A hybrid system combines different power sources to maximize each one’s strengths, while compensating for each other’s shortcomings. A gasoline-electric hybrid system, for example, combines an internal combustion engine’s high-speed power with the clean efficiency and low-speed torque of an electric motor that never needs to be plugged in for recharging.

Toyota is working to not only further enhance the convenience of its vehicles but is also focusing its initiatives on solving global environmental issues through a variety of activities and proposals for realizing sustainable mobility. The development of powertrain technology is the basis for improving the environmental performance of vehicles, and this technology is being developed from three perspectives: 1) improving fuel efficiency in order to reduce CO2 emissions, 2) making exhaust emissions cleaner to help abate atmospheric pollution, and 3) pursuing energy diversification.