- Ferdinand Porsche's original automotive creation was a quad-motor electric vehicle.
- He added a combustion engine generator to that vehicle to avoid battery limitations and created an actual range extender in 1900.
- Around 300 of these gas-powered EVs were made in various configurations.
Looking back through the history of the automobile, you come across certain chapters that seem out of chronological order—they seem ahead of their time. One such chapter is the Lohner-Porsche Mixte, which, by the exact definition we use today, is an extended-range electric vehicle... from 1901.
It was an evolution of early EV prototypes designed by Ferdinand Porsche, the German automotive engineer, founder of Porsche AG and father of the Volkswagen Beetle. His very first automotive designs were electric vehicles.
Porsche created them in his mid-20s while working for the Vienna-based Jakob Lohner & Company, many years before he would even consider putting a horizontally opposed engine at the very back of a car.
His EV designs featured several innovations, like in-wheel hub motors and four-wheel brakes, but they had one major limiting factor: range. The best lead batteries of the day could provide a range of only 31 miles (50 kilometers), which was quite disappointing even in 1900.
Ferdinand Porsche decided to add a gasoline engine as an onboard generator. It didn’t power the wheels in any way, just like in a modern range extender such as a Mazda MX-30 R-EV, and it increased the vehicle’s range severalfold, making it far more usable.
While the older pure electric prototype is considered the world’s first all-wheel drive vehicle, the distinction for the world’s first AWD production vehicle goes to the Mixte, which was produced in around 300 examples. The series model got a smaller battery pack than in Porsche’s BEV designs, and the combustion engine ran constantly to keep it topped up and ready to move the car.
Of the 300, very few were all-wheel-drive quad-motor cars, and there were different body styles, including two-seaters with just front-wheel drive, as well as larger vehicles for transporting cargo. None survived, though, but in 2011, Porsche (the automaker) unveiled a painstaking four-year complete reconstruction of a two-motor front-wheel drive variant, which was the most common layout. This stunning, perfect replica of the original is proudly displayed at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.
The manufacturer also has a modern battery pack and drive unit from a Taycan on the same stand, reminding visitors that it’s one of the original EV pioneers. It currently sells two electric vehicles, the Taycan and Macan, with plans to launch an electric Cayenne and an EV replacement for its 718 Cayman and Boxster sports cars.
Porsche hasn’t made any announcements about adding range extenders to its electric lineup anytime soon, but other manufacturers are actively developing extended-range EVs to deploy in the next few years. Genesis is hoping its EREVs will bring in those who want EVs but don’t want to have to always charge them, while in China, there’s an entire movement to put big batteries in plug-in hybrids, although in this case, the engine can still drive the wheels.
Gallery: Porsche Early EVs
