The History Of The Hybrid Vehicle

October 26th, 2009 by Colin Jones Leave a reply »

Just where did a hybrid car get it’s beginnings? Well, read on to find out. Hybrid cars are very popular to 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.

Surprisingly, hybrid cars were around even before gas-powered cars. Back in about the year 1665, a Jesuit priest by the name of Ferdinand Verbeist began plans for a certain type of vehicle. That vehicle would be very simple, nothing complex, or intricate. Simple was all he wanted.

So it was that Ferdinand designed a car that would have four wheels and would run on steam. It took roughly fifteen years of sweat and toil for Ferdinand to complete his plan. He worked to perfect his dream vehicle. But no one knows for certain if he ever finished it because there is no physical evidence that his concept ever came into reality.

Then in 1769, a man with the name of Nicholas Cugnot designed and developed a carriage that was driven by steam. This carriage really did work and it went at six miles per hour. This project was great, but it was difficult to get the amount of steam needed to make the car to travel 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 model 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 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 go for up to 40 miles using only its batteries.

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

Nowadays hybrid vehicles are becoming more and more popular as people are getting to understand them better. In the 21st century, hybrids saw a big boom in sales after the Toyota Prius came on the market. It was the first hybrid with four doors that was marketed in America.

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.

If you are interested in the insides of New Hybrid Vehicles, just visit our website on http://new-hybrid-vehicles.com

categories: hybrid vehicles,automobiles,trucks,SUV,environmental,technology,hi-tech,oil,fashion,science,innovation,leasing,outdoors,other

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