Thursday, December 21, 2006

High-tech Taxis Coming to New York SiliconValley.com says New York taxis will soon have all sorts of cool electronics to entertain the riders. According to the article, we will be seeing about that in just a few weeks. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I recently attended a Green Renter presentation about Hybrid taxis. Rob Muldoon from the Sierra Club told us all about the push to put more hybrid taxis on the road. Here are a few notes from that. There are about 13,000 yellow taxis and 50,000 other "cars for hire" in New York City. So far, there are about 300 hybrids. Most of these are Ford Escapes, but also a few Priuses, Camerys, etc. After convincing the taxi fleet owners, the next hurdle was the Taxi and Limousine Commission. No hybrids were approved as taxis, with the TLC saying they were too small. Eventually they did get approved. The most recent allocation of 900 new taxi medallions reserves 9% of those for alternative/clean fuel vehicles. Hybrids qualify, along with compressed natural gas. The auction of the medallions raised about $27 million for the city, about $300,000 each. Medallions can be sold, leased, transfered like other real property. As with green buildings, the motivation for hybrids depends on ownership. Taxi owner operators are easier to convince because the owner is the one to benefit from the reduced fuel usage. Fleet owners who hire drivers need additional incentives. Bob is working the the TLC to allow a longer allowed lifetime for the cars (The TLC currently limits the working life of a taxi to five years and there is a push to allow six or seven for hybrids.) It remains to be seen whether the batteries etc. will hold up for that many miles. An owner/operator taxi typically runs up 60,000 miles per year -- 300,000 in the allowed life. A fleet vehicle will run three shifts per day instead of one and rack up 120,000 miles per year or more. Will the batteries last that long.? 11:17:17 AM  permalink  comment []

© Copyright 2006 Joe Biegelsen. Last update: 12/27/2006; 11:46:18 AM.