Archive Gallery: The Electric Car, 1916-Present

The 1916 hybrid electric vehicle maybe the first hybrid covered by your magazine, but the first hybrid was created seventeen years earlier by Ferdinand Porsche in 1899. The Lohner-Porsche was of the Series Hybrid variety, meaning it is an electric car carrying an on board generator, similar to the workings of diesel locomotives and the Chevy Volt. The Lohner-Porsche was propelled by wheel hub electric motors and energy came from a combination of the on board generator as well as batteries. As a result, the drive train was simple, friction free, and did not require a transmission. In 1905 it broke the Australian land speed record with top speed of 37 mph, which was lighting fast at the time.

You can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche_Mixte_Hybrid

I think we have always known that our cars should have been electric from the beginning. Maybe it's taken a century of playing in the Vaseline jar for us to finally come back home again.