Batteries can go on to have second lives replacing peaker plants. Scaling batteries for EVs means improving production efficiencies, lowering costs, and reducing the most contentious metals.
Moving to hybrids does not improve things as much as a direct jump to electric.
Toyota specifically is not helping by fighting for reduced emissions regulations, lies about 'self-charging' hybrids, and producing large quantities of non-hybrid cars, trucks, SUVs, and crossovers.
If I had to buy a car to drive 300K miles and pay for the purchase and maintenance on it, I'd buy a Prius long before buying any EV. (I daily drive an EV; I'm not anti-EV by any means, but the Toyota HSD is extremely well-proven and I think is likely to have a lower cost of ownership than any current EV.)
[1] https://insideevs.com/news/489525/us-electric-car-market-sha...!
Luxury EVs like Tesla are consuming too many limited battery resources. There were 300k EVs sold in North America, if these batteries went into hybrids, you could make 14 million hybrids, which would save 7900% more gasoline than the EVs [1].
Not to mention that Toyota is bringing to market 4 types of electrification: Hybrid, Plug in Hybrid, Battery Electric, and Hydrogen Full Cell. Don't get me wrong, Tesla has pushed consumers and automakers in the right direction, similar to what happened in the advent of the Prius.
Also remember that the average car sits idle for 90%+ of the time, and when they are being used, they aren't being used for the full range of the vehicle, which is why a Plug in Hybrid is a great option for those whose commute is less than say 50 miles.
It's slowly shifting to electric vehicles not because it's anti-EV, but because the world's battery supply can be used much more efficiently in reducing the amount of gasoline consumed (79 times at that).
[1]: https://youtu.be/8Fub8AdysmI?t=264