To speak of a
new technology, when speaking about hybrid cars, would be rather
untrue. The first gasoline and electric hybrid car was designed and
manufactured by Ferdinand Porsche, of the Porsche fame, while he was
still working with Jacob Lohner & Co. This happened by the turn of
the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Pieper, a Belgian company,
manufactured a car that was similar to the new series hybrid cars,
where the combustion engine is powering the electric motor, both
engines were used for acceleration and driving uphill. French company
L'Energie Electro-Mecanique and Woods Dual Power Car, a Chicago based
Motor Vehicle Company, all produced hybrid cars by the beginning of the
twentieth century. Technology supposedly went a long way since then,
with the view in mind to reduce emissions and save the environment. Too
bad that it currently only looks like the companies are just peddling
one and the same, with some emission reduction provisions that could
have been implemented in regular cars. But perhaps that is exactly what
the companies are doing: Improving the existing cars with additional
gadgets. Cars were already outfitted with all bunch of computerized
gadgetry; batteries were already a part of the overall package, the
step towards adding an electric motor was just a question of time and
feasibility. It does not sound as if the automotive industry has the
environment in mind, rather the financial subsidies provided by the
governments, which promote environment protecting provisions
implemented. The change in the car designs was not as monumental as the
public is led to believe. Apparently the public relations companies
went completely overboard in order to sell the hybrid cars as something
unique, so that suddenly everybody was speaking about the new
revolutionary concept, which has been around for only a century? The
question here is a more difficult one, namely, why the propaganda and
why not turning the whole way towards an electric car? Why did the car
companies not simply build in more proper filtering provisions, where
the emissions would have been eliminated altogether or at least lowered
to the very same standards set by the environmental agencies?
We all are left just with speculations, whereby the list of hybrid cars
to be expected in the next few years is rising almost weekly. It is
questionable how much less emissions the announced third generation
Hybrid Synergy Drive by Toyota will provide, or the new BMW
ActiveHybrid concept. It only seems like the car companies pulled a
fast one on all environment minded people and kept their buddies from
the gasoline companies very happy.

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