Probably not many of you know that one of the first hybrid car was build in year 1899 by a carmaker Pieper in Belgium. It had an under-seat electric motor and a gasoline engine which was used to charge batteries at cruise speed. After that for almost a whole century there were only few hybrid cars made by different manufactures but some ended only as a prototype and they weren't popular in general.
Today many car companies offer hybrid models and they gained consumers trust over the years mainly due to Toyota Prius which was introduced in 1997. Most hybrid cars combine petrol engine with electric motor, but there are also diesel hybrids made for example by Peugeot and Citroen.
So what can you expect from owning a Toyota hybrid car?
Lower fuel usage? That's for sure. But that's not the only advantage of driving hybrid (of course there are some disadvantages too).
If you want to buy hybrid car you should get a general knowledge of how they works so you won't be surpised when you own it. What I mean by that is some people think that when you drive a hybrid, a very low fuel usage, like 3.5-4 liter per 100km (or even lower with plug-in hybrids), is certain and easy to achieve. Of course it's not super hard to get such low values but you will have to get used to more gentle driving if low fuel usage and being more environmentally friendly is your goal. In Toyota hybrid models you can drive using only electric motor to up to around 75-80km/h and not burn any fuel for around 2km if the battery is almost fully charged (but to get to that speed you will probably need help from gasoline engine because electric motor doesn't have much power). It's not easy to maintain such speed using only electric motor (unless you're driving down hill) because the electric motor will work when the gas pedal is very lightly pushed, maybe in 1/3 from its original position. The best way is to dynamically speed up to desired speed and then remove your foot from gas pedal for one or two second so the car switch off the gasoline engine (if the engine is warmed up and the battery is charged a bit) and then push gas pedal to around 1/3 position to drive only on electric motor. It's more easy to drive only on electric mode on lower speeds up to 45km/h. When you push gas pedal harder the petrol engine kicks in to accelerate quickly.
Toyota hybrid cars loves medium traffic, that is when you can get very low fuel usage. In dense traffic due to not high battery capacity the petrol engine will kick in more often to charge the battery or to warm itself if the temperature is low outside (so in autumn and winter if the temperature is lower than +10°C the fuel consumption will be higher even though you try drive eco).
What are other aspects or Toyota hybrids? Lower maintenance costs, they don't break easily. They are often used by taxi drivers because they are more reliable and cheeper to drive. Gasoline engine is more simple than in a standard ICE car, there is no typical starter, no clutch with dual-mass, no turbine or some other parts that ofen need being repaired in non-hybrid gasoline car.
There is also another advantage (maybe for some disadvantage) that when you drive on electric motor only at low speed you hear... silence and there is no vibration. So there is this very specific feeling of floating over the road (if there are no bumps on the road) instead of shaky, noisy driving. When I switched my old diesel car to a hybrid I was in shock how smooth, soft and more pleasurable driving can be. Each time I drove my old diesel car again it was almost traumatic experience :) So that's something worth paying more, because yes, the initial price for a hybrid car can be high, especially if you buy a new one (used ones can be more afordable and still very worth considering due to low fuel usage and maintance costs even though they can have 100,000km driven or more).
The car industry is changing to electric cars, but before they will be more afordable, have larger range and there will be more charging points, owning a hybrid is worth considering, especially if you drive a diesel car, because we should all think about air and noise polution (and the cost of car maintenance too).