Hybrid Taxis Pay For Themselves in Just 14 Months

A few Calgary taxi drivers, despite warnings about the batteries, the extra cost, and just won't work in cold weather, decided to enter ...

A few Calgary taxi drivers, despite warnings about the batteries, the extra cost, and just won't work in cold weather, decided to enter the pilot project to test drive some hybrid taxi cabs. What they found was amazing.

In just 14 to 18 months, the additional cost of the hybrid was paid off through paying less for gas.

You really have to think about that. A typical cab, the Ford Crown Victoria costs around $15,000, while a Prius cost them more than twice that, at $32,600. In 14 months, they made up the difference at the pump.

By cutting their fuel bill from $60 a day down to $25 a day, drivers were ecstatic over the hybrid performance.

The program was run by the Climate Change Central and paid for by the Alberta government. There were five taxis in the program.

In other hybrid tests in the US, owners had a harder time seeing the benefits. Drivers were very happy to drive hybrid taxis because they were the ones paying for the gas. But the taxi cabs were owned by fleet operators. In order to make up the price on the taxis, they were charging more to rent them out to the drivers each day.

Source: Hybrid taxis create huge savings

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