For those familiar with big cities, they are well aware of the ever present taxi sluggishly moving through the streets and making frequent stops. Obviously they emit plenty if air emissions. Better Place, who are a leading electric vehicles service provider with the support of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is planning on bringing a switchable battery, electric taxi program to the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco became in 2005 one of the first cities to introduce hybrids vehicles for taxi service, with a fleet of 15 Ford Escape Hybrids; the original Escape Hybrids were retired after 300,000 miles per vehicle. Meanwhile two electric taxi prototypes have recently debuted in London. They are based on vehicles from Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, two of Europe’s largest producers of taxi cabs. A third demonstration project is in Tokyo, a city that has some 60,000 taxis – more than London, Paris, and New York combined.