November 10th, 2005
Hybrid Taxis Hit New York City
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Readers will remember our earlier articles, “The Truth About Hybrid Cars: They Don’t Save You Money“ and “Everything You Wanted to Know About Hybrids”. Today New York City announced a mini-”fleet” of hybrid taxis. Currently there are only six, but officials state that the entire fleet of 13,000 cabs may be replaced within the next five years.
Our earlier stories indicated that if you were say, comparing a Honda Civic to a Toyota Prius, choosing the Prius may not make financial sense. In the case of taxicabs, though, it seems like this might make more sense, since the comparisons are very different.
The Ford hybrid sport utility vehicle gets as much as 36 miles per gallon in city driving, double the mileage of the taxi fleet’s current Ford Crown Victoria model. Source: Reuters
We Say: The FWD Ford Escape Hybrid gets 36 MPG City and 31 Highway, while the Ford Crown Victoria gets 17 City and 25 Highway, according to 2006 EPA estimates. Edmunds.com states the base price for the FWD Escape Hybrid is around $27,000, while the base price for the Crown Victoria is about $24,500. That’s a much smaller price gap than in our earlier articles, and since they’re obviously not going to look into gas-powered Civics for cabs, this is a realistic comparison. I think this might actually make sense.
Gary Kaplan says:
This makes no sense at all.There is no way these cabs can hold up to the punishment like the Crown Vic.
November 19th, 2005 at 11:59 am
alex says:
Ford needs to be more agressive with its hybrid program. if Ford was smart they would make hybrid versions of their popular sedans and the crown victoria and lincoln towncar as soon as possible to start a revolution in major metropolitan cities and limosuine services across the country. it is important now more than ever to reduce pollution and get amazing gas mileage. Ford and other automakers of america need to look towards the future and stop relying on business as usual for the past 40 years. we are in the midst of an auto industry renaissance with technology and innovations never before seen in the auto industry, too bad it isnt coming from american automakers. as production of toyota prius and other hybrid models from toyota increase to nearly 1 million units per year ford has production plans for only 36,000 hybrid escape vehicles. auto companies that fail to change with the times will be lost in the dust. people care about alot more nowadays than just being built in america. american consumers demand quality, fuel efficiency,and a decent price. and so far the only thing american automakers can meet is the decent price. the time for change is now, the more hybrids the better it only saves gasoline, and reduces dependance upon oil, and also reduces polution by more than half.
May 1st, 2006 at 3:39 pm