Are Hybrid Cars truly good for environment?

Hello, Everyone,

Since Toyota and several other car companies are having huge recalls, a thought just came to me. Are Hybrid Cars truly good for the environment? Recently I've been thinking that the fight against CO2 emission has been utilized by several car companies as a mere marketing tool. I honestly believe that automakers has the capability of making a traditional gas only car that can give the same power output and fuel efficiency as a current hybrid vehicle. Yet, due to the recent hype about global warming, they would put a electric engine and market it as "environmentally friendly" vehicle while it may not be as environmentally sound as its image projects. I m not sure how hybrid batteries are made but if we think about it, just our regular alkaline batteries and car batteries are extremely detrimental to our environmental and is extremely difficult to recycle, they cannot be incinnerated or decomposed since the poisonous heavy metal will eventually leak into the soil and our water. I read the figure from Wikipedia and that just Toyota alone had sold about 350k Priuses world wide, that is 350K batteries each in the size of a cardboard box that will eventually have to be recycled or got rid of in the next 10 or 20 years. I honestly think, although hybrid may alleviate our co2 emission a little, but yet the technology could be a double edged sword that may lead into a huge environmental crisis in the future.

---maybe we should get back to horse riding--- like the good old days....JK

Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.