Truck

A truck, called a lorry in British English, is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads or perform utilitarian work, ranging from small vans that are mechanically similar to passenger cars to enormous commercial vehicles fitted with equipment such as concrete mixers or refuse-collection systems. Most trucks use body-on-frame construction with a cabin built separately from the cargo area, and while diesel engines power most of the modern fleet, small and medium trucks in North America commonly run on gasoline, and electric trucks, though a comparatively recent commercial trend, actually predate the internal combustion engine. Truck sizes span an enormous range, from vehicles under 3.5 tonnes classed as light commercial vehicles under European rules to Australian road trains permitted to weigh as much as 172 tonnes and stretch 53.5 meters, among the most permissive limits in the world. Karl Benz built the first internal-combustion truck in 1895, after mid-nineteenth-century steam wagons had already shown the concept but struggled against road limitations, and diesel-powered trucks reached production by 1923.