The General Motors Precept was a 2000 low emission vehicle

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 statues....

 concept car

Concept car

A concept vehicle or show vehicle is a car made to showcase new styling and or new technology. They are often shown at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not have a chance of being produced....

 aimed at meeting the 80 miles per US gallon fuel economy goal of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles

Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles

The ' was a cooperative research program between the U.S. government and major auto corporations, aimed at bringing extremely fuel-efficient vehicles to market by 2003...

 between the US Government and GM, Ford, and Chrysler

Chrysler

Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....

. GM was able to meet the 80 miles per US gallon fuel economy goal with the Precept, creating versions using Lithium and NiMH batteries with diesel, fuel cell and other hybrid version of the car. http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/gmprecept.html

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

FreedomCAR

The FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies is a U.S. national Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program developing more energy efficient and environmentally friendly highway transportation technologies that will enable the U.S to use less petroleum...

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.