This battle is being fought, and will be won, on the streets. And in New York City the hybrids are winning. New York’s Dept. of Transportation and other agencies are replacing their Ford Taurus and Contours with Prius and Civic Hybrids, not Hummers.

As of May of this year, 375 of approx. 13,000 yellow cabs had hybrid engines. The City has mandated that by 2012, 100% of the yellow taxi fleet must be hybrids. Link to NYC press release here. The new Ford Escape Hybrids get 30 MPG. The vehicle they will replace, the Ford Crown Victoria, gets 14 mpg. Taxi drivers in NYC absorb all the operating costs, including gas. So if they can spend less money on gas – they pocket the difference, and they make more money. $9,000, assuming 80,000 miles and $3.00 per gallon.

The next step will be the 38,540 livery vehicles licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, often referred to as “black cars,” the predominant model being black Lincoln Town Cars, which also get about 12 miles per gallon.

There is no government mandate to switch, however, a combination of market forces and one government incentive seems to have sparked the beginning of a change in the right direction. Outside Goldman Sachs‘ offices on Pearl and Broad, across the street from Fraunces Tavern, at any given time, you can see two or three Prius “limos” among the Town Cars. The Priuses get 40 mpg. The Lincolns get 12. The fuel costs for a Lincoln are about $20,000 per year, three and a half times higher than $6,000 for a Prius. Which translates to $14,000 more for the drivers.

The drivers love them – they pocket the cash. The passengers love them – they are a much quieter ride, they are better for the environment, and as an added bonus, they are permitted to use the High Ooccupancy Vechicle / Low Emissions Vehicle aka (Clean Pass) lanes. In New York rush-hour traffic, this could cut some trips in half – and cut from half an hour to an hour off of a rush-hour trip to Newark or La Guardia.

They’re also good enough for the United States Army’s Special Operations Command, which includes the Special Forces, and would include the Delta Force, if it officially existed.

For other large groups of vehicles – the Postal Service, the New York City Police Department, our ambulances – using hybrid engnes isn’t even part of the public discussion, yet. But it will be. Write your Rep in Congress. Senate – Click Here , House, Click Here.

An outfit called CNW Market Research, which advertises “Clarity Context Vision” like Fox News uses the phrase “Fair and Balanced,” published a “study” claiming that the Hummer H2 has less of an environmental impact than the Prius. You can look for the 450 + page report here.

CNW asserts that the per mile cost of the Hummer H2 is $3.027 and the Prius is $3.249.

Heidi Hauenstein and Laura Schewel of the Rocky Mountain Institute analyzed CNW report concluded that CNW’s mathematics was flawed. You can find the their report on the web pages of EV World. They said that IF CNW’s methodology is correct, the Prius has a significantly lower impact on the environment than the Hummer. And, by the way, they question CNW’s methodology.

Dr. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute also weighed in on the debate. (Click Here) He stated “the report’s conclusions rely on faulty methods of analysis, untenable assumptions, selective use and presentation of data, and a complete lack of peer review. Even the most cursory look reveals serious bias and flaws: the average Hummer H1 is assumed to travel 379,000 miles and last for 35 years, while the average Prius is assumed to last only 109,000 miles over less than 12 years. … “Dust to Dust” has already distorted the public debate.”

So here’s what I think.

According to Edmunds, the MSRP of the 2007 Hummer H2 is $54,100. The Prius is $22,175. I assume the vehicles have a lifetime of 100,000 miles and the price of gas is $3.00 per gallon. I know that the EPA estimates for the Prius are 50, and the H2 is so big and so heavy that it is exempt from EPA milage estimates, but I use 40 mpg for the Prius – because that’s what limo drivers who use the Prius in NYC get – and 8 mpg for the Hummer. GM Hummer claims that the Hummer H3 gets 20 miles per gallon on the highway. Maybe they put a hybrid engine in it. Maybe that’s rolling downhill, outfitted for sail, with the engine in neutral and running at a low rpm.

My back-of-envelope reckoning based on EPA milage concludes that the Hummer will burn 12,500 gallons and the Prius 2,500 as they are driven those 100,000 miles.

That’s a difference of 10,000 gallons of gas. At $3.00 per gallon, fuel will cost $37,500 to drive the Hummer and $7,500 to drive the Prius. That’s $30,000 bucks. And if the average price of gas is $4.00 over the life of the vehicle, it’s $40,000.

Ignoring the purchase cost of the vehicle, and assuming $3.00 per gallon, the fuel cost is 38 cents per mile for the Hummer, and 8 cents per mile for the Prius. Factoring the costs to purchase the vehicle, and the cost of oil changes every 3000 miles, (34 oil changes at $25 each) the costs to drive a Hummer H2 are $92,460 while the costs to drive a Prius are $30,525. This works out to 92 cents per mile for the Hummer H2 and 31 cents per mile for the Prius.

So the bottom line is I don’t care what CNW says, altho it would be nice if their arguments were logical, coherent, and based on fact. Regardless, my next new car will be an aerodynamic hybrid.