Yellow is symbolic of taxicabs, but a Denver-based company is trying to make green the industry’s new iconic color.
Metro Taxi Inc., one of Denver’s largest taxi services, has added five hybrid vehicles to its fleet, making it among the first taxi companies in the country to roll out such an initiative.
Metro’s move is aimed at saving money on fuel, attracting new customers and helping to improve the metro area’s environment, said Bill Cotter, a company co-owner.
“I don’t think the price of fuel is going down,” said Cotter, speaking at the company’s Denver headquarters Wednesday. “We have an opportunity to make a big impact.”
Depending on customer feedback and vehicle reliability, Cotter said, the company intends to convert its entire fleet of 500 gas-guzzling Ford Crown Victorias to gas-sipping Toyota Priuses during the next five years.
The four-door hybrids, which are white with green trim and a green aspen-leaf decal over the gas cap, can average as much as 60 miles per gallon of gas. By comparison, Metro Taxi said the Crown Victorias in its fleet average about 11 mpg.
Cotter said the initiative will save the company an estimated 5,090 gallons of gas per vehicle a year, or 25,450 gallons of gas for the five vehicles. At about $3.30 per gallon, Metro Taxi estimates that the program will save $16,750 in gas costs per cab, or $83,750 for the five vehicles.
Those savings, at least in part, will be passed along to the company’s stable of drivers, Cotter said. The savings will also help defray the cost of the pricy Priuses, which cost about $8,000 more per car than traditional taxicabs, according to Cotter.
If Metro converts its entire fleet to hybrids, the company would appear to be the first taxi service in the country to offer only hybrid vehicles, said Alfred LaGasse, executive vice president of the Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association, a trade group based outside Washington, D.C.
LaGasse said a handful of U.S. taxicab companies are testing hybrid vehicles, with operators in New York and San Francisco leading the way. However, LaGasse said, some taxicab companies are hesitant to convert to hybrids.
He pointed to concerns about reliability, initial cost and customer acceptance. LaGasse noted that taxicabs typically stay in service beyond 300,000 miles, while the warranties for many hybrid batteries expire at or before 150,000 miles.
“There are high hopes, but it is unproven from our perspective,” he said. “Brand-new technologies will have hiccups.”
Max Sarr, operations manager for Denver-based Freedom Cab, said his company is interested in using hybrids and will monitor how Metro’s initiative is received by consumers.
Unlike Metro, he said, Freedom’s drivers own their vehicles. That means that the company’s drivers would need to purchase hybrids.
“The problem is the price,” Sarr said.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-954-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
