Can somebody enlighten me? What's the point of a hybrid aircraft?
I don't do enlightenment but one reason is that you can have a smaller/lighter/more efficient powerplant which gets an 'assist' from the motor/battery for takeoff, go-around or any other critical stage of flight. Your engine could be max. rated to 60-70% of what you need in those circumstances, the rest coming from the energy store when you need it. There is also the advantage of having two separate (but not quite independent) motive sources should one fail, e.g. through lack of fuel, ignition, etc.
It would also be possible to charge the batteries with, say, a set of solar panels or a wind turbine next to your hangar. Free energy! (Well, not quite but you can see the point.)
You can also recover energy that would have gone to waste, e.g. idling at the holding point or in a steep descent to get rid of height. Bit like KERS in F1.