General Motors XP-883

The General Motors XP-883 was an experimental plug-in hybrid car that General Motors demonstrated in 1969, one of the small urban cars its research and Pontiac divisions were asked to develop in the late 1960s. It was a two-door fibreglass hatchback with seats for two adults and two children, the children facing backwards and entering through the tailgate, and its shape foreshadowed the later Chevrolet Chevette. A small two-cylinder petrol engine worked with a DC electric motor and six 12-volt batteries that could be charged from a household outlet. In hybrid mode it reached 97 kilometres per hour, and it ran on electricity alone below 16 kilometres per hour.