Leonardo da Vinci designed a self-propelled cart that could move without a person or animal pulling it.
The cart appears in drawings from the late 15th century and is powered by coiled springs hidden inside its body. When the springs were wound, gears transferred their stored energy to the wheels. A steering mechanism helped determine the cart’s path, and a programmable control system could make it travel along a predetermined route.
The design is often called an early ancestor of the automobile or robot. It was not powered by an engine and was not intended for ordinary road transport. Its spring-driven mechanism was closer to a large clockwork device.
In 2006, a replica was built and demonstrated at the Museo Galileo in Florence. Some modern reconstructions differ in details because Leonardo’s surviving drawings do not show every component clearly.