Tang Zhongming (; 1897–1980) was a Chinese

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

and inventor. Zhong-Ming Tang was born to a poor family in 1897. He attended elementary and middle school in

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

province graduating from Huaiqing Middle School at age 19, when he then attended Kaifeng Teachers Training Institute and the Beijing French School. From June 1919 to 1926 he studied in France. Zhong-Ming Tang returned to China in 1926 during the time of the world oil crisis. In China (

Kaifeng Kaifeng () is a prefecture-level city in east-central Henan province, China. It is one of the Eight Ancient Capitals of China, having been the capital eight times in history, and is best known for having been the Chinese capital during the No ...

and Zhengzhou) he worked to develop a charcoal powered car to aid in China's energy efficiency and independence, which had been an issue during World War I. In 1931, he created an

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal c ...

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

. In 1932 he founded Chung Ming Machinery Co., Ltd. in Shanghai, to produce commercially available charcoal fueled cars. During World War II (1937) the charcoal car grew in popularity due to the high

price of oil The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC ...

. His charcoal cars were popular until the early 1950s. Starting then, their popularity dropped, especially in Southwest China where inexpensive fuel was easily accessible. Thereafter, the rest of China stopped buying charcoal-powered cars as much as before.

External links

在开封研制成功的木炭汽车

References

Chinese automotive pioneers 20th-century Chinese inventors Engineers from Henan 1980 deaths 1897 births {{automobile-bio-stub