Mayor Bloomberg announced that NYC is going to replace its current fleet of 13,000 taxis, now mostly Ford Crown Victorias, with hybrids. The Fords get a pitiful 10-15 mpg in city driving. This change would be the equivalent of removing 32,000 regular cars from the road. The move must be approved by the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission.
Reported in the New York Times, May 23, 2007
One advantage, I suppose, is that the hybrids are more tailored to the driving styles of most NYC cab drivers, which could be characterized as “stop and go” on steroids.
Fellow New Yorkers: how many times have you been in a cab that violently accelerated to go 40 feet towards an already red light and then slammed on the brakes?
In moments of my usual mode of do-nothing environmental reverie, I wondered about trying to estimate the fuel costs of violent stop-and-go driving for the average cab shift in order to make the case for more stomach- and environmentally-friendly driving. Hybrids, with their regenerative breaking, will lessen the environmental and financial costs of cab-style driving—so I guess I will try to be more philosophical about living with the lurches.
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