Gotcha!
Dang, Randy, that was too easy! You snapped up that bait like a hungry trout gulps fly in the spring! All chain-yanking aside, I rented a Prius for two weeks on a business trip to Florida. By the end of the two weeks, I was very impressed with the vehicle itself aside from the startlingly harsh startup of the gas engine when switching from electric to combustion.
The point of my previous comment is not that the technology a 100 years ago was somehow better - only that the current idea is not new by any means. A similar comparison could be made with the first pneumatic tires for cars (c. 1920 or 1930ish?) and comparing them to a modern radial. Obviously the modern radial has every advantage that time, technology and learning curves can give it but the "idea" of a rubber tire filled with air is nothing new.
The concept of electric powered vehicles or "mixt" electric/combusion hybrids have been around for a very long time. Many people who buy hybrids are convinced that these ideas have sprung from the imaginations of engineers all in the last 15 or 20 years. That somehow a hybrid drive train is a revolutionary idea.
No way, not even close.
angela