On 3 September 1875, Ferdinand Porsche was born in Maffersdorf, Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary and today Vratislavice nad Nisou in the Czech Republic. An engineer whose career spanned electric mobility, motorsport and automobile design, Porsche became one of the most influential figures in 20th-century automotive history.
His fascination with electricity began early. In 1893, aged just 18, he installed electric lighting in his family's home before joining Vienna's Béla Egger electrical company. At Lohner, he developed wheel-hub electric motors and created the Lohner-Porsche, unveiled at the 1900 Paris Exposition. That same year, he developed the Semper Vivus, widely recognised as the world's first functional hybrid vehicle.
Porsche later became technical director at Austro-Daimler and Daimler-Benz, before establishing his own engineering consultancy in Stuttgart in 1931. His subsequent work included the Volkswagen “People's Car”, later known as the Beetle, and influential racing designs.
His legacy ultimately extended to the Porsche sports-car marque founded by his son Ferry, but Ferdinand's early electric and hybrid experiments reveal a striking truth: Porsche's engineering story began long before the modern EV era.
