First electric Porsche
 

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/3456/Lohner-Porsche-Mixte-Voiturette.html

Electric motors in the hubs....

wow it's made out of wood

You know what's fun? (in a wicked wicked way - :D).

The next time you hear some birkenstock shod idiot pontificating on the advanced technology of the hybrid prius blah, blah blah.... Tell him hybrid's are nothing new, that whole concept is soooo old school.... Porsche built them over a 100 years ago and then went onto something that actually worked...

Hehehe - that's how you get a party rollin'!!!;)

Porsche also made trailers with their own electric drives on the hubs. The guy was absolutely freakin' brilliant. I mean we're talking transplanted here by an alien race brilliant!

angela

well, I have two pairs of birkenstocks so maybe I yam a doubel idiyat...

The Prius hyrid is indeed far advanced over the Lohner wheel hub motors created by Ferd. It would be surprising if it was not, since engineers today can build on an additional century of technology.

If you think that hybrid drive does not "actually work" you are sadly mistaken. Besides cars, it is used today in some buses, large earth moving equipment, and trains.

Gotcha! :D

Dang, Randy, that was too easy! You snapped up that bait like a hungry trout gulps fly in the spring! All chain-yanking aside, I rented a Prius for two weeks on a business trip to Florida. By the end of the two weeks, I was very impressed with the vehicle itself aside from the startlingly harsh startup of the gas engine when switching from electric to combustion.

The point of my previous comment is not that the technology a 100 years ago was somehow better - only that the current idea is not new by any means. A similar comparison could be made with the first pneumatic tires for cars (c. 1920 or 1930ish?) and comparing them to a modern radial. Obviously the modern radial has every advantage that time, technology and learning curves can give it but the "idea" of a rubber tire filled with air is nothing new.

The concept of electric powered vehicles or "mixt" electric/combusion hybrids have been around for a very long time. Many people who buy hybrids are convinced that these ideas have sprung from the imaginations of engineers all in the last 15 or 20 years. That somehow a hybrid drive train is a revolutionary idea.

No way, not even close.

angela

There is a guy in S Florida that has a kit to drop into a VW or 356 ... $8k or so, including delivery.

Yeah, I've seen converted 914s out there and an early 944 too.