The Development History of the Hybrid Car
Are modern hybrid cars reinventing the wheel? Well not quite, but hybrid car developers may be going full circle. Hybrid cars are currently all the rage and this is for many reasons including economy, climate change, fuel shortages and many more forms of challenge to the motorist. The latest hybrid cars are seen as a modern response to these challenges. The truth however is that the automobile manufacturing industry has been here before. So while contemplating the purchase of a new super modern hybrid, why not pause a little and reflect on the history behind today’s so called new designs?
It is not generally realized that designs for hybrid cars actually predate designs for gasoline driven cars. As early as 1665 a certain Ferdinand Verbeist is known to have been working on the concept of a self-moving wagon. This appears to have been a very basic design, based on a simple four-wheeled wagon of the day to which some form of power source was to be added. The motive power was to be steam! It is known that he was still working on his design in the late 1670′s but unfortunately no record exists to show whether he actually got it to work.
It was nearly 100 years later when Nicholas Cugnot produced a somewhat more sophisticated steam carriage that actually worked. Capable of speeds up to some six miles per hour, this vehicle proved the concept, but suffered from both not being able to create enough steam to go any faster and also not being able to carry enough fuel to go any great distance. Nonetheless, surely Nicholas can claim to have produced the first working hybrid car.
Over the next 70 years a number of designers tried various ways to overcome the known drawbacks of what came to be known as the horseless carriage and in 1839 Robert Anderson announced the electric powered car. Robert, who designed and built his car in Scotland, seemed to have made the breakthrough everyone was looking for. Read more