Even those who don’t pay much attention to the car business will remember the noise that erupted when Porsche announced, roughly a decade ago, it was going to build an SUV. But the Cayenne, now entering its third generation, has gone on to sell approximately 280,000 units worldwide — more than 5,600 of those finding homes in Canada. And the departure from building just sports cars was essentially in keeping with the company’s roots, going back to 1900 and the World Exposition in Paris when Ferdinand Porsche wowed the world with the Lohner-Porsche — a car with electric motors on the wheels. Porsche later took his car with four electric wheel-hub motors — basically the world’s first four-wheel-drive vehicle that, remarkable for its time, also had brakes on each wheel — and combined the battery-powered car with a gasoline engine. So, no, it was not General Motors, Honda or Toyota that invented the hybrid. – From National Post