Five hybrid firsts

Monday, 31 December 2018

We are used to hybrids now, but they did have a beginning. In fact, here are five hybrid beginnings.

With all the hype electric cars are generating these days it is easy to forget the eco-cars that vastly out-sell them, namely hybrids.

So today, to celebrate the humble hybrid we take a look at five hybrid firsts.

First hybrid

The world's first gas/electric hybrid drivetrain was created by a 23 year old with no formal engineering training at his first job. Of course, that 23 year old was Ferdinand Porsche, who did go on to prove he was something of an automotive genius anyway.

The first Lohner-Porsche prototypes in 1898 were pure electric, with two hub-mounted electric motors driving the front wheels, but Porsche quickly developed the Mixed Hybrid system, with a gasoline motor providing charge for the lead acid batteries, as well as an AWD version with an electric motor driving each of the four wheels.

Although several were built and sold, the system was too costly and impractical for mass production, however it was used in commercial vehicles.

First mass-produced hybrid

That's right it took 99 years for the hybrid to go from conception in the form of the Lohner-Porsche to mass-production in the form of the venerable Toyota Prius.

Introduced in 1997, the Prius is loved and hated in seemingly equal amounts, but Toyota has sold more than 4 million units globally, making it the best selling hybrid in the world as well.

And that's only for the liftback - Toyota, being the masters of recycling old technology, also offers the small Prius C hatch with previous-gen Prius tech, as well as the Prius C people mover and Prius Prime plug-in hybrid.

First hybrid SUV

While Toyota was busy creating an all-electric SUV with Tesla (the RAV4 EV for California and US fleets), Ford actually snuck in and became the first manufacturer to offer a hybrid SUV in the form of the 2005 model year US-market Escape.

In fact, the Escape wasn't just the first hybrid SUV, it was also the first AWD hybrid, as well as the first American-built hybrid.

The Escape hybrid used technology similar to the Prius. In fact, it was so similar Ford engineers were worried Toyota would sue them for copyright infringement, leading Ford to license the technology from Toyota, despite developing the system entirely independently. At least, that's Ford's story…

First hybrid pick-up

The same year (but just after) Ford introduced the Escape hybrid, General Motors rolled out its GMC Sierra/Chevrolet Silverado pick-up twins with hybrid power. Although that is a bit of a stretch, as it was a very mild hybrid system that was jammed in the flywheel housing and did very little to actually 'power' the Sierra/Silverado. That was still largely up to the 5.3-litre V8.

However, for the 2009 model year the Sierra/Silverado got a proper two-mode hybrid system, complete with that most hated of transmissions - a continuously variable transmission. Okay, so CVTs are generally less awful when hooked up to a big, torquey motor, but still…

First hybrid supercar

We have called this one a three-way tie because these three cars also created a new category - that of 'hypercar' - thanks to the extra amounts of monstrous grunt provided by their hybrid systems.

The LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 all landed so close to one another in 2013 that narrowing down a single 'first' is unfair. Okay, technically the Ferrari was in production first - by four months - but they were all developed at the same time and are utterly awesome; all three produced more than 650kW and 900Nm and could hit the 100km/h mark in less than 2.8 seconds, with the Ferrari crushing it in 2.4 seconds.