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Hybrid Car BackgroundIn fact, the first working hybrid car used a petrol engine, which rotated at a constant speed to drive a dynamo, which then charged accumulators. The car was made by Ferdinand Porsche, whose son Ferry Porsche was later the mastermind behind much of the rise in fame for the Porsche automobile brand. For the first hybrid, the accumulators fed current to electric motors contained within the hubs of the front wheels. This simple technology quickly became a success with car buyers. There were thousands of hybrid cars produced in the years between 1902 and 1920 by Krieger, Lohner-Porsche, and Auto-Mixte, among others. The sad decline in hybrid cars' popularity came as Ford motor company, by 1920, developed the means for an efficient assembly line manufacturing and the technology for a self-starting gas engine. The interest in hybrids was not renewed until 1990s, when the Honda launched the first commercially manufactured hybrid car, the Honda Insight in Japan.
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