Green Tomato Cabs in London
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03. 9.06
Who ever heard of giving up law to drive taxi's? Tom Packenham and Jonny Goldstone did. They founded Green Tomato Cars, and will pick you up in a Prius. London cabbies are famous for knowing the City well; Green Tomato drivers are all fully licensed, trained and conversant with Green Tomato’s environmental implications. ‘Being green used to mean paying more for worse service,’ says Packenham, ‘but we intend to emulate the best of the other cab firms if we are going to compete"...‘We want to attract everybody: people who care about the environment, corporate clients who want to show that they’re not just chasing profits, and people who just want a cab that is comfortable, fast and doesn’t break down." Come to North America. Please. ::Green Tomato Cars via ::Time Out and tipster Bonnie
Further reading: ::Hybrid Taxis in New York
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I'm told they don't have the same types of delivery problems and delays for hybrids in the UK, as we have here in the US. They get theirs directly from Toyota Japan, which has the steering wheel same side as theirs... Leads you to wonder if the hybrid shortage in the USA is not orchestrated by the Oiligarchy as yet another delay tactic towards the inevitable.
That is too funny. I was only just telling my wife the other day that having a cab firm that uses Prius' (Prii ?) and Smart cars (for when it's just a one person journey) would be a great idea for a company. Good luck to them, I'll be interested to see how they get on. Also, why does it have to more expensive, surely they could work out a deal with the car companies (it's great dvertising for them) to lease a fleet of the cars and obviously gas consumption would be less than a regular cab so would be cheaper no ?
And wouldn't it be great if there were government subsidies to encourage others to develope such a great business?
Why is this such a great business? Hasn't it been established that a small diesel is not only more fuel efficient, but costs less energy and fewer heavy metals to build in the first place, not to mention you can run it on biodiesel...?
There's actually a cab company in Vancouver, BC that uses some Prius cars:
"Yellow Cab, British Columbia’s largest taxi operation, now counts more than 43 hybrids in its fleet of 208 cars"
[link http://www.hybridcars.com/hybrid-taxicabs.html]
Try these people Tim!