The history of hybrid car is very interesting ever since the first hybrid car built in 1898. There are many cars appeared in hybrid cars history which built by different people in different places. However, all these cars are very interesting and they play a very important role until we can see hybrid cars went in to mass production today.

Let’s start the story from first car invented. During 1832 to 1839, Robert Anderson from Aberdeen invented and built the first electric car. His invention has brought a big revolution in automobile world. After half a century later in 1886, Karl Benz built the first gasoline-powered car.

In 1898, a German car inventor Dr. Ferdinand Porsche built his first electric car, the Lohner Electric Chaise. Dr. Ferdinand quickly moved on his invention and built the first hybrid car after the success of his first car. The first hybrid car by Dr. Ferdinand using an internal combustion engine powered by gasoline to spin a generator and the generator will provide power to electric motors placed in the wheel hubs to move the car.

A year later in 1899, two hybrid cars from Pope Manufacturing Company appeared at the Paris Salon. In early 1900s, thousands of hybrid cars were produced and most of these cars using small-size gasoline engine to generate power to electric motor and batteries pack.

From 1900 to late 1920s, there are many competition among hybrid cars, steam cars, and gasoline-powered cars to see which one are more reliable to use. In 1905, among all inventor of the car, H. Piper from America patented his petrol-electric hybrid which uses an electric motor to assist a gasoline-powered engine that could achieve 25 mph. The record was break by another hybrid car built by Baker and Woods who claimed their hybrid achieved 35 mph in 1916.

The keeps on growing until early 1920s, Henry Ford introduced fully gasoline powered car which is more powerful and reliable. This has made the hybrid cars faced a rapid decline.

In 1969, another hybrid was built, the GM 512. The technology of GM 512 is the car fully ran on electric power up to 10 mph and it automatically changed to batteries and gas engine from 10 to 13 mph. It will fully run on gasoline above 13 mph.

During 1970s to 1980s, many hybrid cars built by various car makers due to the price of gasoline are too high. Among the famous inventors are Victor Wouk and Charlie Rosen. In 1976, the first Toyota Hybrid was built using a parallel-hybrid method. The hybrid technology moved on until 1980, a 26 hp hybrid developed by Briggs and Stratton.

Recent hybrid car in the market

• In 1997, Audi became the first hybrid manufacturer in Europe.
• In 2000, Toyota released Toyota Prius Hybrid. See how many hybrid cars are on the road today.
• In 2002, Honda released Honda Civic Hybrid.
• In 2004, Ford released Ford Escape Hybrid.
• In 2006, Toyota has released Toyota Camry Hybrid.
• In 2009, Ford released Fusion Hybrid.
• In 2009, the total sales for Honda Insight Hybrid, Ford Fusion Hybrid, Civic Hybrid, Camry Hybrid, and Prius Hybrid in U.S market are 213, 814 units.
• In 2010, Honda CR-Z was introduced as a sport hybrid coupe car.
• In 2012, Toyota launched the Toyota Aqua Hybrid a.k.a. Toyota Prius C Hybrid in Japan and it will be available in U.S. and outside Japan in 2013.
• In 2013, we foresee the hybrid cars will have bigger market share as you can see from the achievement of hybrid car in recent years.