Today, let’s talk about a long but interesting story – Lohner-Porsches.
As we mentioned before when talking about sodium-ion batteries, gasoline cars, steam locomotives, and electric cars coexisted and developed in the early period of automobile invention.
Interesting, Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of Porsche, was fascinated with electricity since he was young! In 1893, at the age of 18, he installed an electric lighting system in his own home.
At the age of 23, Ferdinand joined a luxury coach manufacturing company called Jakob Lohner & Company in Vienna (which provided carriages for the Austrian emperor at that time).
In 1898, Ferdinand built his first car Egger-Lohner, also known as the C2 In Vierring. And this was an electric car. The vehicle was based on a carriage, with two wheel-hub motors on the front axle, a total maximum power of about 3.7 kW, a total weight of 1,350 kg, and a battery weight of about 500 kg.
Ferdinand happily engraved “P1” on some key components to identify his identity, so it was also called Porsche P1.
After seeing the P1, Jakob Lohner’s boss believed that the era of carriages would come to an end. In 1901, Ferdinand built a car for the boss – the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus.
Because the lead-acid batteries used by Egger-Lohner were too heavy, Ferdinand directly chose the internal combustion engine as the power source, driving the wheel-hub motors and making a small battery storage. Isn’t this a series hybrid, which is also an extended-range hybrid? So many people call it the “ancestor of hybrid cars”.
In 1903, Ferdinand improved upon it and the Lohner-Porsche Mixte appeared. In the front of the car was a Daimler 5.5 L engine capable of 25 kW of power. The car was also fitted with canvas awnings, mudguards and other devices.
By 1906, the car had produced trucks, buses, and fire engines, selling more than 300 units. Ferdinand even personally drove it to victory in the Exelberg hillclimb race in 1901.
Seeing this, it becomes more and more obvious that technology is a circle.
🔗Source: Wikipedia
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.