A car uses fuel, gives out waste gases, and moves along a road. Why is a car NOT classed as a living organism despite these features?
Answer Details
A living organism must carry out all seven life processes (movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, nutrition) and be built from cells. A car can move and can release waste gases, so saying it cannot move or never gives out waste is simply false, and it clearly does need energy from its fuel. What a car cannot do is build new living cells to grow, or make copies of itself, so the feature that keeps it non-living is its inability to reproduce or grow by itself.