It's time to say adios to the classic yellow Ford Crown Vic. In May 2007, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to transform the city's ubiquitous yellow cab fleet from the old school Ford Crown Victorias to all hybrids. For the past couple of years, a variety of hybrid vehicles have been gradually infiltrating the fleet and generally performing well. Ford Escape hybrids have become a common site on the streets of Manhattan. Under the new rules, starting this October all new cabs coming into the fleet will be required to get 25 mpg in the city with that number jumping to 30 mpg in 2009. That essentially means the end of the Crown Vic. The city has now reached agreement with Nissan, Ford and GM to supply a steady stream hybrid vehicles for taxi use. Nissan will offer up 200 Altima hybrids every month while Ford and Chevrolet will provide 50 each of its Escape and Malibu hybrids every month. These 300 vehicles per month will ensure that there are sufficient supplies to meet the turnover needs of the fleet over the next several years and replace the entire fleet by 2012.

[Source: New York Times]

I was in Manhattan for a couple of days this week on a press event and noticed a new addition to the local cab fleet. For years now, the classic Crown Vics have been getting supplemented by Toyota Siennas, Ford Escape hybrids and the odd Prius. While cabbies love the mileage they get with the Prius and Escape, the passengers aren't always so thrilled with the volume available in the back seat. This is where the Nissan Altima hybrid comes in. The Altima has a roomier back seat than the other two hybrids, making it more suitable to the task. Unfortunately, that battery sucks up about a third of the trunk volume, making the Altima less suitable if your destination is one of the New York area airports. When we had an Altima Hybrid in the ABG Garage last year it managed 32.4mpg, which is quite respectable. Plus, it's probably the most attractive yellow car prowling the streets of Gotham right now.

[Source: TreeHugger]

Whilst some of us were hobnobbing about L.A. and driving a Tesla Roadster, others of us at ABG had to content ourselves with watching the Mitsubishi i MiEV drive around of New York city via a free download from iTunes. The fact that it was available in high definition (HD), as well as standard definition (SD), helped soothe the soul slightly. Of course it's not the same as actually driving the car in NYC, which we've also done, but the having the camera in a chase car helps give this film more of that 3rd person point of view. If you're one of the tens of millions of folks who has iTunes on your computer, click here. If you're not, click here and download it so you can watch. Thanks to Yanqetino for the tip!




[Source: Mitsubishi via iTunes]

Since it was decided that the entire fleet of taxis in New York City should become hybrids by 2012 less than a year ago, the number of hybrid hacks has doubled. If the city can achieve that same 200 percent increase every year it will achieve the goal. Out of 13,150 taxi medallions 1020 (just under 8 percent) of them are hybrids today, according to this article at YellowCabNYC. Way to go, New York!

We know you were wondering which hybrid leads the pack so we have the skinny on that too. Drum roll please. The number one vehicle choice of taxi buyers in the Big Apple was the Ford Escape hybrid (pictured above) a with whopping 845 units out there pounding the pavement. Yeah, we are pretty sure Ford is happy about that too. To see how the rest of the field breaks down, hit the jump.

Remember the study that said "if Americans were to utilize one of the latest eco-friendly motor scooters for just 10 percent of their everyday travel, they could potentially reduce national fuel consumption by 14 million gallons of gasoline per day and decrease carbon dioxide emissions by 324 million pounds per day?" Well, in an effort to make that a reality, Piaggio, through their Vespa brand's Vespanomics marketing strategy, is making an effort to make free scooter parking legal in New York. To make this happen, Piaggio Group has "instituted free parking for two-wheel vehicles in Edison ParkFast garages", at the following locations:

• Chinatown -- 174 Centre Street, between Hester and Canal Streets
• Midtown -- 412-422 W. 33rd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues
• Theater District -- 1120 Avenue of the Americas, near 44th Street
• Tribeca -- 15-21 Worth Street, between Worth Street and West Broadway

Not living in New York, I don't think that this will help me any, at least not in the short term. Long term, however, Piaggio's hope is that if a demonstrable number of scooters park for free at their sponsored locales, New York might see the need to take action on the matter and open other areas up without prompting from Piaggio. And if New York makes those changes, other cities may follow suit. Not too much help in Toledo, but it's a start! If you'd like to add your name to the list of those who think this is a good idea, click here.

[Source: Piaggio, Vespanomics]