To be fair, even if they had consulted mechanical and automotive engineers in 1985, I'm not sure those engineers would have had enough foresight to predict this

To be fair, even if they had consulted mechanical and automotive engineers in 1985, I'm not sure those engineers would have had enough foresight to predict this. But then again, I think extremely large construction equipment has used hybrid-electric/diesel drives with independent wheel motors for a long time.