There is a big literature in the history of technology on this topic, but a lot of it is fairly specialized. Let's see if I can find some citations that thread the needle between interesting and scholarly:

Thomas, Donald E., Jr. Diesel: Technology and society in industrial Germany

Cummins, C. Lyle. Internal Fire.

Buchanan, R. Angus. The Power of the Machine: The Impact of Technology from 1700 to the Present.

Hardenberg, Horst O. The middle ages of the internal-combustion engine, 1794-1886.

Volti, Rudi. Automobile Engineering in a Dead End: Mainstream and Alternative Developments in the 20th Century.

 That's mostly focused on the engine itself. The automobile has its own big historiography. Examples:

Ling, Peter J. America and the automobile: Technology, reform, and social change

McShane, Clay. Down the asphalt path: The automobile and the American city

Jennings, Jan, ed. Roadside America: The Automobile in Design and Culture

Even if one of those doesn't strike your fancy, you can leaf to the bibliography and probably find references to a lot of great stuff.

Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach worked closely together to invent the four-stroke gasoline engine. Unfortunately, the biographies of both men are written in German. Paul Siebertz "Gottlieb Daimler: ein Revolutionar der Technik" was written in 1950, but it is still cited by books that cover the dawn of the automobile age.
Charles F Kettering did not invent the gasoline engine, but made several improvements to it. Like inventing the electric self-starter. He was granted 186 US Patents and was head of General Motors research department from 1920-1947. Stuart Leslie "Boss Kettering: Wizard of General Motors" 1983 is a good biography of that inventor.