---
title: "Which came first, the car or television?"
description: "the car vs television: the car came first, by 39 years — 1886 against 1925. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/car-vs-television/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the car or television?

**Which came first, the car or television?: the car**

1886 — 39 years before television

the car came first, by 39 years. Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen.

## Side by side

|  | the car | television |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1925 |
| Date | 1886-01-29 | 1925-10-02 |
| Category | invention | invention |
| What happened | Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen. | Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image. |

## the car

Benz's patent of 29 January 1886 is the usual date for the first practical petrol car. The vehicle's commercial breakthrough came from his wife: in 1888 Bertha Benz drove 106 km to Pforzheim without telling him, fixing the fuel line with a hatpin and the ignition with a garter on the way, and the resulting publicity sold the machine. Ford did not exist until 1903 and the Model T not until 1908.

## television

John Logie Baird transmitted a recognisable moving image of a ventriloquist's dummy in October 1925 using a mechanical spinning-disc system. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated fully electronic television in 1927, and it was that approach, not Baird's, that every subsequent television used. Regular public broadcasting began in 1936, which means television is younger than the talking film and older than the ballpoint pen.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the car or television?

the car, by 39 years — 1886 against 1925.

### When did the car start?

1886. Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen.

### When did television start?

1925. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

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## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)