A truck (or lorry) is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration; smaller varieties may be mechanically similar to some automobiles. Commercial trucks can be very large and powerful, and may be configured to mount specialized equipment, such as in the case of fire trucks and concrete mixers and suction excavators.
Modern trucks are largely powered by diesel engines, although small to medium size trucks with gasoline engines exist in the US. In the European Union, vehicles with a gross combination mass of up to 3.5 t (7,700 lb) are known as light commercial vehicles, and those over as large goods vehicles.
Trucks and cars have a common ancestor: the steam-powered fardier Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built in 1769.[citation needed] However, steam wagons were not common until the mid-1800s. The roads of the time, built for horse and carriages, limited these vehicles to very short hauls, usually from a factory to the nearest railway station. The first semi-trailer appeared in 1881,[citation needed] towed by a steam tractor manufactured by De Dion-Bouton. Steam-powered wagons were sold in France and the United States until the eve of World War I, and 1935 in the United Kingdom, when a change in road tax rules made them uneconomic against the new diesel lorries.
