Did Bill read my mail?

Approximately 6 months ago I wrote a letter to Bill Ford describing some ideas I had for Ford Motor Company. One of the ideas in the letter was that Ford produce hybrids aimed directly at the Taxi and Black Car industry. The obvious reason for this is that cars used in these jobs spend most of their time driving in city traffic and spend considerable time sitting idle. In this environment the hybrid technology makes economic sense because of the much larger usage of the cars as compared to normal family driving.

Now I don't know if my mail ever made it to Ford's inner circle, but today Ford started delivery of Escape Hybrids to the New York City taxi fleet. Over the next 5 years NYC plans to replace the 13,000 cars in its taxi fleet with hybrids. It would be interesting to put the hybrid drive train in the Ford Crown Victoria and Lincoln Town Car for use in the black car industry, which Ford pretty much owns already.

Looking at other areas where the additional cost of a hybrid makes economic sense is to have hybrid US Postal mail trucks. Rural and suburban mailmen are constantly driving in a stop and go environment that is ideal for a hybrid vehicle.

Links on Detroits Woes

As a followup to some of the things I have written about Ford and GM recently I wanted to post a link to this article on Oct. auto sales. SUV sells are in free fall.

Ford Motor and General Motors led Detroit's worse-than-expected 10.9% sales decline during October to an annual pace of 14.7 million units, led by a 35% free fall in sport utility vehicles. Detroit relies on SUVs for about half its unit sales, a much higher percentage than foreign automakers.
The month was Detroit's worst in seven years.