That's right. Michael Bloomberg, the current mayor of New York City, announced plans of replacing the current taxi fleet of 13,000 into hybrids by 2012. The plan takes effective immediately as the current hybrid cab fleet of 400 will be increased to 1000 by October of 2008. The current hybrid fleet consists of mostly the Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Prius, Toyota Highlander Hybrid and the Saturn Vue Green Line.The plan also announced that by October 2008, all taxi cabs would have to have minimum fuel consumption of 25mpg. By 2009, it will be increased to 30mpg. The popular Ford Crown Victoria taxi cab only gets 15mpg by the 2008 EPA standards, whereas the 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid serves up 34mpg. Since all taxi cabs in NYC will suffer major traffic congestion and slow cruising speeds, emissions would drastically decrease and mileage will increase. The reason being that a hybrid motor stays all-electric in low speeds, something which NYC cabs will face commonly.
[Source: Kicking Tires]
