The character 车 (chē): vehicle

A pale dirt road runs away between green and golden fields under a blue sky. On the left stands a wooden cart with two tall spoked wheels rimmed in red, its shafts resting on the ground. On the same road at the right, the character 车 in dark brown: a short bar at the top, a stroke that slants down to the left then turns back to the right, a long bar below, and an upright stem driven through the whole.

Pronunciation: chē
Strokes: 4
Radical: 車

What it means

car; vehicle; CL:輛|辆[liang4]; machine; to shape with a lathe; Kangxi radical 159

Where its shape comes from

The older form is written 車 and draws a chariot seen from above: the box in the middle, the axle laid across it, and the wheels at either end. The earliest inscriptions show two of those wheels; the later ones keep just one. The short form used on the Chinese mainland takes up the cursive tracing of 車, straightened out into regular script and then kept by the 1956 simplification tables.

Source: Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE); the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (1956); the Chinese University of Hong Kong character database.

A way to remember it

The long bar at the bottom is the axle, and the shaft running through it is the box of the chariot. One wheel now instead of two, but it is still there for anyone who cares to see it.

This is a memory aid, not the origin of the character.

Words it appears in

出租车 chū zū chē · HSK 1 taxi; (Tw) rental car
火车站 huǒ chē zhàn · HSK 2 train station
自行车 zì xíng chē · HSK 3 bicycle; bike; CL:輛|辆[liang4]
堵车 dǔ chē · HSK 4 traffic jam; (of traffic) to get congested
摩托车 mó tuō chē · HSK 5 (loanword) motorbike; motorcycle; CL:輛|辆[liang4],部[bu4]
列车 liè chē · HSK 5 (railway) train

Writing it

See the stroke order of 车, animated stroke by stroke.