Do you like the idea of having all cabs in New York City be hybrids within five years?”
Hybrids are not for everybody. They actually get better mileage in the city than on the highway. A hybrid takes advantage of the stop-and-go traffic with regenerative braking. A regular car takes all that energy and just turns it into heat, which is wasted. A hybrid turns the momentum into electricity, and uses that electricity to start the car again when it’s time to move. A hybrid car uses no energy when it’s stopped. A regular gas car has to idle, using fuel and putting out pollutants. Essentially, in the city, a hybrid car functions as an electric car. It just has a small gas motor to recharge the batteries (and provide assist for those rare occasions when you get to go fast.) (I’m referring to the Prius model here. Other hybrids use a different model, where they use the gasoline engine primarily. I think those will be less useful for city driving, though more efficient for inter-city driving.) It would be even more efficient if you didn’t have to carry that motor around all day. A
