I've read claims from Toyota that hybrids can reduce emissions much quicker than electric vehicles, but this is the best explanation I've yet encountered:
drivers who use their cars for short trips may be overcapitalising on electric cars with enormous battery packs responsible for significant carbon emissions throughout their life cycle...
... Hybrids were more affordable than battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and would reduce “more emissions, sooner, than BEVs alone”...
“According to our calculations, those 240,000 hybrids have had the same impact on reducing CO2 as approximately 72,000 BEVs...”
“Yet the volume of batteries we’ve used to produce these hybrid-electric vehicles is the same as we’d need for just 3500 BEVs.
“In other words, we can say that the batteries needed for 3500 BEVs have been used to achieve the CO2 emissions reduction effect of 72,000 BEVs.
