A brief history of hybrid cars, that is, cars propelled by electric motors powered by internal combustion engines, takes us to the dawn of the twentieth century, in 1901. That year, Ferdinand Porsche designed the Mixte, a hybrid version of the “System Lohner-Porsche” electric car, launched a year before, at the Paris Motor Show. Mixed had a 50 km range and reached a maximum speed of 50 km/ h.
In 1917, Woods Motor Vehicle Company in Chicago produced a hybrid car whose electric motor propelled it up to 25 km/ h. Until 1918, 600 of these products were fabricated, but the car was not successful because it was too slow, expensive and hard to repair.
In 1970, American engineer Victor Wouk, nicknamed “The Father of the Hybrid Car,” installed an electric engine running in tandem with the classic engine, on a Buick Skylark offered by General Motors.
In 1996, General Motors produced the EV1, an electric model fabricated in limited series and used especially for real-life testing of the behavior of an electric vehicle.
Hybrid technology became popular only in the 1990s, with the apparition of Honda Insight IMA battery and Toyota Prius. The first generation of Prius, produced in series since 1997, has shown that hybrid technology is not just a sophisticated toy for ecologist millionaires, or just some marketing strategies of attention-seeking corporations.