porsche p1 First Porsche Found after a Century plus, EV P1 at the Beginning!

[G. David Felt]

First Porsche Found after a Century plus, EV P1 at the Beginning!

Always exciting to learn things about founders of car companies and in this case it is even more exciting as Porsche is not new to the EV Auto. In 1898 Ferdinand Porsche built himself the first Porsche vehicle. and it was placed in an Austrian shed in 1902 and forgotten about till 2017 and then on Monday was added to the Porsche History Museum in Stuttgart Germany.

Let's back up a bit and give some details that auto nuts love to know about.

Ferdinand Porsche founded his company in 1948 and before then was a man who had no formal engineering training but an aptitude for it as he worked for coach builder Jacob Lohner.

Mr. Porsche was asked by Mr. Lohner to come up with an electric powertrain. Mr. Porsche continued his work and on June 26th 1898 the "Egger-Lohner EV C.2 Phaeton was put on the streets of Vienna Austria. Mr. Porsche engraved P1 on all the components he designed and built which was the key components of the powertrain. 

Here is the specs of the P1:

• Electric motor weighed 287 lbs.
• Produced 3 HP continuous and had spurt mode to 5 HP as achieved in overdrive mode.
• Top speed of 21 mph.
• Vehicle weight before battery pack 2000 lbs.
• Battery pack weight 1000 lbs with 50 mile range.

September 1899 Mr. Porsche entered a car race where the contestant had to complete 24 miles with 3 passengers as fast as they could. Mr. Porsche piloted his EV Auto across the finish line 18 min ahead of the 2nd place finisher and more importantly where more than half of the contestants failed to finish at all due to technical problems according to the museum history telling.

Today Porsche has the Panamera gas-hybrid sedan as well as the 918 gas-hybrid racer. from 3 hp to 887 hp, from 21 mph to 211 mph. Mr. Porsche would be proud of where his company has gone and especially that they are going back to his original roots and first powertrain that he developed and believed in.

USA Today Story

Verge Story

[G. David Felt]

According to Autoblog, Porsche is doubling their investment between 2018 to 2022 from 3 Billion to 6 Billion on EV development as they expand their Mission E auto line.

Seems that Musk / Tesla should be concerned as Porsche just might beat them to the punch in a fast powerful car before they get Tesla Roadster 2.0 out the door to buyers.