I think it does, but not in the way Tom suggests.

The huge Diesel-Electric locomotives Tom uses as an analogue don't in fact have the battery component. They're not the same sort of hybrid. Many Ships also use huge diesel engines and an electric final drive for smoothness and reliability, and fewer huge driveshafts and CV joints.

These really big vehicles don't store electricity at all, they just use it as a convenient medium of power transmission.

Very small vehicles (models, to be precise) often use pure electric power, based on batteries. It's light and efficient, and you replace the batteries when they die (or recharge them)

It's possible that there is a middle ground where true hybrid technology with power storage would work. As Tom suggests, this will be in applications that have a lot of stops and starts such as buses, delivery vehicles, lawn mowers and other machinery etc.

It *might* work for cars on a predominantly urban cycle, but I don't know enough to predict whether it will work best for very small cars, like the existing hybrids, or for big truck-like vehicles with a big battery load.