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J. Tillman at the Mohawk - Giveaway
A couple days ago, NYC Mayor Bloomberg proclaimed that by October 2012, all yellow taxis in NYC will be hybrid. It's true that New York City has far more cabs than our city, but this idea sounds like something Austin would be the first to consider. After hearing of the NY decision, Austin councilmember Martinez told News8Austin that soon, our fair city may ask (require?) contractors, as well as city fleets, to move towards using more hybrid vehicles.
Most Yellow Taxi drivers in our town own their cabs, and the current favorite model is the Crown Victoria. A move to hybrids seems like an obvious money-saver as far as gas money is concerned, given the great mileage that the hybrid models are able to get (over the mileage the Crown Vic gets). Still, we have a feeling the cab drivers might need some financial incentives to be able to afford the sticker price of a Ford Escape hybrid (the hybrid option for Austin's Yellow Taxi drivers).
Image of Yahoo! Green cabs from Gothamist
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There's a guy in Vancouver who used both the previous generation and the current Prius for cabs (and is the story people point to when anti-hybrid FUD-flingers talk about battery life and maintenance problems as he exceeded 200,000 miles with his first one on the original brake pads and batteries).
Wouldn't work for people with a ton of luggage, but for ferrying business travellers, why not? One would think that regulated fares which don't rise in tandem with gas prices would encourage somebody to make this leap...
I would think one of the cab companies could use this as a competitive differentiator in Austin. Of course, since the city regulates the number of companies they have no incentive to compete so we have to resort to more regulations.