It’s only the fortunate few who can drive an electrified Porsche. But looking at things logically, EV or hybrid Porsches should outnumber Toyota Priuses by now.
Ferdinand Porsche is responsible for the world’s first hybrid production vehicle. He created the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus (“always alive”) prototype in 1900, which featured electric wheel-hub motors at the front. That evolved into a production version with motors on all four wheels, the Lohner-Porsche Mixte (1901-15).
Jacob Lohner reckoned the time was right for electric vehicles because the air was “ruthlessly spoiled by the large number of petrol engines in use”. That’s some forward thinking right there.
The Mixte combined the hub motors (up to 5.2kW each for short bursts) with lead-acid batteries and a petrol generator. It was a revolutionary machine, but not without its issues: the combined weight of the batteries, motors and platform was over four tonnes, and it was extremely expensive – about twice as much as a comparable petrol car.
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