If you're not ready to purchase a fully electric vehicle but still want to save on fuel, a hybrid is your best bet.

Hybrids combine a battery pack, an electric motor that drives the vehicle at low speeds, and a gasoline engine that kicks in whenever a speed increases, there's a need to move uphill, and necessary to charge the depleted battery pack.

Hybrid emissions — whether the plug-in or non-plug-in variants — are up to one-third lower, which means less gasoline needs to be burned to travel the same number of kilometers.

Plus, you won't have to run into charging issues that EV owners may have to deal with, unless the number of public charging stations increases and we could soon develop a battery-pack that depletes much slower and charges much faster.

Toyota, the world's largest automaker, is confident that there will be a marked increase in the sale of its hybrids, so much so that it has slashed its electric vehicle sales forecast by almost 40 percent last month. In its latest financial result released in November, Toyota detailed how the company is placing more emphasis on hybrid sales rather than EVs in its latest outlook.

While Toyota did not disclose a regional breakdown of its electrified vehicle forecasts, the Japanese auto giant said its electrified vehicles made up 35.3 percent of its total sales, with hybrids accounting for about 28 percent of Toyota's global sales and nearly that much of the company's overall operating income.

Toyota added that its hybrids are now expected to net about 3.6 million-unit sales, up from roughly 3.5 million in the previous forecast.

No wonder Toyota Motor Philippines once again organized its electrified vehicle road show, dubbed "Go Electrified with Toyota," at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

Open to the public and held at the Bonifacio High Street Amphitheater, the event showcased the TMNP's hybrid models namely, the all-new Yaris Cross 1.5 S HEV, Corolla Cross 1.8 GR-S HEV, ZENIX 2.0 Q Hybrid CVT, Camry 2.5 V HEV, Corolla Altis 1.8G GR-S CVT, RAV4 2.5L LTD HEV CVT, and the all-new Alphard. Prospective buyers were also given the opportunity to test drive some of the hybrid models on display.

Lexus Philippines, which also participated in the roadshow, made available for test drive its xEV lineup, headlined by its first-ever 100-percent electric luxury vehicle, the Lexus RZ.

Toyota is putting a lot of investment as well as research and development into electric vehicles, but the Japanese auto giant also believes that not every part of the globe can rely on pure electric vehicles.

For the company, the EV is just part of the solution to carbon neutrality and we must not ignore all the other amazing opportunities and technologies that exist in hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell, and even the use of synthetic fuels.