Meet the Semper Vivus. The Porsche Hybrid-Electric Vehicle Built 122 Years Ago

Ferdinand Porsche was ahead of his time when at just 25-years-old he came up with the Semper Vivus, the world’s first functional hybrid car.

If you ask the average person on the street to name the first hybrid-electric car most will probably say the Toyota Prius or Honda Insight. Not a bad guess, but they were built about 100 years after the first functional hybrid car. That first hybrid was called the Semper Vivus and it was built by none other than Ferdinand Porsche. Yes, THAT Ferdinand Porsche. It was built in 1900 and debuted at the 1901 Paris Motor Show. The folks at Slash Gear recently retold the story of this historic car that even most Porsche fans probably don’t know.

Today Porsche has the all-electric Taycan. The 718 and Macan will become electrified soon and even the 911 will have a hybrid variant someday. But it would surprise many to learn that this electrification concept is actually over a century old. The Semper Vivus (Latin for Always Alive) is credited with being the world’s first functional hybrid car and it was developed by a young German engineer whose company would go on to become one of the most famous automobile makers in the world.

Porsche and Electricity

Porsche was always fascinated with electricity. As a teen he installed an electric lighting system in his parents’ house. In 1898, Ferdinand Porsche designed the Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton. It cranked out five horsepower from an octagonal electric motor. That was enough to get it to a 25 kilometer per hour top speed. Not exactly the speed Porsche is known for today, but not bad for 1898. The next year Porsche joined the carriage maker in Vienna, k.u.k. Hofwagenfabrik Ludwig Lohner & Co. It was there that he developed the electric wheel hub motor. A combustion engine would drive a generator that would supply the wheel hub with electrical energy.

Electric Car Challenges

The Semper Vivus was succeeded by the Lohner-Porsche Mixte. Despite the fact that the car had very few features, the batteries made the car extremely heavy for the modest power output. There was also very little infrastructure to support an electric vehicle. On top of it all the car was expensive, costing roughly $100,000 in 2022 dollars. This contributed to shelving the hybrid car idea for many years, but the foundation was there. Once lithium-ion batteries became suitable for use in vehicles the idea of a hybrid became a lot more feasible.

Looking to the Future

We all know that the future of the automotive industry is all-electric. But what a lot of us didn’t know is that this idea is not a new one. And the fact that one of the early pioneers was a man whose name is associated with some of the worlds best sports cars may be even more surprising. With Porsche models moving to electric power, it seems that everything is about to come full circle. Porsche started with electricity, then made some of the most exciting internal combustion engines in history, and now is returning to the electrical roots.

Photos: Porsche

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Joe Kucinski

Joe has been obsessed with cars since he got his very first Matchbox toy in the ‘70s. In 2003, he found a new obsession in track days that led to obtaining his SCCA competition license in 2015. In 2019, he became a certified driving instructor for the National Auto Sport Association. His love for all things four wheels has never wavered, whether it's driving some of the best cars in the world on the racetrack, tackling 2,000-mile road trips in 2-seat sports cars or being winched off the side of a mountaintop in a Jeep. Writing for the suite of Internet Brands Auto Communities sites, including Rennlist.com, Ford Truck Enthusiasts, 6 Speed and more allows him to share that knowledge and passion with others.