The history of hybrid cars

       First hybrid car :: 1902

    The world's first hybrid car was Lohner-Porsche petrol-electric "Mixte", built by Ferdinand Porsche in 1902.

      Porsche gave the nickname "Aunt Eulalia" to the first series of the hybrids, but the official name was Semper Vivus, meaning "always alive".

     The first hybrid car used a petrol engine, which rotated at a constant speed to drive a dynamo, which then charged accumulators.  

     The hybrid cars quickly became a success. Thousands of hybrid cars were produced in the years between 1902 and 1920, by companies such as Krieger, Lohner-Porsche, and Auto-Mixte.

      However, by 1920 Ford motor company's efficient assembly line manufacturing and the introduction of the self-starting gas engine resulted in a rapid decline for hybrid car production.

Hybrid Cars History Since 1920

    After the first successful hybrid cars, it took nearly a hundred years for them to become popular again.    The first commercial mass-market hybrid car of the new generation, Toyota Prius, was launched in 1997, in the Japanese market.

  Toyota Prius

     However, the launch of the Toyota Prius was the result of some 30 years of development work, of which had already resulted in concept cars, such as the early 1977 Toyota Sports 800 Gas Turbine hybrid prototype.

Toyota Sports 800

    Hybrid Cars History - Recent Developments

     After the 1997 launch of the Toyota Prius in Japan, it was released in 2000 in the U.S., one year after the release of Honda Insight. Soon after, hybrid cars became very successful, with demand greatly outpacing supply.

  Honda Insight

     The relatively huge demand was somewhat unexpected, resulting in delivery waiting lists as long as one year in 2002, 2003, and 2004, at least for the Toyota Prius.

     Hybrid Cars History - Hybrid Engine History

    Early hybrid cars primarily used the electric motor for all power.  The engine would charge batteries from which the motor drew power, running only when needed to charge them back up.

   More advanced hybrid cars reverse the process somewhat, using gasoline engine for primary power, but with greater efficiency that with conventional cars.  The modern role of the electric motor is to operate not only when the electric motor is used exclusively, but also when the gasoline engine requires extra power. Also, in modern hybrid cars, instead of the just the engine charging the batteries, the motor acts as a generator during braking, using the momentum of the car to generate electricity.