Taxi drivers have decided to promote environmental awareness, as Tel Aviv Municipality and the Israel Taxi Drivers Association have agreed on the advancement of a plan that would see the city's 5,000 cabs converted to hybrid vehicles within the next few years. Hybrid vehicles use a combination petrol-electric motor that emits a relatively low amount of pollutants. There are currently two types of hybrids marketed in Israel – the Honda Civic hybrid and the Toyota Prius. Chairman of the Israel Taxi Drivers Association Israel Fried met with Moshe Belsenheim, Tel Aviv Municipality's environmental authority head, and the two agreed that during the next few weeks two of the city's taxi stations would begin using hybrid vehicles. Only one hybrid taxi is currently being used in Tel Aviv, of the Toyota Prius model. The plan includes perks offered to taxi drivers who purchase hybrid cars. In an interview with Ynet, Belsenheim explained that the municipality can encourage the use of environmentally-friendly vehicles in a number of ways. "It is possible to give drivers a discount on tolls, more parking spaces at their stations, or ease driving restrictions," he said. A transportation bill recently passed in the Knesset, which transfers much influence to the local authorities in an effort to encourage them to create plans to reduce pollution caused by vehicles. The local authorities could limit the number of pollution-causing cars by charging those driving them extra tolls, while reducing the tolls extracted from those driving environmentally-friendly cars, for example. "The taxi drivers needed no persuasion," Belsenheim continued. "They had already checked and come to the conclusion that the switch to hybrids is in their own best interests, both economically and environmentally." The economic motives have kicked in recently, as the prices of diesel fuel and petrol continue to rise. The hybrids, which use less fuel, could end up saving their owners quite a bit of cash. The sales tax on the hybrids is also lower – 30% instead of 78%, which makes the choice easier. According to Belsenheim, a hybrid cab currently costs about the same as a regular cab. The plan's only hitch lies in the Ministry of Finance's plan to raise the sales tax on the hybrids gradually, so that by 2015 it should equal that of regular cars. Though taxi drivers are exempt from the sales tax, the decision could have destructive ramifications on the hybrid market as a whole. However, there is still hope that the government will change its tune, and an association for 'green taxes' has predicted that in the future taxes will be charged according to the amount of pollutants emitted from each vehicle.