New York mandates hybrid cabs

Joe le taxi, sung Vanessa Paradis, He doesn’t go everywhere. He doesn’t work on soda, His yellow sax knows all of the streets by heart. Quite, Vanessa, quite.

But the lovely gap-toothed better half of Johnny Depp neglected to mention Joe will soon be driving a green vehicle now New York taxis will be obliged to get 25 miles to the gallon before hitting the city’s impatient streets.

All this efficiency means, according to those in the know – and they wouldn’t be called those in the know if they didn’t know stuff – more hybrid cars. NY1 News has more:

When fully phased in, cab owners will save between $4,000 and $11,000 a year in gas costs.

The TLC’s new regulations are part of Mayor Bloomberg’s environmental plan to have an all-hybrid taxi fleet by 2012.