Toyota Prius and the hybrid bet (1997-2005)
Toyota launched the Prius in Japan in 1997 and in the U.S. in 2000, betting on gasoline-electric hybrids when rivals dismissed the technology as a niche. The early Prius was slow, small and widely mocked for its looks.
Prius sales grew slowly for years but gave Toyota a technology head start in hybrids.
Two decades later, hybrid technology underlies the majority of Toyota's U.S. electrified sales.
Today's majority-electrified result is the payoff of that 1997 bet, and evidence the hybrid path can outsell pure-battery-EV strategies.
