New York City Orders 850 Hybrid Buses; Switches to Hybrid Cabs
January 13, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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New York City will switch its buses and taxis to hybrid vehicles and voted for increased mileage regulations for its taxis.
The city ordered 850 diesel-electric hybrid transit buses for use by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Bus Co. and MTA New York City Transit, said Daimler Buses North America.
The buses will be powered by a hybrid drive system developed by BAE Systems and incorporating lithium-ion batteries, which are touted as achieving a fuel economy improvement of as much as 30% relative to standard diesel buses, according to Daimler Buses North America.
The buses are designed to produce 10% of the particulate emissions and 60% of the nitrous oxide emissions produced by conventional diesel buses, claims Daimler Buses North America.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) voted for new regulations that require all new taxicabs in the city to achieve 25 miles per gallon (mpg) starting on Oct. 1, 2008. The TLC requirements increase to 30 mpg a year later and exempt accessible taxicabs.
The new regulations require a shift to hybrid taxis in the city and are expected to result in an all-hybrid taxi fleet by 2012, according to the TLC.
The regulations follow a goal set in May 2007. At that time, the city had 375 hybrid vehicles in its fleet of 13,000 taxicabs but since then the number of hybrid taxis nearly doubled to 627, according to the TLC.
Source: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Vehicle Technologies Program.