Just where did a hybrid car get it’s beginnings? Well, read on to find out. Hybrid cars are very popular for today’s car buyers, and there are many reasons why. But before you even think about choosing a hybrid car to buy, you might want to know a little bit about the history of the hybrid car 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 began making plans for a new type of vehicle. That vehicle or cart would be very simple, nothing complex. Simple was all he was interested in.
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 by the name of Nicholas Cugnot developed a carriage that was driven by steam. This carriage did in fact work, and it could go at six miles per hour. This project was great, but it was difficult to get the amount of steam needed that would allow the car to go any significant distance.
The real break through in hybrid car design finally came in 1839 when Robert Anderson developed an electrically powered vehicle. It was the first of its breed and was built in Scotland.
This electric car was a highly applauded innovation of its time. However, the only problem was that it was very difficult to recharge the car’s battery. Some pioneers came after Anderson, but they too had a hard time 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 called the Lohner Electric Chaise and it could travel for up to 40 miles using just its batteries.
Soon pioneers combined both a gas and a battery powered engine to power what would become today’s hybrid car. In 1999, Honda made a leap into the US market. It came out with the Insight. This was a lightweight two-door hybrid. Since then, hybrid cars have just been evolving and improving into what you see on the markets today. Hybrid cars are not just for techies who think it’s cool to combine battery and fuel power to get them where they need to go. Hybrid cars started out simple, and they are still simple today.
These days hybrid cars are becoming more and more 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 for the USA.
Soon afterwards, the Ford Escape hybrid became the very first SUV hybrid vehicle ever made. And so there it is in a nut shell, the history of the hybrid car – today’s most modern on road, mass-produced vehicle.