There's an interesting story in the history of vehicles, and electric vehicles. Porsche Had World's First Hybrid 100 Years Ago ... Lohner-Porsche Mixte Hybrid .... Over 100 yrs ago Dr. Ferdinand Porsche built his first car. He later went on to found a sports car company.
His first car was a series hybrid electric. It had hub motors .. and I'm posting this because someone claimed that "nobody" uses hub motors for large high speed vehicles. Well, tell that to Dr. Porsche. Take a look at the pictures showing on the first linked article. Those are clearly hub motors. The design had one hub motor per wheel, and either had an external diesel engine for charging the battery pack, or an onboard engine. This wasn't a plug-in hybrid.
With this vehicle he set land speed records of his day.
And this technique to use hub motors in high speed large vehicles did not die with Dr. Porsche.
Today a company, PML Flightlink, makes large size hub motors. See: http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html
Also see: http://www.pmlflightlink.com/motors/wheelmotors.html
The first link is a news release of a BMW Mini being driven using four of PML Flightlink's hub motors, one per wheel.
I also recall reading that a young Ferdinand Porsche started out as a self-taught electrician when there were very few. A local factory manager had bought a gasoline DC generator to run lights so he could hire a night shift, rather than buying twice as much equipment to run during the daytime only.
The instructions were unclear, and the young Porsche asked if he could give it a free try. He had been reading about electrical devices, and figured out how to get it running.
During WW1 he designed a supply tractor that was also series-hybrid. The engine drove a generator that powered the 4 hub-wheel motors. The interesting thing was that wires also powered the wheel hub-motors in the carts that were pulled behind the tractor. It worked on muddy roads that bogged down other trucks.
This led him to designing an 8-wheel-drive series-hybrid self-propelled artillery piece with a fairly fat stubby barrel. After the war, the British and Americans studied and tested this mobile artillery with great interest.
I believe this was the seed that resulted in the the gradual turn-over of rail locomotoves to diesel electric series-hybrid power, for which Porsche (IMHO) has not been given the proper credit.
Submarines did not play a vital role in WW1, but they were also using a series hybrid plant with a large battery while they were used as a harbor-defense.
During WW2 he was ordered to build a tank so large it would be a "battleship" of tanks, called the "Maus" (mouse). Two were made, series hybrid, too large to be useful, bridges couldnt support it for crossing, fuel mileage was horrible due to excessive armor weight.
He designed a prototype series-hybrid Panzer medium tank that the testers loved, but was shelved for lack of copper (plenty of steel, though).
Read about the Porsche Auto-Union silver arrow Gran Prix racer. 1934, mid-engine, V-16, over-head-cam, supercharger, ZF "Posi-traction" rear, coolant ran through the aircraft-style tube-frame, even-balance side fuel tanks, etc...
When the Arch-Duke of Austria was shot (starting WW1) he was being driven in a convertible...Porsche.