AUTOMOBILES

That Yellow Taxi May Be Turning Green

By MATTHEW L. WALD (NYT) 522 words

Andrew Grant, a taxi owner-operator in Vancouver, British Columbia, bought a 2001 Toyota Prius in the fall of 2000, and drove it nearly 200,000 miles before he replaced it with a 2004 model. ''The car actually pays for itself,'' he said.

R. Seth Riney, an entrepreneur in the Boston area, is running a fleet of three Prius hybrids as a livery service. He expects delivery of two more cars in May and five more before the Democratic National Convention in August. The hybrids cost more than ordinary cars, but he said he persuaded the city of Cambridge to break a five-year moratorium on new livery services because his, called PlanetTran, was environmentally friendly. The same pitch pulls in customers, he said, and he gets a break on fees at Logan Airport under a clean-air program.

In New York City, Bart Chezar, a transportation consultant, is lining up agreements that would let Toyota Highlander or Lexus RX400h hybrids, which will reach market in the coming months, be used as ''black cars,'' which provide radio-dispatched car service.

There are 12,000 black cars in New York. He said that for each car replaced with a hybrid, the operator would save $3,800 a year (at $2 a gallon), and reduce pollution, too.

Indeed, experts argue that hybrids are far more useful in for-hire car services than in private hands.

''The more fuel you put through this technology, the greater your savings,'' said Joseph R. Wagner, a senior project manager at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. A typical taxi uses 7,000 to 7,500 gallons a year, versus 500 to 600 gallons for a private car.

Private cars spend a lot of time on the highway, where hybrids have a limited advantage. But taxis live in stop-and-go traffic, where hybrids thrive. The Prius does not idle, because its electric motor moves it at low speeds and its gas engine kicks in only when it can run productively. The Prius and other hybrids have regenerative braking to capture energy ordinarily lost to braking, and convert it into electricity. A side benefit is reduced wear on the brakes.

Mr. Grant said he usually replaced the front brakes after 28,000 miles, but on his first Prius, the first set lasted 90,000 miles.

And because the engine does not idle, he said he did not need to replace the timing belt or fuel injector, and did not have to adjust the valves. He reported no expenses for the electric drive system in 200,000 miles.

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