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Demand for a car that would be economical to run and one that would not pollute the atmosphere has resulted in the development of the Hybrid car. Vast strides made in the recent past in gasoline engine technology, has made the Hybrid car a popular reality.
A Hybrid car is a vehicle that uses two power sources, a rechargeable energy storage system and a fueled power source. The Hybrid car uses less fuel and emits much less pollutants.
It was in 1899 that Ferdinand Porsche developed the first working Hybrid electric vehicle followed by a number of others who innovated on the original invention. While some form or the other of the Hybrid vehicle has been in continuous production, no major manufacturer of automobiles took it up for bulk production and marketing, till late in the twentieth century. The technology was used primarily for use in diesel-electric submarines during that period.
The diesel-electric submarine works more or less in the same way as a modern Hybrid car does. The main difference is in the need for conserving oxygen in the former rather than any need for economy of fuel consumption. Subsequently, submarines have been evolving and have even begun to use nuclear power.
Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, two Hybrid cars were launched successfully in the 1990's. These two pioneers of the Hybrid car concept have changed the perception of the market about automobiles.
An idealistic American inventor, Victor Wouk, developed a Hybrid electric and gasoline motorcar that consumed half the fuel that all similar cars of that time consumed. This was in the 1960's, a good thirty years before the launch of Toyota Prius which caught the fancy of energy anxious Americans.
Even the most avid Hybrid car buff is unlikely to have heard of the inventor of the Hybrid car, who died at the age of 86 in May 2005. The USA should have in fact been the pioneer in Hybrid car technology. Prior to his death, Wouk claimed that the government program, which developed the Hybrid technology, in which he was involved was completely secret.
Victor Wouk was a pioneering serial entrepreneur who founded and sold two successful electric companies in the 1940's and 50's. Russell Feldman, one of the founders of Motorola concerned even then with the polluting effect of the automobile being a major factor in environmental matters, approached Wouk in 1962 to see if a solution could be found to this problem. Experiments conducted then did not amount to much.
Throughout the 60's, Wouk worked on this problem and eventually reached the final solution of combining the low emission qualities of an electric car with the power of a gasoline engine to produce a Hybrid vehicle. Instead of getting any recognition, Wouk was criticized for not believing in a full electric system.
With steadfast support and encouragement from his associate, Charlie Rosen who shared the belief in a Hybrid car, Wouk was able to demonstrate a Hybrid car as a solution to the dual- problems of high fuel cost and environmental pollution. Wouk and Rosen formed a new company to develop their hybrid car idea and make it commercially viable.
This idea is now a reality and the Hybrid’s impressive capabilities will be able to help a great deal in coming to terms with the problems of high fuel consumption and pollution.