Yellow Cab President Kulwant Sahota is proud to show off his fleet of hybrid vehicles. One of them has driven over a million kilometres and is still going strong. The fuel savings alone is enough to pay off the vehicle in three years and they are very low maintenance.
"We change the brakes on a Toyota Corolla every seven to eight weeks, but on a Prius we change the brakes every 18 months or so," Sahota said.
Eighteen months in a cab's life is about every 250,000 kilometres. For regular drivers that's a brake job every ten years or so.
As for the hybrid battery, which many feared would be a costly part that could wear out, Toyota says it's designed to last the life of the car. The Pruis cab with over a million kilometres got a new battery at 700,000 kilometres, or about 35 years for the average driver.
And Prius owners like Kate Houlihan, who bought her hybrid ten years ago, say they're still happy with their hybrids.
"Fuel economy is the exact same as it has ever been. There's just been no changes as far as, you know, any driving differences," Houlihan said.
Consumer Reports put her Prius to the test and found it got 40.4 miles per gallon. A new Prius built in the year 2000 got 40.6 miles per gallon.
"Acceleration was virtually the same, too. It was less than half a second difference getting to 60 miles per hour," said Consumer Reports' Jon Kinkov.
And more good news: the price of a new Pruis has come down a couple thousand dollars in the past few years.
"I would buy another Prius in a heartbeat," Houlihan said.
And so would Yellow Cab.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen
