page_title: Hybrid electric vehicle
section_title: Early days
hierarchical_section_title: Hybrid electric vehicle / History / Early days
caption_attribution_description: English: A German Panzerjäger Tiger (P) heavy tank destroyer, also known as an "Elefant" or a "Ferdinand", at the US Army Ordnance Museum, in Aberdeen, Maryland.
context_page_description: A hybrid electric vehicle is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine system with an electric propulsion system. The presence of the electric powertrain is intended to achieve either better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle or better performance. There is a variety of HEV types and the degree to which each function as an electric vehicle also varies. The most common form of HEV is the hybrid electric car, although hybrid electric trucks and buses also exist.
  Modern HEVs make use of efficiency-improving technologies such as regenerative brakes which convert the vehicle's kinetic energy to electric energy, which is stored in a battery or supercapacitor. Some varieties of HEV use an internal combustion engine to turn an electrical generator, which either recharges the vehicle's batteries or directly powers its electric drive motors; this combination is known as a motor–generator. Many HEVs reduce idle emissions by shutting down the engine at idle and restarting it when needed; this is known as a start-stop system.
context_section_description: William H. Patton filed a patent application for a gasoline-electric hybrid rail-car propulsion system in early 1889, and for a similar hybrid boat propulsion system in mid 1889.  He went on to test and market the Patton Motor Car, a gas-electric hybrid system used to drive tram cars and small locomotives.  A gasoline engine drove a generator that served to charge a lead acid battery in parallel with the traction motors.  A conventional series-parallel controller was used for the traction motors.  A prototype was built in 1889, an experimental tram car was run in Pullman, Illinois in 1891, and a production locomotive was sold to a street railway company in Cedar Falls, Iowa in 1897.
  In 1896, the Armstrong Phaeton was developed by Harry E. Dey and built by the Armstrong Company of Bridgeport, CT for the Roger Mechanical Carriage Company. Though there were steam, electric, and internal combustion vehicles introduced in the early days, the Armstrong Phaeton was innovative with many firsts. Not only did it have a gasoline powered 6.5-liter, two-cylinder engine, but also a dynamo flywheel connected to an onboard battery.  The dynamo and regenerative braking were used to charge the battery. Its electric starter was used 16 years before Cadillac's. The dynamo also provided ignition spark and powered the electric lamps. The Phaeton also had the first semi-automatic transmission (no manual clutch). The exhaust system was an integrated structural component of the vehicle.  The Armstrong Phaeton's motor was too powerful; the torque damaged the carriage wheels repeatedly.
  
  In 1900, while employed at Lohner Coach Factory, Ferdinand Porsche developed the Mixte, a 4WD series-hybrid version of "System Lohner-Porsche" electric carriage that previously appeared in 1900 Paris World Fair. George Fischer sold hybrid buses to England in 1901; Knight Neftal produced a racing hybrid in 1902. 
  In 1905, Henri Pieper of Germany/Belgium introduced a hybrid vehicle with an electric motor/generator, batteries, and a small gasoline engine.  It used the electric motor to charge its batteries at cruise speed and used both motors to accelerate or climb a hill. The Pieper factory was taken over by Imperia, after Pieper died. The 1915 Dual Power, made by the Woods Motor Vehicle electric car maker, had a four-cylinder ICE and an electric motor. Below 15 mph (24 km/h) the electric motor alone drove the vehicle, drawing power from a battery pack, and above this speed the "main" engine cut in to take the car up to its 35 mph (56 km/h) top speed. About 600 were made up to 1918. The Woods hybrid was a commercial failure, proving to be too slow for its price, and too difficult to service. In England, the prototype Lanchester petrol-electric car was made in 1927. It was not a success, but the vehicle is on display in Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum. The United States Army's 1928 Experimental Motorized Force tested a gasoline-electric bus in a truck convoy.
  In 1931 Erich Gaichen invented and drove from Altenburg to Berlin a 1/2 horsepower electric car containing features later incorporated into hybrid cars. Its maximum speed was 25 miles per hour (40 km/h), but it was licensed by the Motor Transport Office, taxed by the German Revenue Department and patented by the German Reichs-Patent Amt. The car battery was re-charged by the motor when the car went downhill. Additional power to charge the battery was provided by a cylinder of compressed air which was re-charged by small air pumps activated by vibrations of the chassis and the brakes and by igniting oxyhydrogen gas. No production beyond the prototype was reported.
  During the Second World War, Ferdinand Porsche sought to use his firm's experience in hybrid drivetrain design for powering armored fighting vehicles for Nazi Germany.  A series of designs, starting with the VK 3001 (P), the unsuccessful VK 4501 (P) heavy tank prototype (which became the Elefant tank destroyer) and concluding with the heaviest armored fighting vehicle ever prototyped, the Panzerkampfwagen Maus of nearly 190 tonnes in weight, were j
caption: Porsche's Elefant tank destroyer, restored for museum display
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