- New York cabs to go green
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to replace the city's 13,000 taxis with gas-electric hybrid vehicles, on 22 May 2007.
Currently, there are just 375 hybrid vehicles circulating on the city's streets but this number should increase to 1,000 by October 2008 and a further 20% of the fleet will be replaced every year up to 2012. The city is also working on introducing hybrid buses, garbage trucks and cars, the mayor said.
The plan, which is expected to reduce the carbon emissions of New York City's taxicab and for-hire vehicle fleet by 50%, or 215,000 tonnes, during the next decade, is part of Bloomberg's wider sustainability strategy for the city, which includes a target of cutting carbon emissions by 30% by 2030.
The strategy could also include the introduction of a congestion charge – similar to the London scheme – for drivers entering some of the busiest parts of Manhattan, Bloomberg announced in April.
Shifting the entire taxi fleet to hybrids by 2012 appears an achievable goal as the lifespan of a New York City taxi is typically around three to five years. Furthermore, although hybrid vehicles are more expensive, it is expected that the increase in fuel efficiency could save taxi operators more than $10,000 per year.
Different levels of ambition
The Ford Crown Victoria, the current workhorse of the taxicab fleet, achieves only 14 miles per gallon (equivalent to 17 litres per 100 kilometres). But, after October 2008, all new vehicles entering the fleet will have to achieve a minimum of 25 miles per gallon (equivalent to a maximum of 9.4 litres per 100 km). One year later, all new vehicles will have to reach 30 miles per gallon (7.7 litres per 100km) and be hybrid.
The plan remains less ambitious than EU plans to limit average CO2 emissions from all new cars to 120 grammes per kilometre by 2012 – a target that would correspond to a fuel consumption of just 4.5 litres per 100km for diesel cars and 5 litres/100km for petrol cars.
However, Bloomberg's intention to replace the existing fleet means that the impact will be speedier than in Europe, where older, more polluting cars will likely remain on the roads for at least another decade.
- Hydrogen cars - still a future solution?
A team of UK scientists announced on 22 May that the widespread uptake of non-polluting hydrogen cars could be accelerated, thanks to a new breakthrough in storage technology, that would allow enough hydrogen to be stored on-board fuel-cell-powered cars to enable them to drive more than 300 miles before having to refuel.
The question of storage was seen as one of the major challenges for the mass marketing of fuel cell cars. Nevertheless, other challenges, such as the fact that a hydrogen-based transport system would require a network of fuelling stations that would cost vast sums of money to set up, still need to be resolved (see LinksDossier on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells).
