On April 30, 2016 Toyota realized they had delivered up that date a remarkable 9.014 million hybrid cars to customers worldwide. This obviously was something worth celebrating, and so they decided to site down and do some calculations.

That makes sense because calculating is how you sell over nine millions hybrid, not celebrating. As for what they calculated, Toyota reckons their hybrids have saved approximately 25 million kiloliters of gasoline compared to the amount used by gasoline-powered vehicles in the same class, resulting in emission of 67 million fewer tons of CO2. These are impressive figures, but we wish they had also calculated the amount of driving fun they murdered in the process.

It must have seemed to some people at the time a waste of time when Toyota launched their Coaster Hybrid EV in August 1997 as nobody thought you can solve the fuel consumption issue by, essentially, having two engines. But Toyota stuck with it and perfected their system, growing their hybrid range by the end of 2016 to 33 models. They are hardly slowing down the hybridization of their cars and aim to pass the cumulative sales record of 15 millions unit by 2020. As hydrogen fuel cell technology continues to limp, it’s EVs and hybrids getting the cake.