AUSTIN, Texas, Aug 15 Reuters Toyota may be one of the slowest legacy automakers to develop electric vehicles but it could be the first to jettison cars powered only by gasoline.

Almost three decades after launching the Prius, its pioneering gasolineelectric hybrid, Toyota is moving to convert most, and eventually maybe all, of its Toyota and Lexus lineup to hybridonly models, two Toyota executives told Reuters.

Toyota39;s stubborn focus on hybrids over EVs is part of a broader challenge by the world39;s biggest automaker to the prevailing industry and regulatory orthodoxy that all cars will be electric in the near future.

Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said in January that he believed the global share of EVs would top out at just 30. The Japanese automaker instead touts a multipathway strategy that includes EVs along with hybrids, hydrogen fuelcell vehicles, green fuels and, potentially, other technologies yet to emerge.

Going forward, we plan to evaluate, carline by carline, whether going allhybrid makes sense, David Christ, head of sales and marketing for Toyota in North America, told Reuters.

Those evaluations will come with every model redesign, if not sooner.

That includes the pending overhaul of the RAV4 for the 2026 model year. The RAV4, America39;s bestselling SUV, already has hybrid variants that account for about half of sales.

Two people familiar with Toyota39;s product planning discussions said the automaker is highly likely to ditch the gasolineonly…