Electrifying the Porsche again, 107 years later

With the news that some MIT students are electrifying a Porsche 914, it's interesting to look back to the year 1899 where Ferdinand Porsche himself was working on electric cars in Vienna.

According the the book "Small Wonder - The Amazing Story of the Volkswagen" by Walter Henry Nelson, "electromobiles" were all the rage at the turn of the 19th century in Europe with the added benefit that they were quiet and free of fumes. In 1900, Porsche did build the electric Porsche-Lohner Chaise, capable of traveling 50 miles distance (80 kilometers) at a time. A few years later, he built a combination electric/gasoline car, call the "Mixt", in which the internal combustion engine powered the generators that fed the electric motors in the wheels.

Everything does come around again.

Posted at 05:12PM Jul 01, 2007 by Peter Schow in Industry  |