Electric hybrids in 1915

From the Montreal Gazette on 31 Jan. 2015:

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At the New York Auto Show in 1915, the motoring world witnessed the debut of a gasoline-electric hybrid called the Owen Magnetic - "the car of a thousand speeds" - whose advertisements promised "such ease and unfettered freedom of motion that it almost seems to be equipped with wings."

Six years later, the company that made the revolutionary Owen Magnetic was kaput.

"Twenty years from now," I asked Buchko and Greenhaus, "Which technology will have won?" "Nobody knows," they replied.

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Hemmings Daily talks about the Woods car which is more closely the antecedent to today's hybrids:

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If the Dual Power was such a clever design, why wasn’t it a success? To begin with, it wasn’t cheap, $2,650 in 1916 dollars. Not nearly as dear as the $9,000 Owens Magnetic, but almost four times the cost of a 1916 Ford Model T. The Dual Power indeed was economical to operate, getting a reported 48 MPG, but economy generally has not been a big selling point with people who can afford expensive cars. As the owner of a Chevy Volt once told me, “nobody buys a $40,000 car to save money.” Also, the Dual Power apparently wasn’t as reliable or smooth as advertised, prompting some re-engineering for the 1917 model year. More importantly, while it was faster than most electric cars, it was slow compared to conventional gas cars. The Dual Power could reach 35 MPH, but a Model T could do 40, or even 45 on a decent road with a brave driver. Perhaps a slightly more powerful gas engine would have made the Dual Power competitive with more conventional automobiles. However, by the time Woods introduced the Dual Power, electric cars were already in decline. - See more at: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/03/21/hybrid-from-a-time-of-transition-the-1916-woods-dual-power-model-44/#sthash.RFlSVOri.dpuf
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As a historical point, in 1911, Henry Ford had won the patent infringement suit brought against him by the purveyors of the Selden patent.  The gasoline-powered car game was wide open by 1915. 

Alan Abel in the Gazette was otherwise talking about newer hybrids:

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It was the first morning of the 2015 Washington Auto Show and Garner, a young man in the livery of a spit-and-polish company called Cosmetic Car Care, was shining up a ride he'll never ride in.

The jalopy was a BMW i8 plug-in hybrid with a 7.1 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, a 1.3-litre turbocharged three-cylinder gasoline engine, an aluminum drive module and gull-wing doors, a 35-kilometre range under full electric power, a top speed of 250 km/h, and a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price of $136,000 US.

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