Why does Chicago have such a shabby TAXI fleet?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Smedskjaer

More wasted tax payer money.
Chicago should stop spending, even on these good ideas.

Yep. Taxi fleets are already switching over to hybrids of their own accord. I don't see why we need to pay them to do it.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

That is what I thought as well, but check out that link I posted, it seems to contradict that, even though it still supports better mileage in urban areas than on the highway.

Interesting stuff, will be fascinating to see where the field ends up in 10 years in terms of electric vehicles, battery tech improvements, potentially using solar-powered charging stations, etc

I read the article and it doesn't really contradict at all the notion that hybrids derive most of their benefit compared to conventional cars in city driving. Notice the bulk of the article focuses on braking technique, which is where hybrids are most beneficial versus their conventional counterparts. The techniques in your article are called "hypermiling" and many of them are applicable to conventional gasoline-powered cars as well. To the extent that hybrids get better highway mileage than a similar conventionally powered car, it's because they usually use smaller gasoline engines; plus those engines are typically Atkinson-cycle engines that are not practical in normal cars because they have so little low-end power and torque. But a hybrid car doesn't need its gasoline engine to provide low-end power and torque because the electric motor does it.