A few years ago, electric pickup trucks seemed to have huge environmental potential. After all, by slinging a huge battery pack underneath a half-ton truck, we’d be taking some of the thirstiest vehicles on the road and turning them into ones that don’t have any tailpipe emissions at all. However, there is another path that promises similar gains: More mild tailpipe emissions reduction with the gap made up for by sheer volume. There’s a good chance the 2026 Toyota RAV4 is going to be greener than the F-150 Lightning. It’s a bold claim, but let me explain.
Let’s start by talking volume. Last year, Toyota’s U.S. dealerships sold 475,193 RAV4s. Yeah, nearly half a million cars, more than 100,000 units more than Tesla sold of its most popular Model Y, and enough to make the RAV4 the most popular thing on the road that isn’t an entire line of pickup trucks. The Ford F-Series and Chevrolet Silverado technically outsold the RAV4, but with half-ton, heavy duty, and EV variants bundled together for those trucks, it’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. What’s more, although the RAV4 has offered both hybrid and plug-in hybrid options for years, almost 50 percent of last year’s sales weren’t electrified at all. America’s favorite non-truck is going hybrid — every single last example of it.
This matters especially because throughout most of the previous-generation RAV4’s life, those who wanted a battery electric crossover could go out and buy a battery electric crossover instead of a RAV4. For whatever reason, RAV4 buyers didn’t want to. Maybe some of them can’t charge at home or at work, maybe some of them like to keep their cars for a long time and are unsure about the long-term prospects of a battery electric vehicle, maybe some of them just don’t want their new car to come with a learning curve, and maybe some of them can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars more on a battery electric vehicle. Whatever the case, nearly half a million people last year voted “no” on a battery electric vehicle with their wallets and went with a RAV4. Guess what? There will likely be another half-million this year, and another the year after that.
That’s a lot of what EV people call “potential late adopters,” and no matter how good the latest all-electric crossover from brand x is, they won’t be ready to make the jump straight from gasoline into batteries. However, what about a bridge car that forces no habit changes yet brings some electrification into the mix? Something that doesn’t need plugging in, or something that plugs in but comes with a combustion backup for the more adventurous. Something you can just use as a normal car. Guess what? That’s a RAV4 Hybrid, and by making every RAV4 a hybrid, regular people should be able to reap serious fuel economy benefits without having to deal with the occasionally long waitlists of previous-generation RAV4 Hybrids.
I know past achievements aren’t entirely indicative of future performance, but here’s a glimpse of where we could be going. The outgoing gasoline-powered RAV4 AWD with stop-start is rated at 29 MPG combined, while the outgoing RAV4 Hybrid AWD is rated at 39 MPG combined. That’s a 34.5 percent increase in fuel economy right there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Toyota’s found a way to make the new RAV4 more efficient.
Now, if all 2025 RAV4s were hybrid, and we zoomed in on the fuel economy gains over pure combustion, we’d be looking at around 188,595 gallons of fuel saved every 100 miles thanks to an EPA delta of 0.8 gallons per 100 miles between Hybrid AWD and non-Hybrid AWD trims. Considering the average American drives 13,596 miles per year according to the Federal Highway Administration, if every non-hybrid 2024 RAV4 were a hybrid, we’d be saving in the ballpark of 25.6 million gallons of fuel every year. That’s equivalent to around 35,583 F-150 Lightnings replacing the same number of 3.5-liter Ecoboost 4WD F-150s — more than the entire number of electric trucks Ford sold last year.
It’s worth noting that a few years ago, Toyota announced it would be focusing on hybrids because it believed that battery resources would be better spent turning a lot of cars into hybrids instead of making a smaller number of EVs. While the brand’s claims of overall carbon reduction may have changed as more EV batteries have been recycled and cleaner supply chains have been developed, the internet still clowned on this strategy when it was unveiled. Flash forward a few years, and there seems to be some merit to placing eggs in lots of baskets.
The 2026 Toyota RAV4 is a big deal because electrification for everyone should include stepping stones for those who aren’t ready for a battery electric vehicle. If sales hold at current levels, expect this all-hybrid move to make a serious material difference without really forcing anyone to change their habits. Of course, questions remain around pricing and whether the RAV4 will shed some buyers who simply don’t want any form of electrification, but if sales figures of the new all-hybrid Camry are anything to go by, Toyota likely doesn’t have much to worry about. Electrification comes in a variety of forms, and there’s a chance that a normal hybrid system placed in a good spot can do as much for fuel savings in the short-term as a battery electric vehicle. Oh, and if customers like the hybrids, they may be more inclined to dip another toe in the electrification pool. Yep, this is going to be a long game.
Top graphic credit: Toyota
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Having a house in a heavily suburban area and not travelling but every few years we’ve gone EV for the cost and simplicity because we can.
I also realize there are many people who don’t have access to easy home charging, or live in the middle of nowhere, and for these people hybrids are great, less gas used, and for the Toyotas a rock solid transmission setup.
A bit of a tangent but I also don’t think EV incentives work out in the long run. Yes you get $7500 off your initial purchase, but the car just immediately depreciated $7500, and will continue to depreciate so you won’t get that $7500 in value back, it’s gone forever and now the lucky guy that buys used will get the actual deal.
But if they’re helping sell cars that’s something I guess. This coming from a guy who is leasing an EV and got the incentives, if it does help the buyout price maybe it won’t be too bad a deal at the end.
The thing is, I didn’t buy my EV to save the planet. I couldn’t care less about how much it polluted in its creation. Just like how people who buy huge trucks and get 8 mpg also don’t care about the planet.
That is us! Started with a Prius in ’06, now have a ’20 AWD Prius, and our most recent acquisition is a 2024 Plug-in Rav4.
Hello, my name is knowonelse, and I am a late EV adopter.
Same here, on our 6th hybrid, which includes my 2021 loaded RAV4 Prime, first car that I love.
Well, hopefully they decided to make it big enough for tall people. I bought a CRV instead of a RAV4 because in all but the lowest trims, they put a damn sunroof in it which removed the space previously reserved for my head.
Toyota isn’t really a brand for tall people. My head fits fine but my knees have nowhere to go.
I’ve always thought the Toyota approach made sense. With the same material you can make several more hybrids then Bev. But times are definitely changing especially when you look at china. Toyota could have gone hybrid as a base or only option a decade ago. Still there are tons of people who aren’t ready to go Bev and neither is their or their nearby infrastructure. I think Ford made the same mistakes because they are using the same technology. Ecvt with an Atkinson are proven and work great. They have shown they can be cheaper then doing a turbo and conventional transmission or even conventional CVT. I haven’t heard people being scared of hybrids in a long time I think they have been out long enough people know they are reliable. Toyota with the Prius was a big part of that. Getting rid of CVTs for ecvt is something no one who doesn’t manufacture conventual cvts will cry over.
I think the problem with the argument that more hybrids than EVs can be built with the same amount of batteries is that is assumes a limited amount of batteries – that we have to chose either one or the other. As you mention – China is not limited themselves to either / or – they are doing both
Completely agree with your statement on the simplicity of a hybrid vs a Turbo and 6-10 speed automatic. That relationship will only tilt even more towards the hybrid as Tier 4 phases in and requires DI turbo gas engines to have particulate filters.
Yes, CVTs give the eCVT in a 2 motor hybrid a bad name. I think the automotive media need to do a better job explaining that they are two VERY different things.
They sure do because every comment thread on an article about a modern hybrid is filled with people posting ID NEVER BUY A CVT….meanwhile an eCVT and a traditional CVT share almost nothing in common mechanically.
An eCVT is basically a planetary gear set that shuffles power between the ICE engine and the electric motors. It’s nothing to be afraid of.
You can really get in the weeds with it as Toyota has been using nimh for conventual hybrids and lithium for plugin hybrids. Their battery new plant in north Carolina only states lithium.
While you’re right that the assumption that there’s limited amount lithium batteries is no longer valid, it can be a decent analogy for the dilemma of how to hit CAFE numbers i.e. what method yields the most increase in CAFE MPG number per kWh of (still kinda expensive) battery.
If we look at it purely from a CAFE/kWh perspective, hybrids will be optimal first, but once the entire fleet is hybrid, EVs will be needed to keep up with rising CAFE requirements.
As I mentioned in another article – there is way more to emissions than CO2. A hybrid RAV4 saves fuel – that is great. I like hybrids, I’ve owned 2. However, they still emit CO, HC, NOx, and PM into our urban centers.
I can routinely see the air above my city and a RAV4 hybrid isn’t doing a lot to change that. Yes, it is cleaner than the 20 year old car it replaces but it will be pumping out local emissions that cause smog for the next 20 years.
This.
Kind of an odd comparison, of 200 some thousand hybrid crossovers saving an equivalent amount of fuel as 30 some thousand ev trucks, although I’ve certainly seen stranger things in this space of fuel efficiency and emissions.
You should be careful about things such as the 1:6:90 rule picture above, as I have seen this used plenty, but have never seen a single shred of data to back up this claim, including in technical conferences. (if you have any real data for it, I’d be quite curious to see it). It’s sort of like saying “a FWD ev has 1 electric motor/generator, and a FWD hybrid has 2 electric motor/generators, so I can make 2 EVs for every hybrid”, overly simplified and silly. The amount of corporate propaganda on all fronts out there is nuts, not just in the normal public realm, but also in the technical realm as well.
When we were shopping last year to replace an old and mostly terrible Compass that had finally ate it’s own CVT, we considered every ‘small’ crossover on the market.
And it was disheartening to see that only one of those could be had with a hybrid, the Corolla Cross (dumb name I despise), and that made the deciding factor. We liked other interiors more, or preferred other styling and paint choices, but ultimately having that electric motor is what closed the deal.
On my long highway commute, we see ~40mpg consistently, which is effectively what my old Corolla gets, but unlike the Corolla, I can actually fit in the Cross comfortably, and it has just enough room for adults in the back. In the city, it gets 45+mpg.
For those that like the Rav4 but don’t need/want the Rav4’s size, I heartily recommend the Cross in XSE trim
Hybrids, whether plug-in or not, are neither a “bridge” not a “stepping stone” towards purely electric vehicles. We are in 2025 and The Autopian should know by now. Hybrids, especially with a transmission as efficient as Toyota’s e-CVT, are the best option for most use cases, the only exception being pure ICEs for someone who does only highway and pure BEVs for tilting tandem tricycles for urban and periurban use.
The Future Of The Auto Industry Is Electric, With A Backup Gas Generator
America Focusing On Electric Cars And Not Plug-In Hybrids Was A Huge Mistake
Why I Don’t Recommend Buying A New Commuter Car That Isn’t A Regular Hybrid
That said, BEVs are great, especially for city/suburban folks with multiple cars and and a place to charge nightly.
That is true with one minor observation. For the city/suburban folks with a BEV, the BEV can’t have significantly more battery capacity than needed. The batteries are the part with the big footprint and cost. For BEVs to pencil out they need to have nearly their full battery capacity used frequently.
Does this take into account the repairability of hybrids, like 15 years down the line? Having a dual interlinked power train, with both electric and ice motor, and still needing a battery pack doesn’t really come across as the easiest solution. Both a pure ice or bev will probably be much easier to repair and maintain or what?
In Europe, every other taxi is a Toyota or Lexus hybrid, and they go without a single major repair anywhere between 300K and 500K kilometers.
Yes agreed, but maybe that says more about Toyota than the car industry in general. How will the plethora of 15 year old Stellantis hybrids really hold up?
Stellantis is going to Stellantis no matter ICE, MHEV, FHEV, PHEV, REEV, BEV, or FCEV. They couldn’t even make the Pentastar, a 3.5L V6, probably the most commonly reliable engine type in the last decade, not have issues. I’m sure a few of their electrified powertrains will end up being rock solid while the rest suck.
Not going to jump on you for being skeptical, but i’d recommend looking into the maintenance intervals of hybrids/PHEV’s compared to traditional ICE.
With a Hybrid, your engine utilization is anywhere from 10-50% reduced, meaning longer repair intervals. Hybrid batt’s last for >10 years typically. And those small batts are definitely cheaper to repair than PHEV and full BEVs.
Compared to BEV, your Total Cost of Ownership is gonna be dependent on utilization over time and miles driven. Batt’s are not cheap, but no need to replace timing belts, thermostats, engine oil on EV’s, and the fuel savings can’t be ignored.
The fuel savings of a BEV over a PHEV are minimal at best. For drivers who need to pay retail charging rates, the BEV is often worse, as retail charging rates are more expensive per mile than gasoline. Also, the depreciation of EVs likely outpaces any savings from oil changes or regular ICE maintenance costs.
100%, especially on that depreciation. It’s insane if you don’t include depreciation in total cost of ownership.
The 2005 and 2009 Prius we owned were the most reliable ICE cars we owned. Both needed nothing but routine maintenance in the more than a decade we owned each with the exception of the 3 way valve to the coolant thermos failing on both at about 105K miles. That was a $100 and 2 hour fix. Both went to new owners with more than 50% of the original brake pad / shoe thickness remaining.
Most hybrids go to the scrapyard with their original battery but an OEM Prius replacement battery is about $2K and their are cheaper aftermarket options. That is WAY cheaper than rebuilding a 6 – 10 speed transmission.
That said, our EVs have been even lower maintenance. Nothing but cabin air filters so far but it is time to change the brake fluid on the Bolt (As you should in every vehicle)
I’m running into that wall with my 2012 Volt. Granted, it’s an early example of a PHEV hybrid, but it’s annoying as the car itself still presents quite nice, yet has been somewhat relegated to beater-status due to the fact I can’t wall-charge it anymore. The battery itself is still okay, but the code it’s throwing indicates the contact-assembly (I think that’s what it was called) is causing issues when I plug it in to the EVSE.
The part to fix this isn’t made anymore, although I did find a used one on Ebay for $250. Too bad it requires dropping the battery pack out of the bottom of the car to install the part, which may or may not solve the problem. Not something I’m really equipped or care to do given the car isn’t worth all that much anymore anyway.
Thankfully, running it on hold, or “Mountain” mode constantly still gets me where I need to go. As a value-proposition, it’s been great – the amount I’ve saved in gas has been in the $250 range most months. Currently that’s up around $25,000 total savings on a car that originally cost me $11,500 back in 2016. I was going from a combo of cars that averaged somewhere around 15mpg so that did amplify things a bit.
At any rate, any miles I put on it going forward are gravy, and it still gets about 40mpg on premium gas fill-ups. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be road-worthy much longer which is too bad as it’s still a nice vehicle. My guess is most manufacturers are more than happy with a 10 to 15 year timeline before the car is permanently out of commission whether it’s ICE, BEV, or a combo.
I’m going claim that hybrids are easier/cheaper to maintain than pure ICEs.
Transmission: Depending on the hybrid style, they can be better or similar to current ICE transmissions.
– Toyota & Ford’s planetary gearset powersplit transmission is probably the best hybrid transmission out there and has few, if any engaging/disengaging parts (like clutches, etc).
– Honda & Nissan’s series hybrid transmissions transmit power via motors, which don’t really wear at all. Honda supplements this with a 1-2 clutches and gears for use at higher speeds, which are a potential failure point but are not used at high stress low speeds. Theoretically if the clutches/gears fail, it could still operate in only series mode and work fine with 10% lost fuel economy at high speeds.
– Hyundai/Kia, Mazda CX-70/90’s 6-speed conventional auto with an electric motor taped on it aren’t really any better than the conventional auto, but the motor can take stress off the clutch at low speeds.
Engine: Hybridization promotes, but does not guarantee, the use of N/A engines and Atkinson/Miller cycle, which are generally inherently less stressed and simpler compared to a downsized turbo pure ICE alternative. The main limitations to reliability here are stupidity (i.e. using wet belts) and mitigatable side effects of turning the engine on & off often. It does not stop Stellantis from Stellantising and using a high strung 177hp 1.3T in a Hornet PHEV, for example. Will the fancy 178hp CVVD 1.6T in a Kia Carnival do better than a non-hybrid H/K 2.5T, theoretically? Hard to say, but their 3.5L V6 is known to be reliable, so it’ll probably win that battle.
Considering the RAV4 got 500k sales despite its looks, I think the new RAV4 Is a shoe-in now that people who were put of by its looks (Like myself) may consider it now.
As shallow as it sounds, I still want a car to fulfill that third of the mission (a piece of transportation, a source of fun, and a work of art in various proportions, depending on your goals; but 33% each will be a sales king). I’ve been pretty outspoken about how bad the current model looks, and this is about 80% better.
I only regret that they’ll represent every 5th car on the road in a couple years…
https://www.aceee.org/greener-cars
A study was published last year (I’m not going to type out the methodology because it’s long and jargon-ey, but feel free to take a look) that concluded that the most environmentally friendly car is actually the Prius Prime. 4 of the top 10 vehicles were hybrids, and 3 of those were Toyota hybrids. Somewhat surprisingly the RAV4 Prime cracked the top 6.
Anyone who knows what they’re talking about has been saying that EVs aren’t a perfect, one size fits all solution for many years now and that we shouldn’t pass over the good in pursuit of the perfect. Toyota took a ridiculous amount of flack for saying it a couple of years ago…but they were correct then, they’re correct now, and an apology is long overdue from the myriad outlets raking them through the mud.
Commuter cars should’ve been hybrid across the board 10 years ago, but hey…better late than never.
Probably most cars should’ve been hybrid long ago. Remember when GM had hybrid Silverados and Tahoes, almost 20 years ago? Sure, they weren’t that great, but it was 20 years ago and it was a starting point. Imagine if they had fostered that alongside the Volt’s technology.
Not sure why hybrid tech would be a large downside for most of the automotive buying public.
Hybrids are certainly an improvement (unless you are talking about long distance highway driving, then they are generally a wash, depending on model), but one thing to note is that 99+% of life cycle analyses out there are effectively corporate propaganda. I was in a meeting recently where an expert on the matter talked about his team going through 10,000 lifecycle analyses, and less than 100 (less than 1%!) met even basic scientific requirements, and only about 30 were fully compliant with best practices. The rest were effectively garbage.
I just took a quick look at the one you posted from “last year” since I’m quite interested in this topic in general, and their methodology is listed as from 2016, including on page 42 that they are using estimated US electricity generation from 2012, over a decade out of date, with coal at 46% of production, which is entirely inaccurate for it being a “last year” study. Not sure what other issues it might have, but given that they are using decade+ old data, no one should take it seriously.
Things are changing quickly, so it’s difficult to be on top of things in real time, but I see things like this all the time, where people compare say 2018 technology of one type to projected 2030 technology of another type, and it simply is meaningless.
From what I’ve also seen in technical conferences/meetings, Toyota deserves the mud thrown at them, presenting things that have no real data presented to back up their claims. I’ve even called them out after a presentation, and they had no answer, just scrambling for excuses. If I can easily point out holes in one of their studies just from listening to a 20 minute presentation, that’s bad, really bad. It’s not just Toyota, I don’t trust anything from any corporation that doesn’t have full, transparent data to back up their claims, preferably from a neutral 3rd party.
So very much this.
Thanks!
Life Cycle Analysis is so easily manipulated.
I’m pretty sure that filling up and burning thousands of tankfulls of gasoline is not as good as burning zero tankfulls of gasoline.
Can I buy you a virtual beer?
It took some time for the Prius (esp Gen 2-3) to prove the longevity of the batteries, which was almost everyone’s biggest fear — having a useless car after 10 years that’s worth less than zero.
Second is performance, and that’s something I think Toyota and Honda have nailed pretty well. People don’t need extreme speed, but they also don’t want a sluggish car. 0-60 in 7-9 seconds is plenty for almost everyone to feel slightly sporty and lacking for nothing (especially when you get that insta-torque which feels mentally faster than it really is)
PHEVs are often more environmentally friendly than BEVs when their entire lifecycle is considered. Add to that that PHEVs have no need for additional infrastructure and no barriers to adoption. We would likely be far better off encouraging PHEVs than bothering with full BEVs at the moment. If battery technology improves significantly and requires fewer materials, electricity production becomes far greener, or a combination of both, BEVs are solutions for fairly niche use cases.
Significant adoption of PHEVS now is worth more than the idea of BEV adoption some time in the future.
The downside of encouraging PHEV as the solution: A lot of people would simply use them as HEVs. While there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that, PHEVs are heavier and more expensive than HEV equivalents, because the battery & electric motors have to be larger to propel the car a reasonable distance on electric mode
Combined with a lot of people not being able to charge at home, and/or not wanting to adopt any new habits, a PHEV would end up being a heavier HEV, and a waste of battery resources
A better compromise solution an EREV, where an ICE only acts as a generator, but isn’t powerful enough to propel the car. That makes it smaller and cheaper, so you get the advantages of BEV, while having the ability to put fuel in it to go longer distances between charging/fueling
I agree that hybrids are still a big part of the solution and didn’t mean to suggest that PHEVs should automatically replace HEVs. But PHEVs are better for the vast majority of consumers when compared to BEVs. Consumers who won’t use the plug-in capacity of a PHEV aren’t going to be buying BEVs anyway.
PHEVs, whether operated in parallel or series, is largely immaterial. The issue with either system type having a small engine and a larger battery is that the battery is the problematic part with the big footprint. Adding a gas engine to a car with BEV levels of battery capacity is the worst of all worlds. The cost of making an ICE is much lower than that of a lot of battery. So, if you need both, the incremental cost of adding capacity to the ICE is far lower than adding it in battery.
The best PHEVs have the smallest possible batteries needed to handle the average daily use, which is about 40 miles. The small battery size also allows home charging from standard outlets and minimizes total weight. That setup minimizes the environmental cost to build relative to electric miles driven. All while eliminating any adoption issues.
Didn’t I read something a few months back about only around 10% of PHEV owners bother to plug them in, and instead just run them like a standard HEV?
That would indicate that HEVs are the better option since the gas savings don’t seem to matter to folks.
Ironically in my case, my electricity, and a huge swath of california, is so expensive at 31c/kwh off peak, that the gas savings between PHEV/BEVs and HEVs are very small, even at $5/gal
I mean, you probably did.
That’s spilled all over the internet by …
I wonder …?
LOL
In China, the engines in EREVs and PHEVs aren’t really different to each other, they’re all either 95kW Atkinson 1.5L N/A, 115kW Miller 1.5T, or 185kW Otto 2.0T (due to displacement tax thresholds) and all of them are 4 cylinders, presumably for NVH reasons. We can conclude that smaller, <4 cylinder engines are unviable for EREVs because they can't produce the required power at acceptable NVH levels, and engines are generally most efficient at ~½ throttle anyways; keep in mind China's national speed limit is 120kmh/75mph.
Also, they're able to make PHEVs and EREVs both have the same battery capacities if desired. For example, the popular Li Auto L9 and Aito M9 EREVs and the new Lynk & Co 900 PHEV are all 3-row flagship luxury SUVs with 1.5T engines, have comparable ~45 and ~52kWh battery options and electric range, and are priced similarly (the 900 is actually a bit cheaper), but the base trim PHEV 900 outputs 530kW while the L9 and M9 only have 330kW and 392kW, because it can directly drive the wheels. The extra power isn't too important in this case because 330kW is enough, but the better efficiency on ICE power is nice; plus, other variants of the 900 have a 2.0T and can use smaller motors to still reach 540kW.
In something like a mainstream sedan, a PHEV can offset the cost of the transmission by not needing as powerful motors as an EREV, which needs a full-size drive motor and a generator motor equal to desired engine power, for the same amount of power. Basically, lower 'kW of electric motor per kW of power to the wheels'.
EREVs have a theoretical packaging advantage from being able to put the engine anywhere, but no one has taken advantage of it, even in China (probs b/c intense cost pressure and conservative market), except maybe the future Scout.
In China, EREV models are usually either from startups who don't have history/experience making transmissions, or are hasty BEV retrofits to follow the recent EREV trend. They also tend to be luxury models, which can afford the bigger battery and extra wasted power.
Bigger companies with transmission design experience like BYD, Geely, Chery, and Changan make PHEVs. Most mainstream models are either PHEVs or BEVs, since PHEVs can get better mileage and power with small batteries and motors.
As usual, Toyota takes the pragmatic path. It’s kind of their thing.
Your numbers work but I have to say it was a bit confusing to follow along without getting out my calculator and following along because of the long break from the total sales and hybrid split.
For others who might be having trouble:
475,193 total sales, ~50% non-electrified: 237,596.5 “eligible for gas savings vehicles”
0.8 gallons per 100 miles saved by hybrid switch: 190,000 gallons/100 miles saved across those 237,596.5 vehicles
13,596 miles/year: (divide 190,000 by 100 and multiply by 13,596): 25.8 Million gallons saved by those 237,596.5 vehicles, or a gas savings of about 109 gallons per RAV4 per year that is now electrified.