20 December 2022
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Austria Post have issued a special stamp recalling the first electric vehicle, created by Austrian-German automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951).
In 1899, Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951) teamed up with Ludwig Loner, the manager of Lohner-Werke factory in Vienna, to develop an electric vehicle (EV) they called ‘System Lohner-Porsche’. Its front wheels were driven by wheel hub motors with an output of around 3 PS each, the range was about 50 kilometres.
At the 1900 Paris Exhibition, the vehicle was presented as the ‘world’s first transmissionless car’ and attracted a lot of attention. To increase the range of the electric vehicle, which was very heavy due to its lead batteries, Porsche constructed the first hybrid car, the ‘Semper Vivus’, with additional gasoline engines supplying more energy to the batteries and wheel hub motors.
Mr Porsche and his team were certainly ahead of the EV game, even if the design of the car was ‘of its time’, but alas the unique approach to travel did not catch on, leaving Austria Post to remember the innovation on a new stamp.