The Hybrid Car and its History

By Colin Jones

Just where did a hybrid vehicle get it's beginnings? 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 picking which hybrid vehicle to purchase, you might want to know a little bit about the history of the hybrid first.

It is surprising, but hybrid cars were invented even before gas-powered cars. In or 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 intricate. Dead 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.

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 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 came out with an electric and fuel combo combustion engine that was the first of its kind. The car was named the Lohner Electric Chaise and it could go for up to 40 miles using just 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 cool 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 vehicles are becoming increasingly 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 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 auto.

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