December 24, 2020

This holiday season, New York City residents are spotting the new Tesla Model 3 taxi [Video]

Roaming the streets of New York City, residents are spotting the classic yellow cab this holiday season — but this time it's an all-electric Tesla Model 3. It turns out that the City of New York approved Tesla Model 3 as the first electric taxicab last year. And recently Tesla's smaller sedan was added to a taxi fleet in the Big Apple.

Above: NYC Tesla Taxi is bringing to holiday cheer (Source: Ramy Gharib)

Ride-hailing service, Drive Sally, purchased its first Model 3 recently and the company is planning to bring hundreds (maybe thousands?) more on the roads of NYC in the near future according to a recent company tweet.

In one of Drive Sally's tweets, the company asked Elon Musk if they can get 1,000 more Model 3 electric cars to deploy as yellow cabs in NYC. The Tesla CEO hasn’t responded yet but it's conceivable that plenty more Tesla taxis might start appearing on the streets of New York soon.

Bringing electric taxis to the city is also part of NYC's initiative to lower carbon emissions and Tesla can certainly help the city achieve this goal.

According to Business Insider, Drive Sally is currently running its first trial Tesla Model 3. According to an estimate, electric taxicabs charged from an average grid emit 17,080 lbs of CO2 per car per year. On the contrary, an internal combustion engine taxi emits an estimated 54,992 lbs of CO2 per car per year which is a staggering +221% more than EV cabs.

In any event, check out the latest videos captured in NYC. The footage of the Tesla taxi in front of a Saks Fifth Avenue Christmas display really brings out some Yuletide vibes during this holiday season.