It’s taken a while for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to realize that hybrid taxis are a no-brainer. Yesterday, he announced a plan that would require all of the Big Apple’s taxi cabs to be gas-electric hybrids by 2012.
via Reuters
May 23, 2007
On its route from niche to mainstream acceptance, hybrids shed their elite image. Now, hybrid limo services bring a little bit of luxury back into the equation—along with eco-consciousness and common sense.
Over the past few weeks, Congress has moved to defend hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol, and compressed natural gas from detractors in the EPA and the Department of Energy, ensuring their continued survival in the national budget. With billions of dollars in subsidies and tax exemptions hanging in the balance, the battle for alternative fuel supremacy is likely to rage on for some time.
Zipcar, the world's largest car-sharing service, announced yesterday that it will bring an all-electric vehicle "pod" to central London. Two weeks ago, AltCar began offering the Maya 300, a small neighborhood electric vehicle, for loan in Baltimore's Inner Harbor district. Several companies are currently testing the durability and profitability of offering plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles in their fleets.
When former President Bush signed Executive Order 13423 in January 2007, he required federal fleet managers to buy plug-in vehicles as soon as possible. The exact language of the directive was as soon as plug-in cars “become commercially available and can be purchased at a cost reasonably comparable to conventional vehicles based on life-cycle costs.” But getting clarity on that cost comparison has proven to be tricky business.
Hertz has launched Connect by Hertz, the first global car sharing club offered by an international car rental company. The move puts pressure on Zipcar, currently the leader in self-service pay-as-you-go car rental services. After eight years in operation, Zipcar has yet to become profitable.
A US Federal judge barred New York City last week from implementing a regulation that all new taxicabs achieve at least 25 miles per gallon, which was to have taken effect November 1. Judge Paul A. Crotty said the city’s mandate was pre-empted by federal laws. Automakers frequently cite their fear of a “patchwork of legislation,” calling it a “nightmare” to build cars to different standards for different states. But in fact, they have done exactly that for 30 years.
San Francisco taxi drivers are providing solid information about the outer reaches of hybrid battery life. At a recent Ford Motor Company event, Paul Gillespie, San Francisco Taxicab Commission president, said some of his city’s Ford Escape hybrid taxis had passed 300,000 miles of use with no problems.
If you've watched any cable news or read the editorial pages of a major newspaper in the past few months, you're likely to have come across advertisements energy baron T. Boone Pickens' plan to decrease America's dependency on foreign oil. One element of the plan is the promotion of a long existent but relatively unused automotive technology: engines powered by compressed natural gas.
A new report says that New York City hybrid taxis are “unfit and unsafe” for their duties, endangering 240 million passengers and tens of thousands of drivers. And the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, a taxi-fleet trade association that commissioned the 43-page report, has sued the city over the issue. The first deputy taxi commissioner Andrew Salkin fought back at a City Council hearing held yesterday. He said, “Taxicabs with improved gas mileage are fully performing, saving drivers money and doing so safely.”
