The greenest car to hit city streets is yellow, but your chance of riding in one of the new hybrid electric taxicabs is about six in 12,000.

After passing a week’s worth of road tests, six hybrid gasoline electric taxicabs have joined the fleet of 12,053 yellow taxis cabs. The commissioner of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, Matthew Daus, yesterday unveiled the taxis at a ceremony on the rooftop of the Manhattan Auto Group, a car dealership that helped modify the 2006 Ford Escapes to the commission’s specifications. The cars were painted yellow, their seats were covered with vinyl, and the floors were covered with plastic. In lieu of a partition, there is a camera that records passengers and a radio programmed to call 911.

In the coming weeks, 12 additional Escapes will hit the road, bringing to a close an episode that began last year when three immigrant businessmen from Russia made the winning bids on 18 hybrid taxi medallions sold by the city.

At an auction last October, the partners, Evgeny Friedman, Mamed Dzhaniyev, and Vladimir Basin, purchased the medallions for about $220,000 each, a 45% discount from the average $390,000 for a fleet owned medallion.

But the commission failed to approve any hybrid models, in part because of concerns that none of the current models offered sufficient legroom. The businessmen sued the city.

“It was a catch-22,” Mr. Friedman said yesterday. “They sold us the medallions but they didn’t make the cars available.”

The City Council, irate over the commission’s wavering, passed legislation forcing the commission to approve at least one model for use on the streets.

The commission has apparently gotten the point, having permitted, in addition to the Escape, six other hybrid models currently in use or expected to come out within the next year, including the Toyota Prius and the Highlander, a larger sports utility hybrid; Honda’s Civic and Accord; the Mercury Mariner, and a luxury hybrid that will likely never be painted taxi cab yellow: the Lexus Rx400h.

“We’ve opened the door, now it’s up to the medallion owners,” Mr. Daus said.

Council Member David Yassky, who authored the bill to bring hybrid cabs to city streets, and who was lavished with praise yesterday for helping Mr. Friedman solve his legal dispute with the city, said the commission will auction 63 hybrid medallions this spring.

While the Ford hybrids cost about $32,000 – an average of $6,000 more than the standard taxi model, the Ford Crown Victoria – one cabbie, Gennagiy Abramov, said he has saved $20 a day on gas during his 12-hour shifts of the past week. The savings could add up to $5,000 to $6,000 a year. The car gets 36 miles to the gallon in the city, compared with about 18 for the Crown Victoria.

Mr. Abramov, a 37-year-old Russian immigrant who has been driving a cab for five years, has also developed a new driving style, with one eye on the road and one on the tachometer, where a green light tells him if his car is using his traditional V6 engine or the electric motor. For five blocks, Mr. Abramov did the unthinkable: he drove under 25 miles an hour on 12th Avenue in Midtown in order to keep the gas motor from kicking in. The car felt as if it was coasting down a hill in neutral.

“The first time, I thought the car is broken,” Mr. Abramov said, “because there’s no vibration, no nothing.”

When the inevitable happened and Mr. Abramov floored the accelerator, the V6 engine roared to life with appropriate gusto, but the transition from electric to gas was smooth.

The Escape hybrid, which is in its second production year, has convinced Mr. Friedman, who owns a fleet of 650 cabs, of its economic and environmental benefits.

“It’s a no-brainer,” he said, adding: “I didn’t start out green, but I’m green now.”