Dear Sirs,

Given all the coverage that the emergence of hybrid cars has received in your pages in recent months, your readers may be interested to learn that gasoline-electric hybrids are not a new phenomenon at all, but rather the latest incarnation of an idea that has been kicking around for over a century. Indeed, the hybrid car has been around almost as long as the automobile itself.

At the turn of the twentieth century, as the automotive age dawned, three power-generating technologies competed for dominance: steam, gasoline, and electricity. In the year 1900, steam was well known as the power source of the industrial revolution, and electricity was widely regarded as the power source of the future, so it was not at all obvious that internal combustion engines burning a fractional distillate of crude petroleum would have any particular edge in this race for the powertrains of America. Indeed, when engineer H. Piper filed the first patent application for a gasolineelectric hybrid motor in 1905, his intention was to use the gas to give a little kick to his perfectly serviceable electric engine. His goal: an engine that could accelerate from 0 to 25 miles per hour in 10 seconds.

Piper achieved his goal. Electric and hybridelectric engines powered more than 35,000 vehicles sold in 1912. These cars were perfectly adequate for the time, but over the following decade they mostly disappeared from the market, through no fault of their own. The cause of their decline was the spectacular improvements in the cost and performance of gasoline-powered cars. An onslaught of fast and cheap internal combustion cars from Ford, General Motors, and Buick essentially buried the electric and electric-hybrid motors by the 1920s.

Continuing performance improvements in internal combustion engines and inexpensive gas pretty much kept hybrids buried until the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 gave Americans a reason to start thinking about fuel efficiency. Engineers had the motivation to think about fuel-efficient hybrids, but they still lacked the means to make hybrids economically competitive with gas-powered cars, because the performance of gas-electric engines lagged far behind that of gas-powered engines in acceleration, top speed, and cruising range. Dramatic improvements in electronics and computer technology during the 1990s, however, finally made the hybrid a reality. Advances in battery performance and, most importantly, computerguided electric power transfer created a car that could drive like a regular car, but do so on half the tank of gas. As another century dawns, perhaps we are entering into a new automotive age.

1. Based on the tone and content of the passage, the author of the passage is most likely which of the following?

A. An automotive engineer writing to his company management
B. An enthusiast of automotive history writing to the editors of a car magazine
C. A college engineering student writing to a car manufacturer
D. A history professor writing to a television producer of historical documentaries
E. An environmental activist writing to the editors of a newspaper



2. The purpose of the article could best be summarized as which of the following?

A. To correct a mistaken impression about the performance of gasoline-electric hybrid cars
B. To educate readers about the economic and technological potential of hybrid cars
C. To refute a factually inaccurate statement made previously in the publication regarding the history of hybrid cars
D. To acquaint readers with the history of gasoline-electric hybrid cars
E. To educate readers about technological innovations at the dawn of the automotive age



3. According to the passage, electric and hybrid cars failed to capture the American automotive market in the early twentieth century because of what factor?

A. The improvement in cost and performance of gasoline-powered cars
B. The superior fuel efficiency of hybrid cars
C. The substandard performance of steampowered cars
D. Consumer fear of being electrocuted by gasoline-electric hybrids
E. Government subsidies for gasoline- and coal-powered cars



4. According to the information given in the passage, which of the following best characterizes the different motivations behind the earliest experiments with gasoline-electric hybrids and the experiments going on in modern times?

A. The earliest experiments with hybrids sought to improve the fuel efficiency of electric engines, while modern experiments seek to improve the performance of gas-burning engines.
B. The earliest experiments with hybrids sought to improve the fuel efficiency of gas-burning engines, while modern experiments seek to improve the performance of electric engines.
C. Modern experiments with hybrids seek to improve the fuel efficiency of gas-burning engines, while the earliest experiments sought to improve the performance of electric engines.
D. Modern experiments with hybrids seek to improve the cruising range of gaspowered cars, while earlier experiments sought to improve the handling and safety of electric cars.
E. The earliest experiments with hybrids sought to combine the power of steam with the efficiency of electricity, while modern experiments seek to combine the efficiency of electricity with the power of gas.



5. The passage lists which of the following as a reason for the resurgence of interest in the gasoline-electric hybrid engine?

A. The onslaught of fast and inexpensive internal combustion cars from Ford, General Motors, and Buick
B. Advances in battery performance and electricity transfer
C. The Iranian hostage crisis of 1979
D. Dramatic improvements in computer technology
E. The oil crisis of 1973



6. Which of the following examples of business and technology bears the most similarity to the history of the hybrid car, as presented in the passage?

A. American aerospace companies in the 1960s created working prototypes of supersonic passenger aircraft that could complete intercontinental flights in half the time of conventional aircraft, but these projects were canceled because of concerns that the high-altitude craft posed too great a threat to the integrity of the ozone layer.
B. Although oil companies first attempted deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the 1930s, these deep-sea projects could not compete with land-based drilling projects until advances in drilling technology and the rising price of oil made deep-sea drilling economically viable in the late twentieth century.
C. Automakers in the 1980s, after concluding that the average driver could not be relied on to use seat belts consistently, chose to adopt airbags as a standard safety feature.
D. Lighter-than-air craft, such as Zeppelins, made up a substantial part of total air traffic in the early twentieth century, but they rapidly fell out of favor after airplanes proved to be a faster and safer form of transportation.
E. Although railroads carried more than 90 percent of all land-based commercial cargo in the United States in 1910, by 1980 railroads had been surpassed by trucks in total cargo carried, because of the greater speed and flexibility offered by the heavy truck as compared with the railroad.



7. Based on the information given in the passage, which of the following can be inferred about an electric-gasoline hybrid car in 1950?

A. It would have been difficult to find a power supply for such a car.
B. Its acceleration would have been roughly comparable to that of a gasoline-burning car that cost less than half as much as the hybrid car.
C. It would have been viewed as “the car of the future.”
D. Its performance would have been limited by contemporary battery technology.
E. Had it been produced, it would have sold more than 35,000 units per year.