Evolution of hybrids cars.

Hybrid cars
In the late 19th and very early 20th centuries, back when the idea that cars must run on gasoline wasn't yet set in stone, inventors tinkered with a number of ways in which automobiles could be powered -- including electricity, fossil fuels, steam and combinations of these things. The history of hybrid electric vehicles, however, began shortly after the dawn of the 20th century. Here are some of the highlights of that history: 1900: The Lohner-Porsche Elektromobil makes it debut at the Paris Exposition. Although initially a purelyelectric vehicle, designer Ferdinand Porsche soon added an internal combustion engine to recharge thebatteries, making it the first hybrid electric vehicle. 1917: Woods Motor Company introduces the Woods Dual Power, a hybrid electric vehicle with a 4cylinder internal combustion engine. The Dual Power had a top speed of around 35 miles per hour (56.3 kilometers per hour). It was not a success. 1960s and 1970s: Electrical engineer Victor Wouk builds a prototype HEV based on the Buick Skylark. When the U.S. government decided not to invest in the vehicle's further development, Wouk ran out of money and abandoned the project. 1968: GM develops the GM 512, an experimental vehicle that runs on electricity at low speeds and gasoline at high speeds. 1989: Audi demonstrates the experimental Audi Duo. It combines a 12-horsepower electric motor with a 139-horsepower internal combustion engine. Audi develops further generations of the Duo over much of the following decade. 1997: In response to a challenge from Executive Vice President Akihiro Wadi to develop more fuelefficient vehicles, Toyota introduces the Prius and begins marketing it in Japan. 1999: Honda introduces the Insight. 2000: Toyota begins marketing the Prius (as a 2001 model) in the United States. 2002: Hybrids start to become fairly common in the marketplace. Honda introduces the Accord Hybrid. Many more hybrid cars follow over the next few years. 2004: Ford introduces the first hybrid SUV, the 2005 Ford Escape. On the next page we'll take a closer look at the very first hybrid car, the Lohner-Porsche Elektromobil. This ingenious early motor vehicle shows that eco-friendly driving isn't just a modern concept.

First step towards a new era

1.The first steam-powered motor car or rather motor carriage was made by Nicholas Cugnot in 1769.

The Gurney steam car, built by Sir Goldsworthy Gurney in 1825completed an 85 mile round-trip journey in ten hours time. 2. Electric Power and early Electric Car In or about the year 1839, Moritz von Jacobi sailed an electric boat on the Neva, with the help of an electromagnetic engine of one horse- power, fed by the current from a battery of Grove cells, and in 1882 a screw launch, carrying several passengers, and propelled by an electric motor of three horse-power, worked by forty-five accumulators, was tried on the Thames. Rodert Anderson built the first crude electric carriage in 1839. In 1870 David Salomon developed a electric car with a light electric motor. The batteries are at this time heavy so performance was poor. The first electric "railway" was built by Dr. Werner von Siemens in1879. The wheels of the car were driven by an electric motor drawing its electricity from the rails which where insulated from ground and connected to a generator. In 1889 Magnus Volk made several electric carriages, one for the Sultan of Turkey. It was propelled by a one- horse-power Immisch electric motor and thirty "EPS" accumulators to give a speed of ten miles an hour. Between 1885-1889 M. Goubet constructed submarines, propelled by a screw and an electric motor fed by accumulators, for discharging torpedoes and exploring the sea. The London Electric Cab Company began regular service in 1897 using cars designed by Walter Bersey. The Bersey Cab, used a 40-cell battery and 3 horsepower electric motor and had a usable range of 50 miles.

The first Hybrid car

In 1899 Dr Ferdinand Porsche, then a young engineer at Jacob Lohner & Co, built the first Hybrid Vehicle or more specifically the first Hybrid Car. The Lohner-Porsche petrolelectric 'Mixte' used a petrol engine rotating at a constant speed to drive a dynamo, which charged a bank of accumulators. These, in turn, fed current to electric motors contained within the hubs of the front wheels.Therefore there was no need of drive shafts, transmission, gears, straps, chains,or clutch. Due to its extreme simplicity the transmission operated, therefore, without losses produced by mechanical friction with an incredible yield of 83%. When it first appeared in the World Exhibition of Paris , in April 14th ,1900 , the Lohner-Porsche with electrical motors astonished the automobile world and was an

authentic novelty for the automobile fans of that time. The innovating success of this design catapulted Dr. Ferdinand Porsche to the fame as engineer. 300 Lohner Porsches where produced. The patent was later sold to Emil Jellinek. Up to the 1920's several manufacturer made Hybrid "Cars" over a similar mold. Hybrid Cars like the Belgian Auto-Mixte added to the technology.TheAuto-mixte, produced in Liege Belgium in 1906/7 used an interesting technology called the HenriPieper system. The 24hp engine drove via a magnetic disc clutch a motor dynamo that was connected to a transmission that was without a gearbox, and then to the rear wheels by chain final drive. Normally the engine alone could be used to propel the car. When the load was light or braking required the dynamo driven by the engine or the final drive (Regenerative braking,) could be used to charge a bank of 28 Tudor batteries in series. When the load was heavy the battery could be used to drive the dynamo as a motor to assist the engine, or the electric motor could be used to drive the car on its own. This was achieved using a hand operated controller to select the required configuration electrically. The clutch disc was also utilized as part of a magnetic brake. In 1905 H. Piper filed a patent for a petrol-electric hybrid vehicle. His idea was to use an electric motor to assist an internal-combustion engine, mainly to augment the ICE to let the vehicle accelerate to 40 kilometers (25 miles) per hour in 10 seconds, instead of the usual 30. By the time the patent was issued, three and a half years later, engines had become powerful enough to achieve this kind of performance on their own. Cheap petrol and advances in ICE and automobile production in general (Henry Ford) gradually killed off the Hybrid "Cars".

A notable exceptions is the1921 Owen Magnetic Model 60 Touring which uses a gasoline engine to run a generator that supplies electric power to motors mounted in each of the rear wheels. Hybrid cars did not appear again until the in 1960's and 1970's, when cars like the 1965 GM512 and especially the 1973 VW Taxi Hybrid Vehicle which was produced in the wake of the Arab Oil embargo. But Hybrid Vehicle technology did not disappear its development continued in another arena.

Introduction of Toyota Prius

The Toyota Prius (/pris/; plural: Prii /pria/) is a full hybrid electric mid-size hatchback, formerly a compact sedan developed and manufactured by Toyota. The Prius first went on sale in Japan in 1997, and was available at all four Toyota Japan dealerships, making it the first mass-produced [3] hybrid vehicle. It was subsequently introduced worldwide in 2000. The Prius is sold in almost 80 [4][5] countries and regions, with its largest markets being those of Japan and the United States. Global [6] cumulative Prius sales reached the milestone 1 million vehicle mark in May 2008, 2 million in [5] [7] September 2010, and passed the 3 million mark in June 2013. Cumulative sales of 1 million Prii

[1]

were achieved in the U.S. by early April 2011, [9] 2011.

[8]

and Japan reached the 1 million mark in August

In 2011, Toyota expanded the Prius family to include the Prius v, an extended hatchback wagon, and the Prius c, a subcompact hatchback. The production version of the Prius plug-in hybrid was released in 2012. The Prius family reached global cumulative sales of 3.8 million units by June 2013, representing 71.7% of Toyota hybrid sales of 5.3 million Lexus and Toyota units sold worldwide since [10] 1997. Global sales of the Prius c family passed the 500,000 mark in August 2013, with sales led by Japan with 448,703 Aquas, followed by the U.S. with 65,583 .