The History of Hybrid Cars

As early as 1665, Flemish inventors were using steam-power to operate some of the first alternative-fuel vehicles, like unmanned cars and in the late 1700s, even steam-powered motor carriages.

But it wasn’t until 1898 that the first hybrid car appeared. This vehicle, made by Porsche, used an internal-combustion engine, like engines today, to spin a generator and power the electric motors, which were located in the hubs of the car’s wheels. This hybrid was advanced enough to travel almost 40 miles on the power of the battery packs alone. And in 1899, two different hybrids appeared at the Paris Salon.

In only the first few years of the twentieth century thousands of both electric and hybrid cars were produced. In 1900, the first “modern” hybrid appeared. Called the “voiturette” and made by Pieper, this hybrid resembled today’s hybrids in every way, except possibly exterior. The 1900 hybrid recharged its own batteries while the car cruised and kicked into effect to help the car make it up hills. In 1902, a series-hybrid was even matched up against steam and gas-powered cars in a reliability test. So why did the invent of hybrid cars suddenly cease only to return at the beginning of the twenty-first century?

In the 1900s, hybrid vehicles were matched up against a formidable opponent: Henry Ford and his assembly lines for self-starting gasoline-only engines. But hybrid inventors plugged along and in 1905, engineer H. Piper filed patents for a hybrid vehicle that used an electric motor in junction with an internal-combustion engine: the first petrol-electric hybrid. Sound familiar?

Hybrid trucks were first built in 1910 and were used until 1918. And in 1916, hybrid cars offered by Baker of Cleveland, could achieve a top speed of 35 miles per hour and 48 miles per gallon. That’s better than most vehicles today, efficiency-wise.

But by 1920, the self-starting gasoline engines and assembly lines of Henry Ford had wiped hybrids off the board. And from 1920 to 1965 alternative-fuel vehicles were the dreams and escapades of neighborhood nerds and environmentalists.

Hybrids did not return again until 1969 and at that time GM’s 512 could only reach 40 miles per hour. Over the next three decades, inventors and scientists struggled to build efficient, speedy hybrid vehicles, coming closer and closer to the mark with every passing year and failure.

In 1997 both Toyota and Audi released hybrid vehicles to the public, while electric vehicles released from several major manufacturers failed to reach a viable amount of the public and programs for electric cars were dropped by 1999. In 1999, Honda released Insight, the first hybrid car to hit the United States in mass numbers. The Insight achieve 70 miles per gallon on the highway. Honda Insight was followed by the release of the Toyota Prius Hybrid in 2000 and the Honda Civic Hybrid in 2002.

Today, nearly every major manufacturer of automobiles across the world has hybrids in its line-up or in its plans for upcoming years, leaving us to wonder, if hybrids had been successful in the 1920s, where would we be now? What does the future of hybrid cars have in store for us?