The

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

Precept was a 2000

low emission vehicle A low-emission vehicle is a motor vehicle that emits relatively low levels of motor vehicle emissions. The term may be used in a general sense, but in some countries it is defined in air quality statutes. Different groups of people ("go greens", " ...

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...

aimed at meeting the fuel economy goal of the

Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles The Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles was a co-operative research program between the US government and the three major domestic auto corporations that was aimed at bringing extremely fuel efficiency, fuel-efficient (up to vehicles t ...

between the US Government and GM,

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

, and

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

. GM was able to meet the fuel economy goal with the Precept, creating versions using Lithium and NiMH batteries with diesel, fuel cell and other hybrid version of the car

GM ended the project in 2000, claiming no one would be interested in buying a high fuel economy vehicle. The near-term PNGV program, introduced during the Clinton Administration, was terminated by the Bush administration and replaced with the distant goals of the

FreedomCAR The FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FCVT) was a national Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program developing more efficient energy use, energy-efficient and green vehicle, environmentally-friendly highway transportation techno ...

vehicle program. The Precept was never designed for production, but some of the ideas may have found their way into GM's "dual-mode" hybrid system. The Precept used two 35 kW electric motors, one on the front axle and one on the rear axle. The rear axle was also hooked up to a diesel engine or other mechanical power source capable of driving the rear wheels directly or of generating power for the motor on the front wheels. Slow speed driving could be attained using the front motor and battery to turn the front wheels. When the rear wheels were powered, the diesel genset was on. The GM "dual-mode" hybrid can be viewed as a combined version of the power train used on the Precept, but independent of what kind of engine is used. If you include the front-wheel motor into the rear-axle, divorce it from the engine genset, you conceptually convert the Precept two-axle system into a "dual-mode" drivetrain using only one axle and capable of being incorporated into large vehicles.

See also