While the automotive market is heavily focused on getting more people into electric vehicles (EVs), there has been an increase in demand with hybrid vehicles gaining more market share than EVs during the past year.

Currently, in the U.S., EVs have a market share of 6.8% for new EVs sold while hybrid cars have a market share of 8.7% for new hybrid vehicles sold, according to Edmunds sales data and S&P Global.

Many drivers on the road have been not fully sold on switching their internal combustion engine car to an EV just yet.

One of the major issues currently facing EV adoption in the U.S. is current charging infrastructure and lack thereof. A lot of the public chargers that are being used currently operate via apps used from a cellphone, which can be inconvenient at times for consumers.

Another issue with the public charging infrastructure is that the public charging stations might not be operable at times, which in turn gives a negative experience to the consumer. Also, a study by the University of California-Berkley showed that EV chargers do not work between 20 and 30% of the time. These different experiences can dampen EV sales and can drive consumers to consider hybrid vehicles instead.

Another potential push towards more hybrid vehicles is that on average they cost less than EVs. According to Edmunds, the average cost for a new hybrid vehicle was $42,381 compared to an EV average of $59,400.

The increase in demand for hybrid vehicles has led to many automotive manufacturers to change their deep investments from EVs into hybrid vehicles while others have been more focused on hybrid cars from the start.

Back in 2021, Ford initially invested more than $30 billion through 2025 to invest EVs in the hopes that demand would keep steady and grow with consumers wanting to buy EVs. Now, Ford has shifted its investments to hybrid cars due to more sales compared to its EVs.

“We learned a lot … about what customers want and value, and what it takes to match the best in the world with cost-efficient design, and we have built a plan that gives our customers maximum choice and plays to our strengths,” chief executive Jim Farley said in a statement in a Washington Post story.

In contrast, other manufacturers like Toyota have had a different point of view of initially going all in investing with EVs compared to hybrid cars.

From a CNBC article in 2022, it was reported that while Toyota does have investments in EVs, the company’s strategy also feels that not everywhere around the world is ready for massive EV adoption due to the high costs and lack of infrastructure to support EVs.

“We want to provide each person with a way that they can contribute the most to solving climate change. And we know that that answer is not to treat everybody the same way,” Gill Pratt, Toyota chief scientist and CEO of the Toyota Research Institute, said according to a CNBC article.

As of August, Toyota’s hybrid sales have grown 57.2% to a record of 473,000 units in North America during the first half of 2024 in North America.

“As global demand for battery-powered EVs has slowed, Toyota has cashed in by selling more hybrids, which come with relatively higher margins than regular gasoline cars,” according to an article from Reuters.

Toyota is a contrasting example of how some manufacturers differ from heavily investing in EVs initially while not ignoring their hybrid sales market and being able to identify how there are still inefficiencies for worldwide EV adoption at this time.