NYC's Yellow Cabs Going Green

This morning I was on John Oakley’s radio show with Toronto councilor Howard Moscoe who is opposed to hybridizing Toronto's taxis. See http://www.640toronto.com/john_oakley/john_oakley.cfm for Wednesday May 23 at 8:42 am

We were discussing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement yesterday, requiring the city’s entire taxi fleet convert to hybrids – New York City’s yellow cabs are going green.

Mayor Bloomberg announced on Tuesday May 23 that the city’s entire 13,000 car taxi fleet must be converted to gas-electric hybrids by 2012. The thousands of cabs in the city often are stuck in traffic jams just “belching fumes,” Bloomberg noted.

Under Bloomberg’s plan, The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission will require that 20% of cabs are replaced every year beginning October 2008 until all of the city’s entire taxi fleet are hybrids in 2012. Only vehicles with a minimum of 25 miles per gallon will be able to enter the taxi fleet after October 2008 and a year later the standard will be 30 mpg.

The commission approved eight hybrid models: the Toyota Highlander, Lexus RX 400H, Prius, Camry; the Ford Escape and Saturn VUE, and the Honda Accord and Civic.

The standard yellow cab vehicle, the Ford Crown Victoria, gets only 14 miles per gallon (mpg) while the Toyota Prius (such as the one I drive) gets more than 52 mpg. With the average price of gasoline in the US hitting a new high of $3.18 per gallon cab drivers will be releived as they’ll save far more than $10,000 a year.

Shifting to hybrid taxis is part of Bloomberg’s wider sustainability plan for NYC which includes a goal of a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.

Meanwhile back in Toronto . . .

From today’s Toronto Star:

Cabs can't go green just yet, Moscoe says
Hybrids a decade away for taxi industry, he says, but critics charge councillor is behind the times

May 23, 2007 04:30 AM
CURTIS RUSH
STAFF REPORTER

Although New York's cabs are going green, Toronto is maybe 10 years away from introducing such dramatic change to an industry already suffering economically, according to Toronto councillor Howard Moscoe.

But Jim Harris, former leader of the Green Party who is working on green initiatives for taxis, responds: "Moscoe is 10 years behind the times."

In New York, the city's fleet of yellow cabs will go entirely hybrid within five years, and all new taxis will have to meet emissions and mileage standards by next year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday.

Harris saluted the New York move and said, "Toronto's plan should move even faster" because it has fewer cabs – 5,000 to about 13,000 in New York.

Jim Bell, general manager of Diamond Taxi and president of the Toronto Taxi Alliance, also disputed Moscoe's notion, saying the change may come more quickly than 10 years if the price of fuel stays high.

Yet comparing our situation to New York's is not a good comparison because New York is "a better cab town," where cab use is more highly entrenched, Bell said.

But Moscoe said such a measure here would amount to picking on taxi drivers.
New York's taxi industry is highly profitable, says Moscoe, who heads the licensing and standards committee, which regulates the cab industry.

Moscoe said he doesn't want to force cab drivers to turn over their cars to buy more expensive hybrid vehicles, even if cleaner-running taxis would help the environment.

A Toyota Prius, for example, is $40,000, Moscoe said. Currently, drivers can put a two-year-old vehicle on the street for $15,000.

[Note Moscoe is wrong here. a Prius is $34,000 and you get $2,000 back federally and $2,000 back provincially in Ontario -- so they really only $30,000]

"It doesn't fit the economics of the taxi industry in Toronto," the councillor said.

If hybrid taxis are mandated, Moscoe says, the provincial and federal governments should step up and mandate privately held vehicles, too.

"Let them do it for the whole country if they care about cleaning up the environment and then wait to see the reaction from car buyers," Moscoe said. "Why would anyone pick on the taxi industry? It's a good thing for the environment, but you can't expect the taxi industry to carry it on their backs."

In Toronto, the industry is "on the economic edge," Moscoe says.
Some cab drivers would be forced out of business if Toronto followed New York's lead, Moscoe said.

He added relations between the city and cab drivers are too strained right now to follow New York's move.

However, Bell of Diamond Taxi said that if the price of fuel goes higher, "maybe the economics would work."

Other Canadian cities such as Calgary and Winnipeg are experimenting with hybrid taxis. There are only a couple operating in Toronto right now.
However, provincial and federal credits for hybrid vehicles don't go very far to cut the capital costs, Bell said.

Gail Beck Souter, general manager of Beck Taxi, said New York's idea is worth studying and she believes hybrid taxis will one day become the standard.
But she has a concern about durability.

Most cab drivers use Crown Victorias and "they're like tanks," she said, adding she is not sure the hybrid vehicles can put up with the wear and tear on Toronto's streets.

She also said New York's economics favour an easier transition to hybrids.
In New York, cab licences are worth $500,000, making it easy for cabbies to go to their banks to get financing for the changeover.

In Toronto, cab licences are worth about $120,000.

In New York most cabs are owned by fleets; here, most drivers own their own cars.

The economic climate is "horrible" here, according to Beck Souter, who said there are too many cabs chasing too few customers.

However, there are signs that Toronto's taxis could become greener in the long term.

Co-Op Cabs is working with a city agency, the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, to introduce an on-road pilot program this year to test hybrid vehicles.

Over the course of a year, cab drivers will test 10 Toyota Camry hybrids and 10 regular Camrys to rate performance, fuel savings and maintenance costs and a business case assessment will be shared with the industry and city of Toronto licensing committee.

Mary Pickering, co-director of the Toronto Atmosphere Fund, said the problem with the New York plan is that most of those hybrid cabs are still large vehicles.

"A big hybrid can still belch out more emissions than a small regular vehicle," she said.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/article/216704

For more on this topic see blog Converting NA 200,000 taxis to hybrids would save $50 billion in fuel by 2016 at http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/1481#comment-1071

Media sources for NYC announcement:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/22/news/hybrid_taxis/
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070522/green_taxis.html?.v=2