January 29, 2014 Ferdinand Porsche’s First Car Was Electric By Sarah Pruitt 	 	 	 		 	 		 	 0 	 		 In 1898, more than three decades before founding his namesake company, 22-year-old Ferdinand Porsche designed his first-ever automobile: an electric-powered car officially known as the Egger-Lohner electric vehicle C.2 Phaeton model. Unofficially, it was dubbed P1, after the code the young automobile designer engraved on all the vehicle’s key components.