Marry

A quarter century ago, Toyota unveiled a revolutionary vehicle: the Prius. The Prius was the first of a new category of cars, marrying an electric motor to a gasoline engine to dramatically increase fuel economy and reduce emissions.

Today, hybrid vehicles remain popular with many drivers — enduringly popular, across a growing number of vehicle segments. That’s even as a new revolution is unfolding, with automakers investing many billions of dollars in all-electric vehicles, which don’t use gas at all.

But even as hybrids go mainstream, they are losing traction among their original enthusiasts: environmentalists. Many say it’s time for hybrids to fade into history; that they are at best a detour, and at worst an obstruction, in the fight against climate change.
—The NPR