Well, I wonder how on earth much money it would cost the cabbies and cab companies just to convert from Stone-Age gas guzzlin' Crown Vics to more current expensive Escape Hybrids or Prius varieties.

This needed to be stopped in a 'downed' economy. Afordability is key right now. Forcing people to convert their possibly paid-off cab to new $30,000 loans would be a tad wreckless.

With all the wall street jobs sent to the toilet, I think cab use will drop dramatically anyways. There will be a nice 5-9% reduction in use soon. Its almost like getting reductions for free, no strings or loans attached.

Lets wait till what they used to call "prosperity" comes back before we force people to purchase things we say they should. That way, when they get money, we can take it back off of them.

Woo-hoo! Go socialism (said in quite the sarcastic tone)

Nate H.
Dover, Ohio

Peter:

I agree with you.

Many (roomy, very long lasting and very practical) London Cabs will be partly and/or fully electrified in 2009.

NY (and other USA large cities) city cabs will have to follow sooner or latter.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to import London's e-cabs instead of importing Oil, if USA car manufacturers can't build them.

“The Bush Administration has been pressing to keep States and cities from doing anything that might be helpful on the oil and GHG front. Eight wasted years....”
It is a good thing that Will S is not a US citizen and therefore will not be able to vote. After Will S has lived in US longer and as part of the naturalization process he will learn about the three branches of government.
One of the first things Bush did was make mitigating AGW a priority. I know this because I read the National Energy Policy, May 2001. Unlike Clinton Bush, is actually doing something. The US has regained leadership in almost every aspect renewable energy. Wind and biomass power stations are being built as fast we can design and produce equipment. More than 30 nuke plants are in various planning stages.
Where Will S may confused is that some states and cities have tried to impose poorly thought out policy on the entire nation. It is interesting that these same states and cities are not leaders in actually reducing ghg.

They can still institute a bonus/malus system on cab licenses. +$5000/year for every MPG under 25 and -$100 for every MPG over 25 ought to cause the fleet to roll over pretty damned quickly.

Kit

We have no illusion about your insignificant political convictions which we care about as much as our fisrt Tshirt, but should I remind you that the Bush administration joined the EPA against California when they asked the supreme court to decided if CO2 was a pollutant? it is increasly evident that the White House asked the EPA to deny the waiver to california for promulgating its own regulation for car mileage. Oh yes Bush administration made AWG a priority after 7 years of denial and obstruction they finally accepted to admit it but because it was no longer politically sustainable, certainly not because they care about the planet.

Unless your are blind I think you just don't want to see. well it is so confortable to think that global warming is wrong and that corn ethanol is a panacea just as it was to believe that the free market does everything well by itself including the financial meltdown that push the most conservative government to take the most socalist actions like nationalizing banks in bankrupt.

Kit

First I am not German, I am from europe but live in California, so look for something else.

Your are ridiculous with your exponential growth, it is easy to get an exponential figure when you start from zero. The only thing that the Bush administration did is this stupid corn ethanol which every single serious expert recognize it is the most stupid thing ever in matter of energy. Jimmy Carter also started a lot of thing in renewable it was all trashed by D. Reagan

California had big wind mills farm build in the 70s, California ordered 1 Gwatts of solar plant, and launched the million solar roof. Natural gas is still the cleanest and less CO2 generator of anay fossil fuel lready a big progress compare to coal. I am not saying that California is perfect but I don't understand what's your hate of California is doing here. California ahs always been ahead of the rest of the world in matter of emission regulation it is only on this administration that have a waiver blocked. California started to regulate emission before EPA even existed. So

Kit p doesn't correctly tell the story.

California has had the ability to create emission standards for itself and other states have had the right to choose the standards to which they would be covered, either federal or California.

The federal gov't tried to use the EPA to stop higher standards from being put in place. Later on the Federal gov't passed red herring resolutions under Senator Inhofe, from detroit, and pointed to them as a solution so that California couldn't control emissions. A very disputable point. A very cynical move from a federal gov't and a detroit senator more interested in the status quo and coddling detroit, rather than seeing it as an oportunity for innovation and progress.

As for california pollution such as in san jose. One can point out the rise of the commuter culture of the recent decade as the cause and the need of california to demand it's right, as it has had in the past, to control the emmision standards of cars sold in the state.

As for wind power in California. It comprised 2.3% in 2007 (over 6802GWh) up from 1.5% in 2004. The annual report on wind energy 2007 DOE put the wind projects in california that year at a capacity factor of 36%. The only capacity factors that are low are the early ones. Pre 1997 projects, which contribute very little to the total wind capacity, are 22.3% and the 1998 projects contribute 29.8% capacity factor. All later completed projects are in the 30's. Far higher and productive than Kit p's prejudiced statements imply. Considering the previous arguement over wind where I linked the DOE report and his utter lack of initiative in reading it shows how far ingrained his views are.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/index.html

NY and California should not be tied down by backwards looking attitudes when progressive things are trying to be done. The NY plan would definitely pay in the long term and fear mongering done to keep things the status quo are futile. Other juridictions have used hybrid fleets to successful results. NYC should appeal this short sighted decision.

ask any cabbie or cab company operator and they will tell you that the cost savings from gas usage does not outweigh the "total cost of ownership" - total cost of ownership of taxi cabs includes: gas,insurance,service+repairs/replacements. remember that many of these cars are driven 24/7. example you must replace hybrid batteries every 100K miles or so, so thats $7000/each, or $14,000 over 300,000miles. include brakes, brake pads, transmission,electronics, ect.. and you are talking about 2times the cost of the new vehicle. these costs are far less for US made cars, and far more on expensive hybrids... so you see the math actually does not make sense yet. when it does, i am sure they will all start buying hybrids to save money.
It always annoys me when novices write articles or comments making simple statements not backed with hard facts. sure, sounds like it makes sense to just replace your taxis, but after review and experience and testing, we find out the cost/benifit analysis shows a poor descision to replace your Taxi right now with a hybrid. lets hope that soon the costs will come down and it will make fiscal sense to go into more debt to obtain hybrids for taxi fleets.