What Is the History of Hybrid Cars?

The first hybrid car wasn't the Toyota Prius nor was it invented in the 1990s or 2000s. In fact, it dates back to the early 20th century. Still, the first hybrid car was brought into existence for reasons that will be familiar to those living in the 21st century: Internal combustion engines were producing too much foul-smelling pollution.

The first hybrid car was partly the brainchild of a Viennese coach builder named Jacob Lohner, who felt that gas-driven cars were too noisy and smelly. To find a solution to this problem, Lohner turned to a young Austrian engineer named Ferdinand Porsche. In 1896, when he was just 21 years old, Porsche invented the electric wheel-hub motor, a battery-operated motor that actually fit inside the hub of a wheel. Lohner asked Porsche to combine his in-wheel motors with one of Lohner's coaches. The result was the Lohner-Porsche Elektromobil. This vehicle was first shown to the general public at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

Although initially a purely electric vehicle, the Elektromobil soon became history's first hybrid. Faced with the problem of keeping the Elektromobil's batteries charged, Porsche added an internal combustion engine that ran a generator, making the Elektromobil the first vehicle to combine an electric motor with a gasoline-powered engine. This gas-electric hybrid could achieve a top speed of 23 mph (37 km/h). The first person to buy an Elektromobil was E.W. Hart of Luton, England, who requested that Porsche put motors on all four wheels. Porsche complied, and the Elektromobil became not only the first hybrid but a pioneering four-wheel-drive vehicle, too. The Elektromobil didn't introduce the concept of green driving — in fact, there had been all-electric cars for several decades by the time it debuted — but it did show how electricity and gasoline could be used together for increased fuel efficiency.

Ultimately Lohner and Porsche sold about 300 Elektromobils and the idea of a gas-electric hybrid faded into history for many years. Porsche became better known for founding the company known today as Porsche SE and the designer of the original Volkswagen Beetle.

The idea of the gas-electric hybrid did actually resurface several times over the following century, but it remained for Toyota to turn it into a viable enterprise with the Prius, which was introduced in Japan in 1997 and outside Japan in 2001. By 2008 Toyota had sold one million Priuses worldwide. The Lohner-Porsche Elektromobil, by contrast, has been forgotten by the general public, though several survive and occasionally show up at antique auto shows. Without the Elektromobil the Prius would probably still exist, but Porsche and Lohner deserve credit for having an idea that was nearly 100 years ahead of its time.

Despite their increased fuel efficiency and potential for eco-friendly, green driving, hybrid vehicles are manufactured in much the same way other cars are. As with the build process of most cars, the typical hybrid is put together on an assembly line according to a carefully choreographed series of steps. Conveyor belts shuttle the parts along and elevators move parts into place. Both human workers and machines are involved in the process.

The main difference in the creation of these fuel-efficient vehicles is in the batteries. Hybrid batteries are large, rechargeable and take up a considerable amount of space. They're made by specialty battery companies, like Panasonic and Sanyo, chiefly located in Japan. Hybrids use nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries orlithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries.

To make a lithium-ion battery, a lithium ingot is extruded under pressure into a sheet that's just .01 inches (0.254 millimeters) wide. Machinery is then used to wind these sheets into tightly coiled cells. These wound-up sheets are baked at a high temperature and molten metal is sprayed onto the sheets by automated equipment — a process known as metalizing. Several metalized battery cells are then stacked together in a module.

There are certain misconceptions about hybrid car manufacturing. One is that the amount of carbon dioxide released in the manufacture of a hybrid car, such as the Toyota Prius, is greater than the amount saved by driving one. Many experts have debunked this idea, yet it persists [source: Gratton]. According to Toyota's own figures, a Prius only has to be driven for about 13,000 miles (20,921 kilometers) for the CO2 savings to outweigh the manufacturing costs. It has also been suggested that the sheer distance the nickel used in the manufacture of the Prius' NiMH batteries travels before it reaches the factory causes more energy to be burned than would be burned by driving a Hummer instead of a Prius. However, analysts have shown that this idea is based on faulty assumptions. The Prius saves more energy than the manufacturing process uses.

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