With more awareness of global warming and dwindling natural resources, hybrid cars are all the rage saving both gasoline and money for the owners.
It wasn't always like this - in the century that the automobile industry has been in business car engines have changed very little. Internal combustion, both inefficient and costly, were the norm all over the world with an engine design that never fundamentally changed.
This is why the Hybrid Drive is considered such a revolutionary breakthrough. It is the first radical redesign of the car engine in decades... or is it? You seen, the Toyota Prius is normally thought of as the first produced Hybrid engine, but the truth is that Porche beat Toyota to the punch with the Elektromobil, a fully functional hybrid engine that could go up to thirty five miles on battery charge alone.
When was this technological marvel built?
1898.
Jacob Lohner, a coach builder in Vienna in the late 1800s, asked the young Ferdinand Porsche, a graduate of the Vienna Technical College, to build a silent electric carriage as the gas-powered vehicles of the era were noisy, smelly, shaky and difficult to start.
The result was a fusion of battery and gas powered engines - the first vehicle with front wheel drive, as a matter of fact. The vehicle was first shown at The Paris Exposition of 1900.
The result was a fusion of battery and gas powered engines - the first vehicle with front wheel drive, as a matter of fact. The vehicle was first shown at The Paris Exposition of 1900.
However, the abundance of cheap gasoline, the expense of the hybrid engine, and a lack of investors led the to disappearance of the hybrid engine for almost one hundred years. Some conspiracy buffs even blame the oil companies for shutting down the Elektromobil.
However, all that was old is new again as many of the features of the Elektromobil have been incorporated into the new Chevy Volt, a battery powered car for the modern age. The Elektromobil was also the inspiration for the Apollo lunar rover.
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