The Hybrid Car and its History

Just where did a hybrid car get it’s origins? Read on to find out. Hybrid cars are very popular for today’s car buyers and there are many reasons why that should be. But before you even think about choosing a hybrid vehicle to purchase, you might want to know a little about the history of the hybrid first.

It is surprising, but hybrid vehicles were around even before gas-powered cars. In about the year 1665, a Jesuit priest by the name of Ferdinand Verbeist started making plans for a new type of vehicle. That vehicle or cart would be very simple, nothing complex. Simple was all he wanted.

So Ferdinand planned out a car that would have four wheels and would run only on steam. It took about fifteen years of work for Ferdinand to go through with his plan. He laboured to perfect his dream car. But no one knows if he ever finished because there is no evidence that his concept ever came into existence.

Then in 1769, a man with the name of Nicholas Cugnot designed and developed a carriage that was powered by steam. This carriage really did work and it went at six miles per hour. This project was all well and good, but it was difficult to get the amount of steam needed to allow the car to go any significant distance.

A break through in hybrid car development finally came when Robert Anderson developed an electric powered car in 1839. It was the first among its kind. The car was built in Scotland.

This type of electric car was a highly applauded innovation of its time. But, the only problem was that it was very difficult to recharge the car’s battery. Some pioneers did come after Anderson, but they had the same problem of getting the battery recharged easily.

Then there was another outstanding break-through, in the year 1898, Porsche brought out an electric and fuel combo combustion engine that was the first of its type. The car was named the Lohner Electric Chaise and it could travel for up to 40 miles using only its batteries.

Soon, pioneers combined both gas and a battery powered engines to power what would become today’s hybrid car. In 1999, Honda made a leap into the US market. It came out with the Honda Insight, which was a lightweight two-door hybrid. Since then, hybrid cars have been evolving and improving into what we see on the market today. Hybrid cars are no longer just for the techies who think it’s nice to combine battery and fuel power to get them where they need to go. Hybrid cars started out simple, and they are still quite simple today.

These days hybrid cars are becoming increasingly popular as people understand them better. In the 21st century, hybrids saw a boom in sales when the Toyota Prius came out on the streets. It was the first hybrid with four doors that was marketed in America.

Soon after, the Ford Escape hybrid became the very first SUV hybrid ever made. So there it is in a nutshell, the history of the hybrid car – today’s modern car.