Areason an automobile engine is not considered to be living is that it is not able to

Something is classified as alive if it can move independently, metabolize fuel, and reproduce on its own.  An automobile does not move independently, nor can it reproduce itself, so you can't classify it as living. It cannot be classify as living because it is not able to make copy of itself.

In line with other previous and contemporaneous proposals, in 1912 the meteorologist  alfred wegener  amply described what he called continental drift, expanded in his 1915 book the origin of continents and oceans and the scientific debate started that would end up fifty years later in the theory of plate tectonics.