3 days in - new Prius owner disappointed

does tesla tout them for taxi service?

 

I don't believe so, but petrol is $7 a US gallon at the moment and London has the £10/$16 daily congestion charge for entry to central London. There are also high annual taxes for just owning a larger car such as a BMW 5/Merc E which the Tesla is exempt from. I'm guessing the company were hoping to save on all of these.

I did obtain the info about Tesla QC from a UK ev forum and not myself first hand. Hanging out with the Tesla Cabbies | Speak EV - Electric Car Forums

 

i wonder if they would do any design differences for taxi interiors.

 

You mean is there a market for that? Is it worthwhile? Hmmm. Toyota do a specialist taxi model for the Japanese market. Mercedes do one for the German market, though in the UK they only offer a van based model. Peugeot also offer a specialised van model.

What matters in a taxi? Well I guess for a company using a Tesla they're going for the more executive market, but even so hard wearing carpets or easily replaceable fitted mats are imperative. Door handles (inside and out) need to be solid as they get yanked hard, and preferably illuminated. Hinges and check straps must be substantial to accomodate all the opening and closing of doors. Rubbers around doors must be up to the job of 30+ passengers getting in and out daily, and must be easily replaceable. These wear very quickly on some cars, yet on others they last the cars lifetime. Seat side supports can fail prematurely on some makes of cars, yet last on others. Seat airbags and cabling must be very solid in a taxi too as all those in and outs 30+ times a day puts wear on the seat internals. Wiring connectors between seats and the car must be able to handle higher numbers of seat base adjustments. Many passengers adjust the seat when they get in, whereas you or I may only adjust their seat once or twice a year. Finally cubby holes or handles in doors must be easy to remove/clean internally. You'd be surprised how hard it is to remove a split McDonalds meal from inside a door grab handle (Prius for example) - once it gets in the screw thread you've got a stinking car for ever.

My car was subject to annual inspections until year 3 and then six monthly, where any tears in fabric or carpet was a fail, as were rips or holes in any door rubbers or trims. It takes one ill placed heel from an intoxicated lady to cause your car to fail and need expensive repair. The items I mentioned above don't even register on the radar for a normal owner who may think chocolate stains from children are a problem.

I wonder if it were these sorts of issues that the Tesla taxi drivers were refering to, rather than overall quality control - designed a door to open and close 2,000 times a year (normal use) instead of 10,000+(taxi use) for exampe?

Toyota Comfort Taxi

 

2012 Honda Civic Hybrid Review - HybridCars.com
A review of the Honda Accord hybrid. This and a few other reviews mention lots of complaints about high failure rate of the battery packs. So I don't think I would consider a Honda hybrid anytime soon.

 

thats the civic hybrid with the old ima system. battery problems have long been documented. accord hybrid is completely different. although fairly new, i don't think there have been any big problems yet.
soe are concerned how much battery they are using to active 50+mpg, but only time will tell.

 

i suppose if you decide to use a car for a taxi that isn't built to be a taxi, you have to take some of the responsibility.

 

And who builds a taxi? You 'could' clatter around in one of these;


But many passengers demand some extra comfort. And some drivers demand a vehicle that does more than 22 mpg UK. If some manufacturers manage to build cars that can handle taxi use, Toyota for one, Ford for another, then why can't others.

Toyota have sold many many Prii on the back of them being used for a taxi. It's been mentioned on here many times that "if it's good enough for a cabby, then it's good enough for me". And not withstanding the early failure of gen3 hv batteries, the car is standing up well.

People are wary of new tech and perhaps dipped their toe in the water when they saw Prius taxis. Maybe the same would be true with Tesla? But if Tesla get it wrong and the car turns out to be a dud at taxi work, then it could backfire on them. (not literally as it's electric)

 

Plenty of Gen III Prius and Prius v taxis in NYC.

 

This is news to me. Are the failures taxi-related? Haven't seen much about it in these forums...

 

there are good taxi stories and bad. it depends on the attitude of the owners. also, in some area's, they are mandated, so you get what you get.

i'm not sure anyone here cares, if it's a positive experience, they ride with it. if it's negative, they ignore it. there might be people who have rode in a tesla taxi and decided not to buy one, but i doubt tesla is concerned.

 

At 53,000 miles our 2012's interior is like new.
However, we don't do taxi level traffic. I did drive for UBER a bit, but hardly long enough to be worth mentioning.
So in my experience, normal wear and tear, like new.
I have not heard of any such issues from those I know that drive Teslas as limos.
I know some people have had wear issues on the front of the B pillar, we have not.
Not sure if that can be extrapolated in any way to taxi service.

 

Not sure it depends on the attitude of owners, more whether they were covered by warranty or not. My HV battery was starting to show signs of cycling at 60k miles, but I no longer use the car for taxi work and Toyota UK extended the warranty to 10 years inclusive/unlimited miles so long as you service the car with them.

The issue was originally brought by a taxi driver in Greece where him and his colleages had early failure at about 110/130k miles. There was also a US driver on this forum who came on all guns blazing about how wonderful his car was and then the HV battery failed on him too, though at a higher mileage. It is wondered whether European cars are failing at lower mileages because roads and streets are more stop start for longer periods and the cars never have the chance to 'stretch their legs'. It wasn't unheard of for my car to never get over 30 mph for weeks at a time and subsequently spent longer running on the electric side and cycling the battery more than was probably good for it.

In private use the car will probably be fine.

The gen2 however is reported to be almost bomb proof (not literally obviously ).

 

It wasn't me who experienced the issues or indeed heard first hand from the taxi drivers, but this was the wording of the report and was taken in good faith;

"So I picked up my car from the Park Hotel, Heathrow today. Two Teslas were at the Supercharger, both clearly taxis.

Asked them how it was going and they immediately pointed out how badly the interior was suffering and falling apart. They weren't too pleased with build quality generally on the cars. One had only done 24,000 miles, not sure about the other one.

I've noticed quite a few Tesla taxis using the Park Hotel Superchargers, so it will be interesting to see if Tesla writes to them about it..."

Tesla are a switched on company and will want to act if there are any issues with quality control. These are UK RHD cars that are built in Holland from a kit/parts supplied from the US - to avoid import duties. I wonder if the quality control in Holland isn't quite up to the job of the main US plant? Does Elon wander the plant in the US and kicks nice person if standards a slipping? Does he need to spring a surprise visit on the Dutch plant?

 

There were a couple reports; I remember two from Greece.

The common guess was that the traction battery fan was getting clogged by hair and stuff from rear seat passengers and the taxi drivers did not know to keep it clean.

 

And if you recall the fans were checked and found to be fine. Though at that time the US service requirements did change so dealers are to inspect the fan in all vehicles used as cabs.

 

The duty cycle of a taxi vs the standard commuter may just have something to do with the service life of the battery...ya think?

 

First off the 2013 Leaf isn't Gen 2 Leaf. The Gen 2 leaf will be a 2016 or 2107 model at the earliest. If you want version numbers for the Leaf I'll make a change log for you (with my made up version numbers)

1.0 2011 Leaf
1.11 2011 Leaf with cold weather package (offered late in the model year)
1.12 2012 Leaf (all 2012 and newer have the cold weather package built in)
1.15 2013/2014 Leaf S trim (stripped with 3.x KW charger)
1.20 2013 Leaf SV/SL (with 6.x KW charger)
1.25 2014 Leaf SV/SL (with some late builds possibly having the improved battery)

1.3 2015 Leaf S trim (stripped with 3.x KW charger and the improved battery)
1.35 2015 Leaf SV/SL (with a guaranteed improved battery that some call "lizard")

As to that leaf in the UK it has lost more than 10% capacity and will lose that first bar soon enough. Try and drive a 2013 Leaf in Arizona and you'll know it isn't Leaf 2.0.

We already have a few 2013s that lost thier first bar in the wiki at Real World Battery Capacity Loss - Electric Vehicle Wiki

If the 2016 Leaf has a 30 kWh battery in the SL instead of the 24 kWh that still isn't Leaf 2.0, that might rate a 1.5 with the 2016 trims that have the 24 kWh battery still being stuck at 1.3 with the 2015 S trim.

For some reason people not familiar with the leaf wanted to label the 2013 battery pack as improved when all they did was change the physical connector and pack layout for cost/space reasons.

 

All quite plausible.
I was simply responding to your question if U.S. Owners had noticed any similar issues.

 

I do.

But the gen2 was always used as a benchmark and I remember that million KM taxi in Canada used to sell how reliable the Prius was. The gen3 was assumed to build on that experience, but didn't.