---
title: Inheritance Basics
---
# Inheritance Basics

So great you have successfully created a Car class. But, wait, aren't Tesla cars supposed to be electric variants? I want an Electric car class, but it also should have the properties of the original `Car` class.

Solution : **Inheritance**. Java provides a neat way to "inherit" parent properties :

```java
public class Car {

    private String name;
    private String manufacturerName;

    public Car(String name, String man) {
        this.name = name;
        this.manufacturerName = man;
    }
    // Getter method
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
    // Getter method
    public String getManufacturerName() {
        return manufacturerName;
    }
}

public class ElectricCar extends Car {

    public ElectricCar(String name, String man) {
        super(name, man);
    }

    public void charge() {
     System.out.println("Charging ...");
    }
}

ElectricCar modelS = new ElectricCar("Model S","Tesla");
// prints Tesla
System.out.println(modelS.getManufacturerName());
// prints Charging ...
modelS.charge();
```

![:rocket:](https://forum.freecodecamp.com/images/emoji/emoji_one/rocket.png?v=2 ":rocket:") <a href='https://repl.it/CJZY/0' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Run Code</a>

See here that the class `ElectricCar` inherits or `extends` the public methods from `Car` class, as well as has its own methods and properties. Cool way to pass on information!

Inheritance is a way for *Object Oriented* languages to share properties from an existing class to a new class. The new class can use the properties of the old one, but the old one cannot use the new properties added into the new class.

Also notice the usage of <a href='https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/IandI/super.html' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>super</a> keyword here. Since our `Car` class had a constructor, so we have to initialize that constructor from the child class as well. We do that using the `super` keyword. Read more about <a>Inheritance here</a>.

Inheritance is a way for *Object Oriented* languages to share properties from an existing class to a new class. The new class can use the properties of the old one, but the old one cannot use the new properties added into the new class.


#### More Information
- [Techopedia: Inheritance](https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3226/inheritance-java)