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From ExtremeTech:
 Once upon a time, the steam
engine reigned supreme - first in trains and heavy tractors, as you well
know, but eventually in cars as well. It's quite hard to fathom today,
but at the turn of the 20th century, more than half the cars in the US
were steam-powered. The steam engine was so advanced that, in 1906, a
steam car called the Stanley Rocket even held land speed record - a
heady 127 mph!
Now, you might think that the steam car was only a
success because internal combustion engines (ICE) didn't exist yet - but
in actual fact, steam cars and ICE cars were developed
contemporaneously. Because engineers already had 100 years of steam
engine experience, though, the steam car had a rather large head start.
While hand-cranked ICEs were breaking the arms of hapless operators, by
1900 steam cars were already highly automated - and, with no clutch or
gearbox (steam provides constant pressure, unlike the piston strokes of
an ICE), very easy to drive. The one caveat, of course, was that you had
to wait a few minutes for the boiler to heat up.
In a few short years, though,
Henry Ford would come along and change everything. While the steam
engine might've been technically superior to the ICE, they couldn't
match the price of mass-produced Fords. Steam car makers tried to shift
gears and market their cars as premium, luxury products, but by 1918 the
Model T Ford was six times cheaper than a Stanley Steamer (the most
popular steam car at the time). With the advent of the electric starter
motor in 1912, and continuing advances to the efficiency of ICEs, it
wasn't long until the steam car vanished from our roads.
Read the whole article
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