Gerard Cherizol says gas costs $25 a day less.
OWNERS of hybrid cars from Boston to San Francisco like to boast about how their vehicles not only save them money at the gas pump, but help the environment, too.
Hybrid Hacks
There are 13,150 taxi medallions on New York City streets, and 1,020 (or about 7.8 percent) are on hybrids. The first hybrids entered the fleet in October 2005. Those now in use include:
845 Ford Escapes
92 Toyota Highlanders
31 Toyota Camrys
23 Nissan Altimas
18 Toyota Priuses
6 Mercury Mariners
3 Lexus RX 400hs
1 Honda Civic
Add to that list some of the toughest drivers around: New York City cabbies.
By 2012, all of New York’s approximately 13,000 taxis will have to get at least 30 miles a gallon on the city’s streets. Because hybrids are about the only vehicles able to meet that target, most of the gas-only cabs in the city’s fleet are expected to disappear during the next five years.
There are 1,020 hybrid taxis roaming New York’s streets, about 7.8 percent of the fleet. Of those hybrids, 83 percent are Ford Escapes; the others include Toyota Highlanders and Priuses, Nissan Altimas and Lexus RX 400hs.
The Toyota Prius may be one of the most popular hybrids, but there are just 18 in the city’s taxi fleet. Toyota said that the Prius taxis were holding up well, but that the company did not help to convert cars into taxis because they were not intended to be driven so heavily.
“Our engineers are nervous about it because they were not designed for commercial use,” said Wade Hoyt, a Toyota spokesman, who added that the company sold 270,000 hybrids last year. “Drivers are so enthusiastic about them and they are all very popular, so we don’t have to do anything to promote them.”
Some drivers of hybrid taxis interviewed recently said they were mostly pleased with their cars, particularly with how much money they saved on fuel. But they added that hybrids cost more to repair and that some of them had less space for drivers and passengers, at least compared with the roomier Ford Crown Victoria, the city’s ubiquitous cab for many years.
For the last six months, Zulfiqar Aslam has driven a Ford Escape and spends about $10 a day on gas, $25 less than when he drove a Crown Victoria. He said he worked seven days a week.
“The cabbie community is always looking for a cheaper way,” he said as he wove through traffic in Midtown. “When we meet at the airport, they ask me how much I spend on gas.”
Despite the gas savings, Mr. Aslam said many drivers were afraid of buying hybrids because of the expense of the battery pack, which can cost thousands of dollars to replace.
Lisa Fleming, a Ford spokeswoman, said, however, that many of the company’s hybrid taxis had exceeded 200,000 miles “with no battery issues.”
And while Mr. Aslam saves hundreds of dollars a month on gasoline, he pays more to lease his hybrid. His fleet owners charge $635 a week to lease the Escape, compared with about $500 a week for a Crown Victoria.
In previous auctions, the Taxi and Limousine Commission offered discounted medallions for hybrids to encourage drivers to try the vehicles. Two more of these medallions will be auctioned in May for a minimum $300,000 each, about 30 percent below the average $432,000 market price.
The taxi commission caps the lease rates that fleet operators can charge, but there is no rule against charging different rates for different models.
Drivers who own their hybrid taxis, though, can accumulate all the savings. Gerard Cherizol, who paid $31,000 for a Ford Escape Hybrid earlier this year, spends just $20 a day on gas, $25 less than when he drove a Crown Victoria.
He also says the Escape, a small sport utility vehicle, provides better visibility and has more luggage space in the back than the trunk of a Crown Victoria. The Escape also has surprisingly strong acceleration, he said.
“This one, I’m in love, especially since this is the first car I bought,” said Mr. Cherizol, who has driven a taxi in New York for 25 years. “It’s so fast, I pass like a little bird on the highway.”
Other drivers said they also liked the Escape’s electric seat controls, its CD player and its MP3 connection.
Still, drivers said that while many passengers were enthusiastic about riding in the hybrids, some older customers complained that they had to climb up into the Escape and that there was not enough rear legroom.
Drivers are also uncomfortable with the plastic partition that not only separates the front seats from the back seats, but the driver’s seat from the passenger’s seat. The safety feature is meant to prevent passengers from assaulting drivers. But several drivers worried that they would have trouble getting out of the Escape if the driver’s door was jammed shut.
“The space is not as good as in a Crown Victoria, and I can’t relax because of the plastic partition,” said a driver who did not want to give his name. “Some drivers are afraid of accidents because of the partitions.”
Mr. Cherizol, among others, said that some parts for hybrids, like oil filters, were 10 percent to 20 percent more expensive than for a Crown Victoria. Also, because fewer mechanics are familiar with hybrids, repairs take longer.
Matthew W. Daus, the Taxi and Limousine commissioner, said his agency was finding fewer problems during regular inspections with hybrids, compared with nonhybrids.
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CreditCardCabbie 04.26.08 at 6:05 pm
The plastic partition in the hybrids aren’t safe! The passenger and the driver at risk. Many times the doormen, and the driver put the luggage into the front seat, so the transparency of the partition (the side panel) eventually becomes obscured through scratches! Same problems with the Nissan Altima Hybrid, the trunk so small, drivers use the front seat for the luggage. This is just one of the listed problems. Let us know your experience with the hybrids with partition! I know drivers who have security camera in their taxis, they get more passengers!
Steve 04.26.08 at 6:17 pm
My co-worker injured in partitioned hybrid in December
jose 04.27.08 at 8:26 am
This is the worse of the worse. We are going backwords under tgis administration regarding taxi transportation. It is totally unplease to drive with this partition. Passengers strugle to pay the driver and driver strugle to move safely because of reflections of this partitions. We need an emergency change in these policies from the TLC and the City and We need our Union, the Taxi Workers Alliance to get involve in this matter. Jose Bataller.#42292
First Prius Cabbie 02.19.09 at 6:20 am
The partition has to go. As far as I know and I may be wrong but I am under the impression that a hybrid taxi does not have to have a partition even if there are two drivers as long as a camera and a hands free phone is installed. My PRIUS has plenty of rear leg room. I don’t have a partition. Will someone who knows for sure please post the TLC rule. Perhaps if cabbies know they don’t need it they won’t install one. With all of the fantastic new techno gadgets we have available in our taxis it seems a shame to still have a piece of equipment left over from the stone age. Does a hybrid qualify for a partition exemption? Regards, FPC
nyctaxiphoto 03.04.09 at 9:19 pm
Hey Prius, if you’re listening, how big is your trunk, I was just curious ’cause I read that it might actually hold more than a hybrid camry, true?
slktaxi 10.28.09 at 11:53 pm
hey nyctaxi
true,Prius has 2x trunk space than camry……..
Charles T 02.06.10 at 2:05 am
Credit card cabbie complains that partition between driver and front seat passenger is not safe. I agree. It is another case of regulators who don’t drive a taxi taking money from the owner operator cab drivers’ hands and put it in the taxi fleet garages’ hands. Who is going to install that partition and for what amount of money? The problem with having a lot of regulators, is they think their job is to regulate, regulate, regulate the cab drivers to death. Cab drivers and cab owners who work 6 or 7 shifts a week, do not have time to fight against the regulators. A sure way for regulators to keep over-regulating and brow-beating the cabbies and owners of a few cabs is for them to complain about an edict. This just makes the self-important regulators pump up and dig a fox-hole. Ain’t changing nothing.
Do the regulators actually care about the passengers? No. Passengers are just their business, and how they prove they do their job, is to pull out a handful of picayune complaints, staple them together, draft yet one more brow-beating edict, and then throw it in the drawer. Stupids have done their jobs!!!!
They have hit upon the idea that the measure by the public or whoever they prove their measure to (anyone? probably no one) is how many new rules and regulations there are every week, month, or year.
What keeps cabbies in the business? They can’t stand being locked up in a workplace chair and desk, and occasionally they get the high money day, the brass ring, they keep trying for it.
Although I agree we did not need regulators to tell us it is impolite to talk on the phone when a customer is in the cab. It is just plain impolite. It is decreased attention to the road no matter how you look at it. And the passengers, our customers, deserve to be able to say something to the cabbie without fear of interrupting. Passengers may arrive from the airport planning to ask a few questions of the cabbie they couldn’t find out before landing. How awful for the passengers to have a cabbie constantly on the telephone as if the passengers were a nuisance. You know how it is when you go into a convenience store or any other store, and try to buy something, and the workers are dusting the shelves or talking on the phone and act as if you, the customer, are bothering them.
Again, I agree it is bad to use a telephone either hands-free or not, when driving a passenger. And I agree it is dangerous and a very bad work condition to be forced to put a partition between driver and passenger. The driver has a poor range of movement, and can’t lay over and rest his head during a break, has to sit up like a zombie for 12 yours. And even with no scratches caused by those evil doormen, the reflections and decreased vision is DANGEROUSSSS. How many deaths has it caused in a taxi related accident?
Charles T 02.06.10 at 9:03 am
Safety is a relative thing. I note the new edict no talking on telephones with passengers in the cab, ear phones or not. Not only isn’t it safe, it is impolite. It is the follow-up that denigrates the cab driver. They are asking the passengers to report any cabbies who talk on the phone; how would you like the whole world reporting you on your job for 8 hours. Well, as a cabbie, how about 12 hours. Any city that allows pedi-cabs has no interest in safety. There is not a lot of interest by the TLC as to passenger, pedestrian, or cabbie safety. There is interest, say, in forcing cabbies to take a front seat passenger, which partition or not, decreases by a long shot cabbie’s sphere of vision, and scratched partition or not, as I said before, partition in the front seat or passenger in the front seat is not safe no only for the passengers, the cabbie, but pedestrians and other vehicles. There was absolutely no thought about the cabbie, when you have pedi-cabs.
When you are opening centers of limousine and car services all over, are these poaching on cabbie work?
I wonder how many of those on the Taxi and Limousine Commission own medallions. I wonder if Bloomberg owns any medallions? How many cabbies are on the TLC.
It is obvious that Mayor Bloomberg cares nothing for cabbies. Nothing. Nothing for safety of passengers, pedestrians.
How can he take something like 35,000 or more cabbies and just dive into their pay which is already substandard? How can he sit them in a cubicle for 12 hours? How would Bloomberg like to sit in a cubicle for 12 hours, made even smaller by a hybrid?
When a Ford Escape is chosen by 83% of medallion owners, and the elderly (sometimes starting at 45 yo) have a hard time climbing up into it, that says something about what the TL:C and the mayor thinks of the elderly or slightly disabled prospective cab riders.
About 10 years ago it seems the focus of the TLC and other taxi regulators advanced from where the rubber hits the road, to pie in the sky focus on money. More sophisticated ways to take money out of the taxi business, and since all money in the taxi business is earned by the hard work of drivers, it all comes out of the cab drivers’ hands. And the cab driver is held in such low esteem, treated rudely by garage employees and regulators.
How many NYC police officers own medallions or drive medallions? Are NYC police allowed to own medallions or drive cabs? I’d like to know.
Then how stupid are we to be told that riders will be allowed to vote as to which start up they would like on the advertising screen. They will suggest two or three (and these are vocal) and the rider will vote which they like best. No one likes them at all, and plenty of riders ask how did this annoyance come about. When the average rider spends 12.5 minutes in a NYC taxi, they need their faculties to get ready to pay the cabbie, and pay attention to where they are going and what they are doing there. To be bombarded with Bloomberg and advertising the whole time, they don’t like it. They live in NYC and don’t need the constant noise. Visiting tourists know what truth in advertising is (it is absent) and would much prefer to speak to the cabbie and ask questions.
This is all about money, money, money and putting the advertising technology in the cabs so now the city can take one more thing out of the cabbies’ hands. A 50 cent surcharge on every fare, and that is only the start.
There is no doubt that the TLC wants fleet owners to own all the cabs, and the cabbies will be little part-time beans, drivers at will.
There is no stopping it now, the rich in the taxi business are taking more and more of the cabbies’ pay, and now they have the expert hang of it, it will not stop.
All the hybrid business is strictly a show show for Bloomberg. Cabbies want lower gas prices and eventually all vehicles will be hybrids or flex fuel vehicles, and it will come along naturally. Why drive the owners of a small number of medallions out of business by making all these requirements? Do the TLC go to the dealers and have big negotiations? Do they get discounted cars? TLC and the dealers and the outer fringe of the taxi business has become a money focus, and where the rubber hits the road, is all done. How many of the 13,150 (is that the number) NYC taxis are owned by fleets, how many by owners of 1, 2 or 3 medallions?
RUDY 02.13.10 at 2:15 pm
FORD !!!!!!!! PLEASE MAKE CROWN VICTORIA HYBRID !!!! PLEASE SAVE US FROM DISASTER !!!!! IT IS GOOD FOR US , VERRY GOOD FOR U -FORD-. NO BETTER TAXI THEN THE CROWN VIC…… HEEEEEEEELP !!!!! FORD U CAN DO IT !!!!! FORD -MADE IN AMERICA
ViDrive.com 02.25.10 at 12:00 am
why they dont put diesels on market?
Andres Andrade 04.04.10 at 7:21 pm
Looking for three days a week. Weekdays preferred, although I can work on Sunday. Either shift is desired on workable days, able to work a.s.a.p.. Please contact me at 718-457-0936, thanks.
Andres Andrade
kenny 05.05.10 at 5:58 am
hi, have been offered a fuel saving device.the seller tell me that they are fitted to most NYC cabs.they are supplied by NATIONAL FUELSAVER CORP.any comments would be helpfull.yours kenny
steve 06.11.10 at 2:11 pm
partition is for ur safety guys it has nothing to do with taking money or charging credit card from the window hybrid or no hybrid its good and u guys can’t compare the those cars to crown vic ford is best car .and im sure preety sure they gonna make hybrid crown vic its big and fast and not mention the pick up of the car is great so
First Prius Cabbie 07.29.10 at 12:33 am
Open Letter For Commissioner Yassky: When hybrids first came on the streets the partition was not required in hybrids. The passengers loved their roomy hybrids.Then the TLC changed its policy and required partitions in all hybrids even though it meant that passengers would have to ride in very cramped quarters. Not to mention the danger of facial and leg injuries. Only owner drivers can drive without partitions. My customers love it and so do I. With all of the hi-tech gadgets around it seems to me that the very unpopular and dangerous plastic in your face should be done away with. I suspect the fleets wont allow Commissioner Yassky to change the partition rule back to the original rule because the fleets fear passengers will select the roomy hybrids over fleet cars. I would like to see the partition done away with in hybrids. Maybe we will have to wait for someone to be killed by the partition or die because the airbag can’t deploy. Would it not be terrific Mr.Yassiky to see you take action before a child or adult is injured or…. well you get my point by now. Signed, First Prius Cabbie
First Prius Cabbie 07.29.10 at 12:43 am
I don’t see why cabbies are upset about the no cell phone rule. It is rude to talk with a passenger in a cab. It is also very dangerous. No one is saying you can’t make a call. Just pull over and call. Any fire hydrant can be used as a cab stand. Stop complaining, pull over and talk. This is a service industry. How do you think a customer feels when they see their driver talking? They are paying for a ride,they should feel safe.
Rock-a- Beatin' Boogie 07.29.10 at 6:42 am
Some cities ban Prius taxi, allow Camry. Prius is nice [55 mpg] especially if ave. ride 12 minutes. But . . . no partition? Lot of cabbies 12 feet under because no partition. Course, we know there’s 100 ways to bypass partition . . . .Those electric up-down partitions could be used by owner drivers, especially if they THIN them down, when they are 100% sure no threat. Also riders becoming threat usually are in alternative state, they can’t see the partition going up up up.