Tang Zhongming (; 1897–1980) was a Chinese

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

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

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

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 ( zh, s=开封, p=Kāifēng) is a prefecture-level city in east-Zhongyuan, central Henan province, China. It is one of the Historical capitals of China, Eight Ancient Capitals of China, having been the capital eight times in history, and ...

and

Zhengzhou Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan, China. Located in northern Henan, it is one of the nine National central city, national central cities in China, and serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational center of the province. Th ...

) 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 comb ...

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

and mounted it in an

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

. 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