Nissan wins bid to be next New York City taxi *UPDATE — Autoblog DailyTech - NYC "Taxi of Tomorrow" Winner: Nissan NV200 NYC taxis to get suburban look, Japanese nameplate - Yahoo! Finance I was surprised they were still in the running as I thought Nissan was out of the running and the Turkish taxi was the leading contender. When I'd heard about the Turkish taxi, I thought that was really goofy since AFAIK, that automaker had never sold a car in the US. Too bad these Nissan taxis aren't hybrids. Given how they'll see city duty the majority of the time and how bad traffic can be, they'd surely get better mileage. I wonder why (per the Yahoo article) "the city was not legally allowed to make its decision based on fuel efficiency..."
Price ? The NYC economic model is broken -- or corrupt, depending on your point of view. The fleet owners care about car purchase price, and leave the operators to foot the fuel bill.
Whoops... maybe I should've quoted the entire paragraph. The Yahoo article did mention further on that every car would be equipped w/GPS and Nissan's press release says "Standard driver's navigation and telematics systems." Side note: Although this has nothing to do w/the Nissan NV200 taxi yet, I came across his semi-interesting article in the print version of C&D: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11q1/taxi_tough_a_look_inside_an_nyc_cab_shop-feature.
Damn, Prius v would have been a better choice and it gets 40 MPG. $30k per car would be a realistic price also.
Bad news for USA. One day, justice is done...the day after, environment/health fell behind costs. And when referred to running costs, OMG. ICE conventional powertrains should be banned from urban taxi service at this stage, and not turning mandatory!!... Sad [edit: a friend of mine told me there is a chance of some being electric, but I really don't believe]
Yea, I read that it'll go full electric in 2017. Testing to begin in 2012. I just don't see EV Taxi happening. Recharging time means loss income. If the battery can be swapped, then it will be a better solution.
Is this the ONLY taxi to be allowed in New York? If so, I'm never a fan of restricting a market to one vehicle. They do it in London with the dreadful London Taxi. Much better to allow the market to choose. Also, the new Nissan New Yorker looks surprisingly like the Peugeot E7 Taxi that has been available in the UK for years. In fact an electric version has been out for about 3 years but at £40k/$66k there haven't been many takers. E7 electric taxi to debut at British International Motor Show — Autoblog Green
Hmm. In the center of the capitalist economy, the taxi service is subject to central planning and purchasing. I wonder how they handle it in Moscow...
Grumpy, Yes that design will be the only car for yellow taxis. In NYC there are taxi cabs which are for the most part flagged down for fares or wait in taxi waiting areas, think airports, for fares. NYC also has livery cars, or "car service" which are "for hire" car services. A customer would call a base and request a car to take them from point A to point B. Customers could also call teh base to arrange pickup at another time, i.e take me to the airport tomorrow morning. The livery cars will not be limited to this car model. Hope that helped. Ryan
Sounds just like London. The iconic London Taxi for sitting on ranks and hailing in the street and the 'mini cab' (which is pretty much any suitable sized vehicle) private hire service booked via telephone, internet, hotels etc. I'm one of the latter with my Prius though based 200 miles north of London.
