart appears in drawings from the late fifteenth century and was powered by coiled springs hidden inside its body. Those springs drove the wheels through a system of gears. Adjustable blocks on the mechanism could determine the cart’s direction, making it resemble a simple programmable machine.
The design may have been intended for theatrical performances or court entertainment rather than transportation. It was not an automobile: there was no engine, steering wheel, or braking system in the modern sense. Its motion depended on stored mechanical energy released by the springs.
A full-scale reconstruction demonstrated that the mechanism could work, although reconstructions differ in details because Leonardo’s surviving drawings do not provide every dimension. The cart is sometimes labeled a “robot car,” but self-propelled cart is the more precise name for the invention itself.