China wants electric battery cars and plug-in hybrids to account for at least one-fifth of its vehicle sales by 2025.
The Chinese government's new strategy appears to be to promote plug-in hybrids as an interim technology before fully electric cars kick in.
With these technologies, Mazda has improved average fuel economy for its cars by about 26 per cent from 2008 levels, and met emissions regulations without turning to electric vehicles or hybrids.
China is already doing what countries such as the UK are being forced to consider: it is banning heavily polluting cars from cities by auctioning the right to own vehicle number plates while allowing "new energy vehicles" such as electric cars and plug-in electric hybrids an open road.
Fully electric cars (those without a combustion engine) account for less than 1 per cent of new car sales in the UK — which only rises fractionally when hybrids are included.
These bonds are hybrids: debt in good times but convertible into equity when common equity becomes too small relative to banks' balance sheets.
No hideous hiking hybrids here.
Combining the warmth of a local hangout with the high standards of a modern bistro, Le Richer belongs to a handful of hybrids that are transforming Parisian café culture.
Hybrids and diesel engines are cleaner than gas, causing fewer air pollution deaths and spewing less heat-trapping gas.
Most of the trees currently growing in the country are hybrids, bred with foreign varieties of cacao.
But what to call such multi-ethnic hybrids?
