NYC Proposes Energy Efficient Taxi Fleet

Reading news like this makes me happy. All of NYC's cabs will be converted to hybrid vehicles by 2012.

New York Times
May 22, 2007

Bloomberg Proposes Energy Efficient Taxi Fleet

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR and RAY RIVERA

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced today a plan to replace the city’s entire yellow cab fleet with environmentally friendly hybrid vehicles over the next five years.

The proposal is the latest push in Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC to create a more environmentally sustainable city and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030. The new taxi standards would be phased in over a four-year period and would lead to a full fleet of hybrids by 2012.

“There’s an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City obviously, so it makes a real big difference,” Mayor Bloomberg said this morning on the NBC News program “Today.” “These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes; this does a lot less. It’s a lot better for all of us.”

Full Article

The current Crown Victoria taxis get 10-15mpg and the new standards will require taxis get at least 30mpg. I did some quick calculations to see how much oil this will save and how much CO2 this will save from the atmosphere.

Gallons of gasoline saved: 87.3MM/year!
CO2 reduction: 873,313 tons/year!!!

My calculations (if you care to see the assumptions I used)

It's amazing what public policy can do to address environmental issues.

We've been selling lightbulbs for a while now and as of today are removing ~80 tons of CO2/year. We'd have to sell 18MM lightbulbs to equal the effects of NYC phasing out their cabs! Well, every little bit helps I suppose... onwards selling lightbulbs.