Canada’s West Coast boasts the most concentrated population of hybrid taxis on the continent. Taxi drivers there adopted hybrids earlier, in larger numbers, and have ran them longer, than any of their colleagues across North America.

Why is B.C. the epicenter for hybrid taxi use? Is the area the natural habitat of the species? Is legislation involved? Is there a really, really good Prius salesman working out there?

From one small acorn…

The story goes that North America’s first hybrid taxi was the 2001 Toyota Prius operated by Andrew Grant in Vancouver. We can’t confirm this, but neither is anyone disputing the claim. If someone does, we’ll try to get the parties before Judge Judy.

Some jurisdictions place restrictions on cabs. The Prius, for example, is restricted from running in Toronto because it doesn’t meet that jurisdiction’s requirement for backseat hip room. Also, in Toronto and other places there are very few cab licenses available for single-car owner/operators. This means big fleets are the norm, where larger companies buy lots of cars and then rent then out to drivers who pay their own gas during their respective shifts. So no incentive for a cab company to shell out $35,000 for a hybrid when the only person who can benefit from the fuel efficiency is the freelance driver. These fleets typically operate used police cars, which they can source for low as $7,000 to $10,000.

But in Vancouver and Victoria — and other parts of the West, like Calgary and Winnipeg — owner/operators are free to run what they like. They pay for their ride and pay their own gas and maintenance. So the larger initial outlay can easily be recouped through gas savings.

Of course, Vancouver has also that ‘west coast’ thing happening. You know, a bit of that California consciousness where legislators and citizens are equally enthused about greening initiatives.

The perfect storm, then. Choose your weapons gentlemen. Grant chose an early Prius. He ended up putting 320,000 km on it and it neither exploded nor ate batteries. Customers liked the car and what it represents. Cabbie colleagues saw the real-world results and savings, and signed up too, and they, in turn, influenced other colleagues. And away it went…

New business model

“Everyone thought those (hybrid cab pioneer) guys were crazy, but when they started making more money per shift, the others started to think differently.”

That quote is from Jim Vanderwal, of Green Fleet B.C., an organization funded by both private firms and government concerns to help car and truck fleets in the province reduce their carbon footprints. As part of its mandate, Green Fleet hosts a web site called The Hybrid Experience Report, which tracks and disseminates information about how hybrids are faring in “real world” fleet environments.

Vanderwal noted that hybrid taxicabs are not only more fuel efficient, they also require considerably less brake jobs, owing to their regenerative braking systems.

He added that various national and provincial rebate programs for hybrids have helped the business case for hybrid cabs, but so did a new way of thinking among the owner/operators. “The cabbies just started to embrace a different business model, where they were willing to pay more upfront, for longer-term gain.” He noted that the old way was to buy a beater and then shell out for maintenance every month.

“Every new car we get will now be a hybrid,” said Shawn Bowden, manager of Yellow Cab in Vancouver. Currently, there are about 70 hybrids in the 220-vehicle co-operative at Yellow Cab Vancouver, which provides dispatch services to its members. Grant belonged to Yellow Cab Vancouver for his three-Prius taxi career. (He has since taken a break from cab driving and is working as a professional career coach.)

The hybridization of that Yellow Cab fleet and others in the province was going on without the help of legislation. So the government thought it better get in there before it was too late.

This past spring, the Passenger Transportation Board, which reports to the province’s Ministry of Transportation, enacted the “Eco-Friendly Taxi Policy.” The policy essentially states that, with some exceptions, any new taxi in the Greater Vancouver and Victoria areas will have to be eco-friendly. The latter is defined as any vehicle appearing on the ecoAuto rebate list. For taxicab purposes, that list is effectively narrowed down to the hybrid sedans and maybe the Toyota Corolla — the others are just too small, or too expensive.

Dead reliable

The cars in the Vancouver Yellow cab fleet are typically driven 24/7 for four years. This pushes them to around 400,000 km. How do they fare?

“To my knowledge we have not replaced one battery pack,” said Bowden. “The vehicles are very dependable. This is how we make a living. We wouldn’t be driving them if they weren’t dependable.”

Yellow Cab in Victoria, B.C. (which was previously known as Empress Taxi) has about 55 or so hybrids in its 90-odd-member fleet. Its very first Prius cab, a 2001 model operated by Jatinder Parhar, ran for four years and 410,000 km, becoming one of the highest-mileage hybrids of its day. That car, like Grant’s first Prius, was sold back to Toyota, presumably for research.

The manager at Yellow Cab of Victoria is Robert Baines, and he reports that the hybrids have been dead reliable. Like his colleague in Vancouver, he is not aware of anybody having to replace a battery pack — although he is aware of a Prius that caught fire. He can only think of one hybrid downside: “It takes longer to have accident repairs completed on hybrids.”

Baines has a theory on why Calgary is now also populated with hybrid taxis and fleet vehicles: “We have the taxi contract for the airport. When business people came here for conventions, they all get into our hybrid cabs. When they get back to Calgary, they started ordering hybrids.”

J. Chandel is an owner/operator with Empress Taxi of Victoria who recently purchased a Camry Hybrid. He previously operated a Ford Crown Victoria. “In the Crown Vic I would use $20 worth of gas every 100 km. In the Camry, I use $7.” He figures he gets about 5.5 L/100 km. And he’s not worried about the durability of hybrid components. “I’ve not heard of anybody who had to replace batteries. I’m very confident this car will run four years without any trouble.”

Eastern barriers

Samad Bahrani is only one of 10 hybrid cabs working in the city of Toronto. He has one of a limited number of “Ambassador” taxi plates; he doesn’t have to pay rent on the plate, but he can only drive the vehicle himself (he can’t rent it to others). So that makes him an owner/operator, like his colleagues in B.C. He wanted a nicer vehicle than the Ford Taurus models he previously used, and figured the money he saved on gas every day with the hybrid (over 250 to 300 km), amounted to about $300 a month — which goes a long way toward his monthly car payment.

In Toronto, you can run a cab for seven years. Is he confident that the unibody Camry can take seven years of bouncing around the mean streets of Toronto, which are notoriously worse than those smoothies in Vancouver and Victoria?

“To be honest, that’s the risk you take. So far it’s no problem. As long as it’s in good condition, I’ll keep running it.”

Bahrani is already smitten with the Camry’s auto-stop mode. “Who wants to listen to an engine, when you’re stuck or stopped in traffic all the time? This one goes to electric and it’s quiet.”

Bahrani’s manager at Diamond is Steve Bell, a longtime director on the Canadian Taxicab Association, and one who is quite fluent in all things taxicab.

“I’m on a fact-finding committee with the international taxicab organization… we’re trying to come up with answers for our members about going green.”

He’s well aware of the hybrid’s performance out west, but he’s worried about the longer service cycles in Toronto and the extra pounding that comes from bad roads. And he knows that Toronto wants its taxis to go green by 2012. “As of this moment, we don’t know how we’re going do that. We could be legislated to go green, and not have the green vehicles to make it happen.”

He’s keeping an eye on all the test programs in places like San Francisco, Las Vegas and New York City (Ford Escape and Honda Accord), but so far, hasn’t seen any definitive solution. (New York has a five-year plan to replace all of the city’s 13,000 taxis with hybrids.)

He wonders if the Ford Escape’s heavy suspension may be problematic over the long haul, and is already concerned that the vehicle might be too high for stepping into by seniors. The Camry looks good — except for the trunk. “With a battery pack the Camry trunk goes from 16 cu-ft to 10 cu-ft, and it’s just about the most unusable 10 cu-ft I’ve seen in a long time.

“And we’re still waiting to see GM’s solution.”

He figures a rebate around $5,000 “won’t cut it” if cab fleets have to pay premiums of over $10,000 to get into a hybrid.

“At the end of the day we want to propose a pilot project in Toronto and be able to say, ‘These are the vehicles we would like some leeway on.’”

But he has seen the writing on the wall, and knows things will eventually have to work out. “The challenges are by no means insurmountable.”

And for more fact finding on long-range hybrids, he and we might follow what happens to the B.C. hybrid cabs, once they retire from active service. According to Yellow Cab’s Shawn Bowden, people regularly call, looking to purchase the old road warriors. So there are folks out there putting even more klicks on 400,000 km-plus hybrids. The experiment continues.