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Why did armoured cars become less useful once trench warfare began in World War I?

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Kuwait: U.S. 1st Armored Division M1A1 Abrams tanks — tank M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks of the U.S. 1st Armored Division moving across the desert in northern Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War, February 1991.

Armoured cars became less useful once trench warfare began in World War I because they were unable to navigate the difficult conditions of the battlefield.1

While armoured cars were effective during the war's initial stage of mobile warfare, they were limited to operating on roads and could not traverse broken ground, deep mud, or the extensive belts of barbed wire that characterized the trench systems. Their inability to cross trenches or move across the devastated, uneven terrain rendered them ineffective in the static, defensive environment that emerged.21

This operational failure directly spurred the development of tracked armoured vehicles—the tank—which were specifically designed to overcome these obstacles by providing a mobile, protected platform capable of crossing trenches and crushing wire to support infantry advances.21