Hybrid Highway: Hailing the Future

By the way, Grumpy -- if I may ask:
I remember that you left the taxi business during the recent recession, but I'm curious how it turned out that you were not in a more competitive position to avoid fleet down-sizing than other drivers. After all, you already had a Prius to keep fuel costs down.

 

Possibly for the same reason I have considered in the past....

1) level of competition and the discount some people will give just to get themselves known, yes they are loss leading but also driving out competition at the same time so when the time comes to increase their rates the customer has fewer choices.

2) fuel cost, yes the prius is economical but fuel is still my largest outgoing per annum.

3) some of the customers, some of them are truly awful, the sort you would cross the street to avoid, many others are lovely though.

I am only staying in the business until I can further my IT qualifications, oh and my divorce becomes final

 

When I first started I was running a 3.2 omega on LPG, it was bliss.
Then the fuel prices shot up and LPG cars were banned as taxis within our council so we all went to diesels, this was 04 and at that point the jump to diesel wasn't too much of a price per gallon MPG difference from LPG.
My last diesel was a 1.9 CDTI vectra auto that was costing me £250 a week to fuel, it was averaging 35mpg. On top of that I had all my other expenses, I was being crippled by the car.
My first Prius was my saviour, my fuel bill dropped by £150 per week, I had bought an eight year old T3 with 104000 miles on the clock, within 7 months I had paid the loan off (£4700) and was debt free, I then ran the car for a further 7 months and sold it to another taxi driver for £2700 and with over 200000 miles on it it still goes strong.
I now have a 6 year old Tspirit with 87,000 miles on it, bought it 4 months ago and paid £4250 for it, I will run that for a year and trade up again, all the time putting my fuel savings that I made over the vectra aside for running repairs and purchase of new Prius.

I never buy new, for taxi use they loose too much money, instead I source really good used models with full toyota history, they are so modern looking people struggle to comprehend that it's a 5 year old car and a 10 year old design.

 

Nice! Thanks for sharing.

I do wonder though about your strategy of swapping cars every year. Admittedly not in Taxi use, I find that DIY maintenance and simple repairs of our Prii leads to a very economical car. I spent about 1 penny (us) per mile for upkeep and repairs during the 10 years and ~ 170k miles we owned our first Prius.

You should also know that Grumpy and at least one other Taxi driver that I can think of, suspect that the inverter in the Gen3 Prius is less tolerant of hard (may I say abusive ?) driving.

 

Depends on the local taxi authority. Mine insists that the oldest car you can register for taxi use is 5 years old and then you can renew it until it's 9 years old. Some areas are slacker and allow anything that's licenced.

The Prius was a nice ride and I still have it, but the taxi market now is a waste of time. Way too much competition (it was deregulated outside London and a few other cities) and any old Tom, Dick or Harry who lost their job set up as a taxi/private hire driver. How did they get business? By undercutting everyone else to the point there is no money to be made, and then some. Some of the quotes given barely cover the petrol/diesel costs, let alone the time involved. Being new they didn't factor in replacing their vehicle, maybe slack off on their servicing or tyre replacement either. Sure they'll be bust in 2 or 3 years but only after ruining the whole game for everyone else.

This recent link gives an idea of how shocking it's got;

Taxi passenger safety targeted in Harrogate - North Yorkshire Police

• 21 vehicles stopped
• 5 immediate prohibition notices (vehicle ordered off road until repaired and MOT'd)
• 1 delayed prohibition notice (seven days to rectify defect before vehicle ordered off road)
• 4 advisory notices issued for defects
• 2 fixed penalty tickets
• 1 driver reported to go to court

This month alone 25% of cars in Harrogate (a small wealthy town) ordered off the road until MOT'd. That's criminal but the way it's going. I kept my car legal and fully insured but in the end was competing with new drivers many of whom cancel insurances or don't keep their car legal as proved above. You get what you pay for. But a Prius or a Mondeo can't compete with idiots running death traps.

Glad I'm out of it. Met lots of nice people and a few not very nice ones, but it's a mugs game now.

 

That's one of the reasons I run gen IIs, I love the look of the gen III but I need the reliability

 

Perhaps the next generation will include silicon carbide, power electronics:
New Chip: 5-10% Better Hybrid MPG | PriusChat

Their higher temperature capabilities and improved efficiency should make the hybrid power electronics rock solid.

Bob Wilson

 

Thanks for the explanation.

I suppose then, that depending on the reserves of junk cars and drivers with poor business proposals, the taxi business will return to a rational state sometime in the future. Does Yorkshire have expensive regulatory demands ? In the US, NYC is the epitome, charging IIRC upwards of 50k USD for a license ("medallion".) Rich people own the licenses, poor schlubs are rented drivers.

 

The very nature of a medallion shows there are a finite number, hence they cost $50k. We had a system like that, and still do in London and one or two other places, but the EU wanted to open the trade to competition. Sounds fair enough in theory but imagine the same open system in New York. You buy a car, apply for a medallion (no cost as they have to be given free) and then away you go to earn some money. Perhaps one could question whether the local authority/council are happy with this situation as they now get more annual licence fees for more taxis?

But then the problems started. Instead of New York having say 100k taxis, you get 200k, then 250k, then 300k etc. Great for passengers on a rainy evening when they leave the theatre. But what about a quiet Monday evening? There are taxis and taxis and taxis all hogging the ranks or driving round and round trying to find some business.

When I started in my town 10 years ago there were 3 taxi companies; 2 large ones and 1 smaller. Now there are 5 large ones chasing less business. I wouldn't lower my standards and many still won't, but some did as can be seen by that link above. I heard of drivers working from 9pm on Friday until 2 am on Sunday morning NON stop. That was the busy period and when the money was to be made, but all those hours on the road with only toilet breaks? Madness and I wanted no part of it. One would also have to question how a driver could stay awake working those hours! (and I wanted no part of that either).

Customers are fickle too. I had good quality customers but if I'm offering a 4 hour run at £80 and a new starter is offering it at £45, which are they going to take? They apologise but take the half price ride. The new starter hopes that by offering a discounted rate that he'll get the new customer for shorter runs around town, but they don't, the customer stays with the regular taxi's. That way we both lose out. I appreciate it's just business, but it's not a business direction that was beneficial. Professional drivers couldn't make it pay and customers end up with potential death traps (see that link where 25% of cars were pulled off the road).

The regulations were strict but have been slackened off of late. A 5 year old cab costing £2,000 could be run into the ground over 4 years. A Prius holds it's value. On that note, my car is worth about 50% of what I paid for it 5 years ago. Not bad

Oh I forgot to add. The rates we can charge are set, so it's not like a normal business. Numbers are unrestricted but I can't charge what I'd want, only the maximum set by my council. Sounds like the sort of nonsense from a communist country.

 

Thanks for the explanations. I find the taxi business to be a little economy all in itself. Very educational to hear about the 'business'.

Could you clarify the two quotes above ?

 

I may be able to help with this.

The council tell you what you can charge as a maximum, however that doesn't stop any price up to that point being charged/offered.
Sensible drivers running legal cars will charge a figure close to the max maybe, and normally you may see a "little" undercutting, but to undercut by 50 to 60% spells danger as they are not even breaking even.

We have the same issue in plymouth where I work, we have drivers who will start work Friday 6am and finish Monday 6am, some of them carry sleeping bags in the car, some don't bother.

Like GC I don't get involved in that, if some wants to endanger the lives of other road users, passengers and pedestrians then on their head be it. And if one of my regulars tells me I have been undercut I tell them straight, look over that car before getting in and ask to see their insurance certificate, twice now I have been asked to collect a customer who has done those checks and found the car had no insurance or the car had 3 bald tyres!!!

 

I thought you'd pick up on that. Effectively the metered fare is the maximum you could charge. In town the profits were so small that most would offer the metered fare and no less. You need to do a lot of £3.20 jobs in an hour to make a profit. On a longer run such as an airport 80 miles away the metered fare would rate at £140 . I could discount the metered £140 to a reasonable £80 as this still covered my 4 hours of time, my petrol and running costs. The new boys discounted this further from the metered £140 to £45.

In other words there is more flexibility in a longer run. There's a bit more to it due to UK licencing peculiarities, but I won't bore you with those. (we have 2 types of taxi; taxi cab and private hire. They're almost identical to a member of public).

 

Unfortunately you get just as many who say you're putting the frighteners on them due to sour grapes. You'll also know that once word gets out that the Police are doing spot checks, drivers with suspect cars or insurance will remove their plates and return home. The Police are reluctant to check cabs as they're busy on a weekend already. The council don't want to generally as they have to pay staff extra. They'd all rather just ignore the problem, or at least that's my take on it.

 

Understood -- thanks.

Is the negotiation happening at the curbside ? Hopefully cabbies are not being called to drive somewhere for a pick-up and then driving away empty because a fare was not agreed upon.

 

Not really though it could happen. Our company wouldn't send you a long distance for a pickup without prepayment as a common scam was to book a cab from 3 companies and go with whichever turned up first. Generally long distance airport runs are usually prebooked and often prepaid via the taxi office. These rates are often advertised at the discounted rates. These would show on the cab computer and I'd always double check it with the customer before hand to ensure there were no undeclared diversions or extra pickups etc.

There can be negotiation at the road side for longer runs and depending on how busy it was would depend on whether you'd lower the rates. But £5 off a £30 fare on a quiet night is not the same as someone charging £45 on an £80 fare however quiet it was. A popular request was a late night reveler only having £10 to get home, which would have left them half a mile short. If they were up front and polite I'd just take then home. If they were a pain, then they'd be kicked out at £10.

Generally play it by ear. Most people were straight up.

 

So fuel cost you about £6 for the 160 miles round-trip if my arithmetic is correct.

I realize that this run to the airport is a most profitable one for the cabbie and covers a lot of wasted hours, but I'm not surprised to hear that it was 'democratized.'

 

£6 for 160 miles? lol you're having a laugh right? At £1.30 a litre (£5.90/$9.51 a UK gallon) and at 55 mpg UK on the motorway the run would cost £17.16/$27.67 if my sums are right. I worked on it being about £20 erring on the side of caution. That 160 miles was a 4 hour job. £80-£17.16 = £62.83 for me.

Without going into full details I had to make £50 a day BEFORE petrol to cover expenses, car, insurance, tax, council licence, tyres, mot, servicing, radio rental, fees etc. I worked a 10 hour day.

 

I may well be calculating wrong ... I'll try again:

$8/gallon(us)
50 MPG(us)
== 16 US cents a mile, or about 10p(uk) a mile

160 miles = 16£

Right you are.

--
What fraction of your trips to the airport would return with a fare ?

 

Very occasional. All airports were out of my jurisdiction. Empty return in 9/10 cases. If the timings of the flights match you can do a PREBOOKED return but you must not wait to pick up as that is for local cabs. They will not take kindly to you trying it on. You could wait for another flight but it's a no parking zone around most airports other than their parking. Entry to many airports is £2 and short term parking about £1 every 15 minutes after that - big con.

Out of that £63 I quoted above I had £50 for running costs to deduct. That left me £13 for 4 hours work but the rest of the 6 hours of my shift was for me, minus petrol for those fares. You can see that to try and get £15 an hour after petrol was difficult. Some days you got lucky, many you didn't.

Let's assume someone used a hybrid to do airport runs exclusively and that all flights fell in line to make the sums easy. They could charge £45 there and £45 for the return, or £90 for the original fare I used to charge. If they did that twice a day they'd make £180 - £40 fuel. That's £140. Now remove the £50 costs for the day and you have £90 for a days work. Sounds half reasonable until you realise you've just covered 320 miles for the day or 1,600 a week or 83,000 miles a year. Your Prius is only going to last 3 years at that so the £50 a day running costs would increase.

Some Americans may cover those miles in the US but remember we have 20% vat/sales tax on tyres, servicing, parts etc and $8 a gallon. Also, and this is the important part, we don't have a tipping culture. Sure cab drivers get tipped, but it's not expected or accounted for like in the US.

 

^^ fascinating, really.
So you were exposed to competition, but the airport cabbies are not.