Top five automotive engineering achievements for World Engineering Day

The motor industry is no stranger to pushing the boundaries with incredible feats of automotive engineering. 

Therefore, as World Engineering Day is celebrated this week (4 March), highlighting the amazing work of engineers, we shine a light on five top achievements in the automotive sector that have shaped the way we drive. 

Electric vehicles 

Electric vehicles are nothing new, they’ve been almost 200 years in development. 

We can thank Scottish inventor Robert Anderson for the first fully electric vehicle. 

It looked more like a carriage than a car, and was able to run off a single charge, but the power was from non-rechargeable power cells so the batteries had to be replaced when they ran out. 

However, Anderson’s carriage paved the way for further developments including the first production electric car in 1884 courtesy of English inventor Thomas Parker, while London saw a fleet of battery-powered taxis in 1897 that were designed by Walter Bersey. 

Three-point safety belt 

There can be few inventions that are credited with saving at least a million lives, so a massive amount of praise must go to Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin. 

In 1959 he perfected the modern three-point safety belt and the patent was given free to the world. 

Volvo believed the invention was so important that they shouldn’t profit it and, thanks to this, the three-point seat belt is still found in most vehicles, regardless of who built the car. 

Bohlin changed car safety forever and, in the UK alone an estimated 2,000 lives are saved every year thanks to his engineering achievement. 

Automotive engineering advances self-driving cars  

Self-propelled vehicles can actually be traced all the way back to the 16th century when Leonardo da Vinci designed a self-propelled cart. 

But it was the 1980s which saw the arrival of the first truly autonomous and self-sufficient vehicles when Ernst Dickmanns’ Mercedes van drove autonomously on university premises in 1986. 

It was in 1995 when Navlab5, retrofitted by The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, steered itself from Pittsburgh to San Diego without any added human input, making it the first autonomous car. 

Jump forward to 2025 and Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) will play a pivotal role in the future of driver assistance and self-driving technology. 

Airbags 

Another safety-focused engineering achievement that has saved countless lives. 

The pioneers for airbags in cars are American John W. Hetrick and German Walter Linderer. 

1953 saw their two designs, based on compressed air being released by a spring, bumper contact or by the driver, being granted patents. 

Airbags are now found in numerous places in a vehicle, including rear airbags, side airbags, knee airbags, curtain airbags and front-centre airbags. 

Meanwhile, motorcyclists are now benefitting from innovative air jackets, with air bags built into protective clothing, which Red Marlin is proud to have championed with an award-winning campaign in partnership with leading UK road safety charity IAM RoadSmart. 

Automotive engineering heralds power steering  

This engineering achievement has made driving, or more specifically steering a car, much easier and is a bit of an unsung hero. 

It also has a long history, with the first patent for power steering in 1876, although it wasn’t until the 1950s when Chrysler made it commercially available. 

Power steering, whether mechanical/hydraulic or electric, is now an essential system in most cars, helping to improve manoeuvrability, especially when turning at low speed or in tight spaces. 

The next big thing in automotive engineering? 

Here at Red Marlin, we look forward to celebrating the huge advancements still to come in the world of automotive engineering. 

We get to do this through our work with automotive and tech partners, exploring the latest developments in AI, audio and engineering conversions, among others. 

To find out more about what we do, visit our services page here.