Once upon a time, Toyota led the mainstream push into energy-efficient cars with the hybrid Prius. Today, it’s seemingly more conservative, having pooh-poohed battery-electric vehicles for years in favor of things like hybrids and hydrogen—only to finally embrace EVs’ potential with the BZ4X. A little, anyway; it still firmly believes in a full spectrum of decarbonization solutions, one where hybrids are more important than full EVs.
It sounds like heel-dragging from a latecomer whose first electric car was met with a lukewarm reception. But if you take a closer look at how efficiently hybrids and EVs use their batteries, you’ll realize Toyota is actually right: hybrids have a bigger role to play in decarbonization than EVs will for a long time, if ever. Fact is, we need to use our limited battery supplies to deliver the maximum reduction in CO2 emissions across the auto industry, and soon.
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