Delaying a More Efficient Taxicab

15 MPG City-Ford Crown Victoria

October 1st was the scheduled deadline implemented by Mayor Michael Bloomberg jointly with The Taxi and Limousine Commission, in which All taxicabs that met their 3 and 5 year retirement age had to be replaced by far more fuel efficient cars. Rather than having more 2008 Crown Victorias, we would be seeing all fleets restocking with hybrids. Instead of quickly heading towards a greener future, The T&LC had been sued, and sued again in efforts to prove all hybrids as inadequate for use as taxicabs. 

This is all only my humble perspective, but I’ll lay down the facts of this political pickle as best I can: 

The extended Ford Crown Victoria gives at best 15 miles for every gallon a driver puts in the tank. I have managed between 15 to as low as 9 Miles to the Gallon during my shifts And in this past year I have spent as much as 60 bucks, some drivers spent 75. While gas isn’t the only consideration for the driver, it is high on the list. 

26 MPG City-Lexus RX400h 4wd, 27 MPG City-Lexus RX400h 2wd

So why are so many people in favor of keeping the Crown Victoria? Half the people who support keeping the Crown Victoria are owners of fleets who lease their cars to drivers. Since the drivers pay for the gas, it is not a concern to the fleet. They argue against the hybrid because the repair and purchasing costs are greater than the unfamiliar hybrid vehicles. In the lawsuit, one major point was the safety of the new L-shaped partitions being used in some hybrid taxis: 

“from an engineering standpoint, vehicles have to be designed for the duty cycle they are likely to encounter and cannot feature modifications that will compromise their safety systems.”

That’s probably true however, all partitions both full or L-shaped, are a hazard to the safety engineering of any car, and full partitions had been mandated for fleets since the early 90’s, were there ever law suits filed back then? I agree that  the L-shaped partitions are a further detriment to our safety and the safety of the riding public, but all cars can now get full partitions installed, which completely nulls the L-partition issue.

26 MPG City-Cheverolet Malibu hybrid

The unsafe rollover rate of the Ford Escape is cited: 

“MTBOT has brought a federal lawsuit against the Taxi and LimousineCommission (TLC) and the City of New York to stop its 25/30 mpg taxi mandate, which would force owners to abandon purpose-built stretch CrownVictorias and purchase Ford Escape Hybrids and other untested and unproven standard non-commercial passenger vehicles and place them into service as taxicabs.”

The rollover ratings and the safety ratings in general aren’t very good for the Ford Escapes, but there are plenty of other low center of gravity hybrid cars available. Regarding the claim that the hybrids are untested for safety: No car is factory tested with all of the standard taxi equipment, so if the hybrids are deemed dangerous for being untested, then all taxicabs should wear that same badge of shame. 

27 MPG City- Toyota Highlander 4wd hybrid

And one more claim against hybrids:

“Toyota and Honda, have issued outright warnings against using their hybrid passenger vehicles as commercial taxicabs.” 

29 MPG City-Mercury Mariner 4wd hybrid, 34 MPG City-Ford Escape 2wd hybrid

33 MPG City-Toyota Camry hybrid

35 MPG City-Nissan Altima hybrid

I’ll end with this: If a driver who owned their own vehicle were to put 300,000 miles on the Nissan Altima hybrid, rather than the Crown Victoria, with gas at a price of $3.40 per gallon, they would save $38,857. I have been very proud to drive the iconic Crown Victoria taxi, but as times change, the icon changes. NYC will never have the Checker cab again, and over the years the industry has used many cars as taxis, after more than a decade it is time to change the common taxi yet again.

48 MPG City-Toyota Prius

Crash tests on Youtube:

2006 Ford Crown Victoria side impact crash test

2007 Toyota Camry crash tests

Article by N.F. of NYC taxi photo