Vehicle
lastmod 2025-09-22created 2025-09-142 edits
A vehicle (Latin vehiculum) is a machine generally designed with its own propulsion to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" usually refers to land vehicles such as human-powered vehicles (e.g. bicycles, tricycles, velomobiles), animal-powered transport (e.g. carriages, wagons, ox carts, dog sleds), motor vehicles (e.g. motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters), and rail vehicles (trains, trams, and monorails), but in a broader sense it also includes cable transport (cable cars and elevators), watercraft (ships, boats, and underwater vehicles), amphibious vehicles (e.g. screw-propelled vehicles, hovercraft, seaplanes), aircraft (airplanes, helicopters, gliders, and aerostats), and spacecraft (spaceships, spaceplanes, and launch vehicles).
This page mainly covers the more common land vehicles, which can be broadly classified by the type of contact interface with the ground, such as wheels, continuous tracks, rails, or skis, as well as by non-contact technologies such as maglev trains. ISO 3833-1977 is the international standard for road vehicle types, terms, and definitions.