The First Hybrid

Professor Ferdinand Porsche was busy designing and developing his cars from as early as 1896. The first fruit of his endeavours was an electric vehicle known as the Lohner-Porsche. It was driven by wheel-hub motors and it caused a sensation at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900.

This was soon followed by an even more impressive example of Professor Porsche’s innovative spirit. A racing car boasting 4 wheel-hub electric motors became the world’s first all-wheel drive passenger car and marked the automotive engineering debut of four-wheel brakes. No less visionary was Professor Porsche’s next idea – in 1900, he combined his battery-powered wheel hub drive with a petrol engine, thus creating the serial hybrid drive principle.