Taxis, LPG, Hybrids and diesel

[jpd80]

Had an interesting conversation with taxi operators recently, seems they are trying
different vehicle in their fleets to find out which gives best fuel economy, LPG, hybrid and diesel

Starting with LPG, a BF goes through about $50-60 of lpg in a a shift but a hybrid Camry only Uses around $30 of petrol
and a diesel passat around $30-35 of diesel...........Wow, that right there is a HUGE difference..

I got to thinking about this and it shows a big misconception on my part and others by assuming the combined economy numbers
for taxi work. It's the urban figure is key as most of the running is typical stop go traffic as approximated by the Urban cycle.

The upshot of this is that the LPG taxis generally use around 18-20 l/100 km of gas regardless of EcoLPI or E-Gas
as the 6-speed auto ZF is of less economical benefit in traffic driving but hybrids and diesels still give great fuel economy.

A quick estimation of urban economy for Ecoboost Vs EcoLPI shows that they would probably be about the same running cost
but by comparison we know that the urban running costs of hybrid Camry and Diesel Passat S/W are around 60% of this...

I'm beginning to think that this is why we're seeing a changing of the guard, in the past two years E-Gas was vacant
and since taxis mostly buy low km used versions, their "stock" would have dried up considerably, raising the price at auctions.

Anyone else have theories on which way taxis will hop in the future?