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Tokyo's Taxi of Tomorrow Lifts Bar as Cities Seek Greener Fleets

  • Toyota seen selling JPN Taxi model beginning in 2018
  • Hybrid will use LPG as fuel, may top Prius in fuel efficiency
A taxi driver reads a magazine as he waits for a customer outside a train station in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015.

A taxi driver reads a magazine as he waits for a customer outside a train station in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015.

Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Tokyo’s taxi companies will shift as much as 30 percent of their fleets to an LPG-powered hybrid from Toyota Motor Corp. by 2020, raising the bar for the world’s biggest cities in their bids to reduce emissions from cabs.

The companies will begin buying Toyota’s JPN Taxi hybrid from 2018, in time for the Tokyo Olympic Games two years later, according to Ichiro Kawanabe, chairman of the Tokyo Hire-Taxi Association, which represents the city’s cab firms and helps sets industry standards. The wheelchair-friendly car will be more fuel efficient and cleaner than the Prius and sell for about 3 million yen ($24,950), he estimated.