I did what i said (for once) and read the articles that the Wiki article referenced.
Now there's a little difference in the english and the german wikipedia: The english says sad the Lohner-Porscher was a Hybrid and the german says that the modell of 1900 was a
pure electirc
They're both right, the 1900 model was pure electric, but later years were hybrid.
It seems that the main advantages the hybrids had was no need for gearboxes, shifting gears (which i hear was a HUGE pain back then), differentials, and probably a couple of other things, too. So they were more fuel efficient
and faster, due to no mechanical friction losses in the drive train. Reading between the lines, they may not have needed to be crank-started which, added to no gear boxes, says they were much easier to drive.
What killed the early hybrids was the expense of batteries and electric motors, cheaper gasoline, and electric starters. Maybe more development dollars into gasoline told as well, driving their production costs down while those for hybrids stayed high.
More interesting than the Lohner-Porsche is that a guy name of Henri Pieper (same as H. Piper?) developed a regenerative braking system at about the same time.
Conclusions: higher gas prices and/or delayed adoption of electric starters seem the most obvious and effective PoDs. An advance in making cheaper electric motors would help. Maybe advances in steam cars would help, as money spent to buy them is money that won't go into developing better IE cars, keeping IE prices closer to that of hybrids. I'm sure there're other possible PoDs. Any PoD that keeps IC cars down or their prices up will help steam cars and motorcycles.
I've a feeling that if the hybrids can keep their vigor until TTL WWI-equivalent, they'll do well as a 'patriotic' car, using less gas which can go towards airmen, ambulances, &c.