New York Taxis Will Go Hybrid

Jason Siegel writes "The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) has approved the Clean Air Taxicabs Pilot Program Act, paving way for a hybrid car to be approved for NY taxi service by this fall. Soon, a large portion of New York's yellow cars will also be "green." According to the Coalition Advocating for Smart Transportation (CAST) poll, seven out of ten of the state's citizens support a switch to hybrids." New York might also reduce car pollution by loosening the rules for running a taxi, in order to reduce the need for private cars.

Re:A step in the right direction

[WIAKywbfatw]

But do they really think that one city will change anything? I think this is a step in the right direction if everybody starts using more efficient/ less waste cars, but why make such a big deal over the first step?

Because it's a bit hard to take a second step before you've taken your first one?

Besides, this isn't the first such programme. Even in India, buses, taxis and rickshaws are required to use CNG, compressed natural gas, which is less poluting than traditional vehicle fuels.

Re:A step in the right direction

[johnpaul191]

well, NYC is the biggest city in the country.
NYC also has its share of gridlock and stop and start driving. isn't that the kind of driving that can be handled well by a hybrid? i realize the cabbies will have to be instructed on the techniques that optimize efficiency of a hybrid. when you spend your working hours driving a car around and when the high cost of gas effects your bottom line, you will probably do what you can to get that extra mileage.
at the same time it will help the rest of the population by lowering pollution.

The most perplexing question ever...

[John Seminal]

I propose two facts, that are incompatible.

1) Taxi Meddalions (the license to operate a taxi) can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think I remember reading that one sold a few years ago for over $350,000.

2) The people driving the taxis, they don't look like the wealthy type.

They should deregulate all taxis. Maybe prices would fall if there was free competition. I know, on days I am short on money, I would like to slap a taxi sign on my car and drive down to the airport. A couple hours later, I would have enough money to go back to the bar.

And I love the idea of green friendly cars. I think it is a step in the right direction. But what would be better than legislation is a green friendly car that gets 60+ mpg and has a sticker price of around $9,000. They would sell like hotcakes (which I think the Geo did for a while).

Will we get a cheap green car? I think we will, but probably not from Ford, GM, or Chrysler. I bet it will come from a hyundi or some asian car. The most attractive thing about a green friendly car is the MPG it gets, which appeals to people who don't want to get raped at the gas pumps. Unfortunatly, those people are not the ones buying $50,000 SUV's, they are the ones in economy sized cars.

Lower the price, and everyone will be buying them.

Good step but a little late

[Jeet81]

A lot of other cities have public transportation running on propane, etc. Many international cities have seen a lot of cut back in pollution just by switching the public transportation to a more environment friendly energy source.

Re:A step in the right direction

[Doc Ruby]

This isn't just "one city". This is New York City. The biggest in the country (don't give me any BS about LA, which isn't a city at all, but a county, a mutant suburb). Clogged with cars, though few New Yorkers own one. When you get the equivalent of 24K cars to stop pumping filth into the air, especially in the 26 sq mi of Manhattan, you're taking back breathing for about 10M people. That's a big change. Even if no one else ever follows our lead, we're better off - which is what we care about in NYC: doing right by ourselves first.

But others will follow. Not only does our size set the pace for lots of other cities, globally, but we're smart. When we figure out how to do things, we do it right, and others follow us. If you don't know why NYC is a "big deal", you haven't been here, or you don't know the meaning of the words "big" or "deal".

Re:week-old news.. americans like their space

[lheal]

I found this to be particularly amusing ... "...people like their cabs big..."

I live in the American Midwest, where we all drive our own cars everywhere. I don't take cabs much. When I do, I don't care how big they are, as long as they're clean and there.

I'd say it's the cabbies, who have to ride in them all day, who want the things big. And the cab companies, who want their vehicles to last more than a week. Nah, the companies probably don't care.

Maybe I'm wrong about all of it. Maybe most people would rather ride in the spacious rear cabin of a land yacht than in the cramped back seat of an econobox.

Personally, I'd rather drive.

Re:Global warming & hybrids

[mrchaotica]

Let's think about this for a minute: If we do nothing and the environmentalists turn out to be right, we're screwed. On the other hand, if we go ahead and reduce our pollution output and it turns out global warming doesn't exist, then we've merely wasted* money. I, for one, would rather be poor than dead.

*let alone the fact that it wouldn't even be a waste then -- reducing pollution via reducing fossil fuel use would have other benefits, such as allowing people with asthma to be able to breathe in the cities (and possibly stopping kids from contracting it in the first place), stopping acid rain, reducing dependence on foreign oil, etc.

Re:If it is so good...

[Doc Ruby]

Some do buy used cars, police or otherwise. Others buy new cars. Then they spend big bucks upgrading them to spec. Cabbies have told me it cost them anywhere from $10-25K upgrading cars.

I don't think that hybrids cost $20K more than their non-hybrid competition. If gasguzzling cabs get something like 10MPG, the way I do in NYC traffic (in my 25MPG highway car), and gas is $2.50:gallon, that's $0.25:mile. $10K is 40K miles, which cabs probably do in 6 months. So even a $20K premium on a hybrid (which doesn't exist) is repaid in a year. Cabs seem to stay on NYC streets for about 5 years, so that's a 4:1 payback, of a significant investment (again, assuming the investment is anything like that large - otherwise it's a much higher rate of return on a small investment).

Then consider the halved refueling downtime, among NYC's scattered gas stations and fleet garages, and the money is really compelling. Since NYC pays for lots of services related to gas consumption (fuel transport regulation, asthma healthcare, etc), it's got its own financial stake. Then consider the less-direct savings, in breathable air, less-dirty buildings, less dependence on foreign oil, and hybrids are the way to go.

Re:If it is so good...

[Anonymous Coward]

The taxi commission in NYC, in addition to issuing medallions and driver credentials, approves the models of cars allowed to be used as yellow cabs. Until this announcement, no hybrid models were approved.

You can take this as an example of silly over-regulation, but I and many other New Yorkers find a compelling interest in uniform equipment, verified vehicle safety, and the other regulated aspects. Deregulation would be a zoo, and life here is hard enough already -- it's nice to be able to rely on yellow cabs.

Now I'll agree it was dumb when the taxi commission sold some medallions specifically for hybrid cabs -- at a discount, to encourage the conservation aspect -- more than a year before they approved use of any actual hybrid car. The medallion owners had to sue to get their attention. NYTimes had a story on this several weeks back.

Where's the source?

[jonbrewer]

The poster claims: Soon, a large portion of New York's yellow cars will also be "green."

I would counter with an article I read in June in the Times:

In summary, the only push for green taxis so far has been a trio of operators who purchased discount medallions from the city and then couldn't use them b/c there were no hybrids approved as taxis.

Hybrid Taxis Encounter Catch-22 Of Regulation

By SEWELL CHAN (NYT) 989 words
Late Edition - Final , Section B , Page 1 , Column 5

"Last October, New York City officials held a special auction of 27 heavily discounted taxi medallions that could be used only with cabs powered by natural gas or by a combination of gasoline and electricity. ... Eighteen of the licenses were sold, at an average price of $222,743, one-third less... "

The infrastructure invested in the current NYC yellow taxi fleet, which happens to be almost exclusively Ford Crown Victoria, is not small. Savings on Petrol will not offset the costs of changing vehicles and support infrastructure. While the poster says "soon", I don't see "a large portion" of cabs going green before 2010.

Re:Global warming & hybrids

[Temporal]

Corporations which cause a lot of pollution would be hurt by added environmental requirements, since they would have to pay to upgrade their factories, use more expensive techniques, etc.

But, you are absolutely right that this will also create new industries which produce such environmentally-friendly equipment, etc.

What I think the corporations need to do is ... innovate in the areas of energy efficiency.

Getting back to the hybrid topic, Toyota is a great example of this. In 1993 (I think) they announced their "Earth charter", which lead to the creation of their hybrid engine. The goal of the project was explicitly to design an environmentally-friendly car. And now it looks like it's paying off for them, big time. In 2000 they announced the beginning of their "New Earth Charter", in which they are researching not just ways to make a car that operates cleanly, but new manufacturing techniques to make it more friendly to build and ways to improve disposal. It sounds like they're really putting a lot of effort into it.

Some more details. [toyota.co.jp]

Meanwhile, car companies here in America are innovating in entirely different directions [hummer.com]. :(

Re:Why not go diesel?

[David Horn]

Which is what a diesel is good at. An idling diesel uses next to no fuel, whereas an idling petrol just drinks the stuff down.

Re:Who is paying?

[dtungsten]

Also, the fact that the 10 inch loss in leg room is such a big deal just shows that we need to lose weight.

Yeah, because losing weight will shorten your legs, and also miniaturizes suitcases.

Re:Vancouver as well, I think

[drew]

When my wife and I were looking to get a new car, we wanted to get a Prius, but the 2004's hadn't even been out for a few months yet, and every dealer we called told us there was a 6 month to a year waiting list.

So we bought a Corolla instead. It costs virtually the same to fill up the tank, it gets close to the same highway gas mileage (in fact it probably would get the same if it had the same low rolling resistance tires) and cost it us about $5,000 less than a comparably equipped Prius (minus sunroof) even if we could get our hands on one. And we'll never have to worry about replacing the batteries.

Also, the tax rebate is rapidly going down towards zero. And it's not a rebate, only a deduction. A lot of people got away with claiming the credit because the ruling was poorly worded early on, but in more recent years tax forms they added a line specifically stating that hybrid vehicles do not quilify for the tax credit.

Our Corolla is approaching 20,000 miles now, and I did the math a little while back and figured out that we would still be a very long way from making back the difference in price between the two cars in fuel savings. Of course, the amount of city driving we do is virtually negligible as neither my wife or I drive to work most days.

For something like a New York taxi cab, I think a hybrid car makes a lot of sense (although if New York cabbies drive anything like Chicago cabbies, I don't think that any available hybrid is going to have nearly enough power to meet the demands of the job), but I suspect very few ordinary drivers put on enough city miles to really save a lot of money by getting a Prius if you compare it to an equivalent non-hybrid vehicle.

less emission just at the tailpipe?

[walterbyrd]

Do hybrids actually mean less total emissions? Or just less at the tailpipe?

Which hybrid will be the preferred model.

[Yankel]

I think the biggest obstacle getting hybrid taxis on the road is the lack of taxi-sized cars with hybrid engines. I was in New York last year and their cabs have quite a few safety mods for the driver and passenger.

For instance, there's a wall between the driver and the passenger side of the cabin. That's going to be pretty tough to squeeze into any car smaller than a Crown Vic.

This is a problem specific to New York cabs. And loosening up the specs for taxis may not be the answer -- they were put there for a reason.

This won't be a problem in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, where the Prius can already be seen ferrying around people.

The only two large(r) sedans that have hybrid engines are the Prius and the Accord. If the big three were smart, they'd build a hybrid engine for small trucks with their Japanese partners to lower development costs (Ford/Mazda, Chrysler/Mitsubishi, GM/Toyota) and stick those suckers in the Crown Vic/500, Magnum/300 and the Impala/Regal.

Re:Vancouver as well, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah, that $3k federal tax rebate last year was pathetic. Practically nothing. Getting $2800 back from the IRS was horrible. :)

However, I wish some of these "hybrid" myths would start to go away now that they've been around for a while.

A Prius gets much better highway milage than a Corolla. I drive 35 miles to work every day on the highway (60-65 MPH) and tank after tank is 50-54 MPG. The only time my highway milage is lower than that is when driving 75-80 MPH on the interstate, and I can guarantee you that a Corolla doesn't get 42 MPG at 80 MPH.

However, when I'm driving around town on the weekend I watch the nice average I've built up during the week go down. The reason is that in city traffic I spend lots of time accelerating from light to light. However, when I get stuck in slowly moving traffic, it goes way up. But my experience is that MPG in the city is worse than on the highway. After 25000 miles, my overall average is 48.7 MPG (odometer / total gallons). The only way a Corolla will do that is if you coast down hill everywhere you go.

Also, the Prius DOES NOT have low rolling resistance tires. They are just standard cheap radials. Don't confuse a Civic with a Prius. That is probably why the word "hybrid" is a bad word to use. The Civic and Prius are vastly different. People hear a stastic that is specific to one or the other and then apply it to both.

That being said, you are correct that you will never earn your money back through the gas savings, unless you plan to drive a whole bunch of miles. I agree that hybrid cabs are a great idea. However, I bet that a cab driver in a Prius will only get 35-40 MPG (which is still a heck of a lot better than a V8 Lincoln).

Safety over convenience...

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxi's are regulated because you want people to feel safe getting into a complete stranger's car. I think if Taxi's weren't regulated many, many people would be afraid to use them. Further, it would destroy the taxicab industry, as no one would be able to afford to be a taxicab driver fulltime as during busy seasons they'd be in line with 50,000 unemployed people trying to make a buck and during sparse periods they'd have to haggle the price of a cab down to virtually no profit.

"I would like to slap a taxi sign on my car and drive down to the airport. A couple hours later, I would have enough money to go back to the bar." - I wouldn't want to get in your car, and you don't even have any mischevious intentions."