~33 min read
Encyclopedic overview
White steam touring car (1909) Stanley Steamer (1912)
A steam car is a car (automobile) propelled by a steam engine. A steam engine is an external combustion engine (ECE), whereas the gasoline and diesel engines that eventually became standard are internal combustion engines (ICE). ECEs have a lower thermal efficiency, but carbon monoxide production is more readily regulated.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “steam car” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.