California - no Prius taxi for you!

There's hardly any taxis in LA anyway, but I've seen a number of them and they're green.

 

The taxis in California used to be outdated GM or Ford vehicles. Recently, companies are switching to Japanese automakers but prefer the Accords and Camrys to the Prius. I think that we'll see more Prius taxis in the future but the California taxi culture has been slow to adapt to the green movement.

 

In Victoria BC almost all taxi's are Priuses and you also see lots of private Priuses

 

People wanted to use them as taxi's in the UK but the regulations won't allow anything under 2 litres to be used for a taxi. Why is anybody's guess.

 

After spending a week in so cal, the first thing I notice is that the# of Priuses I have seen is no where near as many as I see in Wa state . I am a bit surprised. I figured the percentage would not be as high due to the sheer volume of cars but I literally see only maybe a dozen or two a day (granted I am on vacation so not doing a lot of driving but did do a 120 mile rt to legoland) as compared to olympia where I would see a dozen on a trip to the neighborhood grocery store

 

You're in the wrong town.

As 32K mentioned, finding a taxi in LA isn't the easiest thing to do...but up here in NorCal, especially in SF, there's a boat-load of Prius taxis. You could be run over by one at almost every intersection.

 

So the more important question to the OP is how many other taxis did you see? On most days, I never see a single taxi on my daily commute. There are many illegal taxis in town, and I can pretty much tell you that the people driving those illegal taxis won't be driving a Prius. If those illegal taxis cost more than a couple thousand dollars, I'd be surprised.

If you want to see a lot of Priuses, go to Santa Monica.

I was told by a few dealerships, that the Santa Monica Toyota dealership sells the most Priuses in the world (but not any of the other models). Not sure if it's true, but there are a lot of them in Santa Monica.

Dumb Mike

 

It is all economics. A 2 years old used ex-police Crown Victoria can be get at ~$5-6K in auction.
A 2 years old Prius will be ~$17-$18K. The gas in US is much cheaper than in Canada, $3 against $4.5. You can do the math and understand why you won't find Prius Taxi here.

 

I totally understand, I live Los Angeles and I see very few Toyota Prius Taxi vehicles. Perhaps it has to do with our thinking that bigger is better or something stupid like that?

I remember when I was in Vancouver, Canada during July of 2010, almost ALL taxi vehicles were Toyota Prius and/or Toyota Camry Hybrids.

 

Where'd you hear that?

I've heard of one authority refusing to licence them because they had a small temporary spare wheel rather than full sized, but never heard of cars being refused for not having a 2 litre engine. Saying that, in parts of Australia they won't allow anything less than a V6.

 

I don't know the reason (for sure), but if I had to guess, like most things in life...it boils down to the up front cost. I suspect you can get a Cown Vic, or Chrysler mini-van for considerable less than a Prius? In much of the mid-Atlantic you will see mini-vans used. I assume that had more to do with interior cargo room? If I'm picking up, or dropping off a family of four at the airport, with all the luggage, etc...it's gonna be a real squeeze to get all the luggage into a Prius.

That's my two cents.

 

Most of the relative scarcity of American prius taxis can be explained by three differences compared to our smarter Canuck neighbors:

Most importantly, Canadian taxi drivers own their cars and pay for their fuel, while in the US it is much more typical for a taxi fleet owner to buy the car, while the driver pays for the fuel. This US model probably lowers the barrier to entry for work as a driver, but has the unfortunate side-effect of distorting the total cost of ownership. In effect, the car purchaser does not care how much fuel costs.

Second, fuel is cheaper in the US;

lastly, use of big american made cars still has some traction in some parts of the US, and it manifests as inertia to change through the licensing bureaus.

 

Got pic of Long Beach Prius taxi. Will upload in a few days

 

I, too, think Sagebrush is correct. But I'll give you another example that there are just very few taxis in Los Angeles (especially per capita). Just go to LAX and see how many taxis you see. Then, if you happen to be at McCarron Airport in Las Vegas, count the taxis. You will see very few taxis at LAX, where at McCarron, they line up, 40-50 (and maybe more) at a time.

I think there's a reason for this. From a tourist standpoint, Southern California is a rental car business, because the attractions are spread too far apart. I don't want to think what cab fare would be from LAX to Disneyland, about 100 miles round trip. Where if you go to the Strip in Las Vegas or Manhattan in New York, everything is pretty close.

I also believe that the residents of Southern California (and probably California as a whole), own more cars per capita. So, we have less need for a taxi as a general proposition.

Dumb Mike

 

The 2 litre minimum for taxi's was something niggling at the back of my mind from a few years ago - may have been a local regulation and may well have been changed by now. Bit like another local regulation (from somewhere who's name I promptly forgot) that excludes a Prius from taxi service because it is three inches too short!

 

In LA mainly the movie stars and rich people. Really no need for taxis. I live in bakersfield california and i only ever see two taxis and they are old old old vans fron the 90's and theyre hardly ever used. Because we have GET busses which take you all over the place. And the Get busses are cheaper.

 

Break-even would be 105,000 miles, assuming 15mpg v 35mpg. Grumpy can give you an annual mileage figure which I think is pretty high. Certainly over 25k per year.

It's really in the up-front cost. Cities could do a lot worse than provide low-cost loans to taxi drivers to buy efficient vehicles. Obviously not because of emissions (which would be illegal) but because it's economically helpful to lower long-term costs.

 

Well I don't know how my mileage compares to US & Canada taxi drivers but I manage around 35k a year on average. This year I'm at 32k with about 6 weeks to go, so am slightly below average.