Ford hails hybrid taxis in NYC
By Marc Perton 
posted November 11th 2005 10:30AM
posted November 11th 2005 10:30AM
The next time you hail a cab in New York, it may be green. No,
the cars will still be painted their signature yellow, but your cab could be one of a handful of hybrid cabs recently
unveiled by Ford, which supplies the majority of New York's taxis. According to the company, the hybrid SUVs get 36
miles per gallon, double the mileage of the company's Crown Victoria cabs. The city is considering replacing all 13,000
cabs on its roads with hybrids within five years. While they're at it, maybe they can replace some of the drivers with
ones who don't treat pedestrians and bikers as target practice and actually know their way around the city.
Good way to start the revolution into clean air. Even for the North East!
"While they’re at it, maybe they can replace some of the drivers with ones who don’t treat pedestrians and bikers as target practice and actually know their way around the city."
ROFL =))
What are the chances that we will see any reduction in fares seeing that MPG is doubled? Maybe we'll see a day when paying $8 for a cab will get you two miles in the city instead of one.
Are Crown Vic Hybrids only available through fleet sales, or can you buy them retail, too? I'm betting the former.
Also: if the city mandates all new cabs must be hybrids (not a bad idea), will the drivers not be forced to buy a new car every 3 years?
If so, I could almost convince my wife to let me buy one...
But honestly, I think this is great for 2 reasons: it shows that the city is serious about being green (even if it is not that much of a difference) and is as good of a field test a vehicle manufacturer will ever get... some of these cabs do 100,000+ mi a year...
They'll actually be Escape Hybrids, not Crown Vic Hybrids (which don't yet exist). This is a great step, and 5 years is a great (and coming-soon) goal!
Also, there already exists OZOcar (http://www.ozocar.com) -- a luxury car service in NYC comprised of only hybrids.
This would actualy make a HUGE difference. At any given time 2/3 of the cities cab fleet is on the road. In manhattan in particular they are nearly 1/3 of the cars on the road at any given time and they are running constantly. Just like switching the busses to clean systems switching the cabs to clean systems has a direct and significant impact on air quality in the city. Now if they would just start doing what london did and charge a $5 congestion charge to drive onto manhattan island it would be evn nicer!
Do Americans use SUV's as cabs? In Holland almost all of them are Mercedes (I never saw a SUV cab)
I'd rather a requirement that drivers speak English. Well.
At least that way when they inevitably don't know how to get somewhere you can tell them...
I've never had an instance in NYC where the cabby didn't know how to get there.
Those of you getting problems... are you giving addresses or store fronts?
it's be a great test for the hybrid vehicle, and show how it holds up in extreme usage... length of battery life, actual urban driving gas mileage over the years, etc etc.
i hear you on "knowing their way around the city"
i once got in a cab, and drove about 3 blocks before i got the cabbie to admit that he didnt know how to get there. i still wonder where he was planning on driving me.....
I like NYC cabbies, well most of them. In the end its funny, all you non New Yorkers. It keeps the myth alive. Oh yes, all New Yorkers do eat babies.....
What I WANT are the OLD school cabbies back. The ones that see yellow and SPEED up, green as flat out and red as apply brakes, if anyone is looking. The problem now, is that their all afraid of the INS.
If the company could only break away from ford they could use Prius taxis, which get around 55mpg in the city.
"While they’re at it, maybe they can replace some of the drivers with ones who don’t treat pedestrians and bikers as target practice and actually know their way around the city."
I dont agree to this, the pedestrian part but not the biker part. Most bikers think they are pedestrians, when they are not. They have to follow the lights and stop for people. I can't tell you the number of times I see bikers go through lights and stuff nearly causing accidents and even hitting people (including me 1 time, if I wasn't so tall, the handlebars would have hit me right in the nuts).
Mike, the problem with bikes is pedestrians want them to act like cars staying off walkways and coming to complete stops at intersection while drivers want them to act like pedestrians and stay out of their god given stretch of asphalt. People need to be attentive and remember injuring someone isn’t worth imposing your right of way. In more civilized environments a compromise can be found, but to me bicycle riders in NYC are nuts. It’s a shame considering how much easier people could get around if certain streets were reserved for bicycles.
I hope someone does a study to see if air quality improves at street level when hybrids take over. I’m sure if will, but maybe not as much as removing the worst offenders from the road. It’s hard to say considering how much idling takes place.
I hope we do this in California too; we've been pushing the Clean Air Act back for far too long.
"Also: if the city mandates all new cabs must be hybrids (not a bad idea), will the drivers not be forced to buy a new car every 3 years?"
A cab used for double shifts has to be replaced every 3 years, 5 years for single shift cabs. "Alternative Fuel" vehicles get an extra 2 year extension.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/medallion/html/faq/vehicles.shtml
The Prius is also tiny, unable to carry much in the way of luggage, and the whole 55 MPG thing is only on optimum flat road freeway conditions. In city, they get about 32. Sorry to burts your bubble, but an Escape hybrid makes faaaar more sense than a little tiny sub-compact would. Not to mention it's far more durable and people don't fear beign able to fit in one.