The first hybrid car was built in 1899 and could be charged before a drive
Ferdinand Porsche's Lohner-Porsche Mixte of 1899 was the first hybrid electric car, and early hybrids like it could be topped up from an outside source. The plug-in idea then slept for most of a century before China turned it into a mass market.
A plug-in hybrid carries a battery that can be charged from the grid through a cable as well as by its own petrol engine driving a generator. Its battery is usually bigger than an ordinary hybrid's. Whether it cuts emissions depends on the electricity: renewable power makes it largely clean, while a fossil power station simply moves the pollution from the exhaust pipe to the chimney. The phrase plug-in hybrid electric vehicle was coined by Andrew Frank, a professor at UC Davis.
Prototypes came and went. In July 1969 Popular Science described General Motors' XP-883, a commuter concept with six 12-volt lead-acid batteries in the boot that plugged into a household socket. Renault sold about 500 plug-in versions of its Kangoo van from 2003, mostly in France, Norway and Britain. Rising American fuel prices after about 2002 sparked do-it-yourself conversions, such as a 2004 Prius modified to travel up to 15 kilometres on electricity alone.
Around 2007 the big names stirred. Toyota's plug-in was certified for Japanese roads, GM cancelled its own, Ford lent a demonstration fleet to a Californian utility, and Fisker announced an $80,000 luxury model. BYD, owned by China's largest maker of mobile phone batteries, promised a sedan with 60 kilometres of electric range using lithium iron phosphate cells that could reach 70 percent charge in 10 minutes.
Mass-produced plug-in hybrids reached buyers in China and the United States in 2012 with the Toyota Prius PHV, later overtaken by the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. By 2021 BYD was the world's largest producer, and its cumulative plug-in hybrid sales passed 3.6 million by May 2024. China now holds the largest fleet, with 9.31 million sold through December 2024, and in 2024 accounted for over 76 percent of global sales. The five biggest makers are all Chinese.
Source: Plug-in hybrid
