All Electric Taxi Company Coming to DC

Wish I knew this last year while in Amsterdam w/ the wife. But on a side note, almost every taxi we rode in while in Europe had smart stop technology coupled with being diesel.

 

Lots of miles plus regular fast charging this WILL decrease the range of these cars and quite fast.

 

Hill - You CA folks gotta get out to see the country. DC is not NY (title).

Seriously, yes, heard about this on WTOP news radio. Hearing this made me check to see if Arlington County Virginia gives property tax relief incentives. And the answer is YES: Arlington Co. residents with VA Clean Special Fuel cars get a significant property tax reduction. I live a few miles away in a different county and get no incentive. This shows how complex the incentives specifics are.

 

I believe Nissan rates the range of the Leaf with the climate control off... not a practical scenario for D.C. in the summer - or winter.
Even (or especially) with a fast charger, it seems like the drivers will have to hook up to a charger twice a shift. Unless some of the subsidies the taxi company is getting (I don't know they get subsidies, just an educated guess) reach the driver, I don't see that as practical from the driver's viewpoint. A Prius makes more sense to me.

 

They'd be driving in relatively low speed traffic, which means the range would be well above the normal rating. Also, remember that they'd probably be looking to get 2013s which are expected to come with a heat pump that should still be effective in DC's winters.

They'd also be giving a purely electric ride, which would be a differentiating factor.

The only potential issue could be the effect of regular fast charging on the batteries. Does anybody know the typical miles for a DC-area cab?

 

I'm shocked!

 

It's a start. It's pretty cool to see the taxi cab company in the next town over from me having their fleet of blue Prii zipping around.

 

There are exotic cars used as police cars. Doesn't mean they are the right idea, though.

A nay sayer takes a pessimistic view. I happen to know unequivocally that Nissan recommends against regular fast charging (Andy Palmer says once a day is ok). The range will drop to about 80% after the first 50k miles, so it's important to know how many miles will be put on these cars.

 

Portugal spends £31,000/$50,000 on a Leaf as a police car with a 70 mile real world range. This is Potugal, the nation that is having to be bailed out by more prudent Countries.

Surely when your nation is virtually bankrupt and unemployment is running at 25% it might be more prudent to buy an Opel Astra for £13,000/$21,000 instead?That way you have over £15,000 to spend on fuel, which even with European prices, would buy you a LOT of fuel.

But hey, ever wondered why mainland Europe is in a pickle?

 

I would ask what gov't incentives are being given to the DC cab company for the Leafs and associated charging stations? I already pointed out that Arlington Co VA is aggressively giving tax relief to Clean Special Fuel cars. Believe me with its AAA muni bond rating, Arlington Co can afford to subsidize a few green cars if they want to.

If it makes good economic sense to have EV-power Taxis, due to the nature of short trips etc, then wonderful.

 

...well I was trying to find a diplomatic way to say this is a wealthy county. Examples of businesses in Arlington include the Pentagon.

Question for you, when you fixed the title earlier, did you do that yourself or do we still need to have Moderator help.

 

Electric cabs in DC aren't new. Here's one of the modern cabs serving Union Station in 1901.

 

How many QC/day are those ones allowed? Baker Motor Vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

i am running a bit of an experiment concerning quick charging because i think the act of quick charging is not the problem. its heat. so i have quick charged 32 times this month but only 8 times for longer than 15 minutes or higher than 65% SOC.

I have not gone above 6 TBs and i believe that as long as your pack does not heat up (not easy to do when quick charging down south) i think you can quick charge as much as you want.

now the LEAF pack dissipates heat poorly. i have seen evidence where heat of a quick charge was still evident the next day with no additional charging at all, so yes quick charge does have limitations but as in most things; those limitations are the user and common sense

 

That was my number 1 concern about using a Leaf as a taxi. I'd had one or two times where the Prius tried to switch away from HV battery use due to me over cooking it in busy and hard start stop traffic continuously over the day. An EV can't err more on using the petrol engine so what would a Leaf have done in a similar situation? Overheat? Shut down? Switch off? Or just cook the battery and cause damage?