A car is a vehicle with four wheels and an engine that carries people from place to place on roads. Cars changed the world when they became affordable in the early 1900s, giving ordinary families the freedom to travel wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Before cars, most people rarely traveled more than a few miles from where they were born.

Today's cars run mostly on gasoline or electricity and can travel over a hundred miles per hour, though speed limits keep them slower on most roads.

Cars have shaped how we live: they've created suburbs (because people could live far from where they work), changed how cities are designed, and made road trips possible. A family might own a minivan for hauling everyone to soccer practice, a sedan for everyday driving, or a pickup truck for carrying tools and materials.

You'll also hear car used for train compartments, like a dining car where passengers eat meals or a sleeper car where they rest during overnight journeys. When someone says they're “taking the car,” though, they mean the vehicle sitting in the driveway, ready to go.