Which Leonardo da Vinci invention used coiled springs and gears to move a vehicle?

Leonardo da Vinci’s self-propelled cart used coiled springs and gears to move a vehicle.

The cart’s springs were wound to store mechanical energy. When released, that energy passed through gears to the wheels, making the cart move without an animal or person pushing it. Leonardo’s drawing also shows a programmable steering arrangement, allowing the vehicle to travel along a planned route.

This mechanism made the cart a striking example of Renaissance automation. Courts regularly staged elaborate celebrations, and a moving prop could appear to travel across a floor by itself. The vehicle was probably created for that kind of spectacle rather than for practical road transport.

Modern descriptions sometimes call it the first car, but that label needs qualification. It had no combustion engine and was not designed for ordinary travel. Its importance lies in the combination of stored energy, gearing, and automatic motion, all recorded in Leonardo’s engineering notebooks.