Taxi Driver Online

Green mayor forced to pay £70 for taxi after electric car runs out of power

The country's first Green mayor was forced to pay £70 for a taxi after his brand new council-leased electric car ran out of power during an engagement.


Bill Randall with the Renault Fluence ZE Photo: CONNORS

The eco-friendly Renault Fluence ZE is leased to Brighton and Hove City Council but left mayor Bill Randall stranded after a visit to Chichester, Sussex.

The incident meant the mayor had to spend about £70 on a taxi to get him to another engagement on time.

This would be enough money to fully charge the electric car 28 times.

The brand new Renault Fluence ZE costs around £17,500 and £76 per month for the lease of the batteries.

The car will not be on general sale until autumn of this year, but one was leant by Renault to the council on a temporary basis.

Despite the embarrassing mishap the council have said there is no decision on whether the car will be kept past its initial six month loan.

After his appointment in May Coun Randall said: 'This is great news, not just for the environment but for the taxpayer too as the electric car won't cost them a penny.

'I think it sends out a good message and I'm sure Renault only did it because we are a Green Council.'

The council is covering running costs for the electric replacement during the loan period and is considering buying its own electric car.

A council spokesman said: 'We are happy with the performance of the electric car so far.

'Early indications suggest it works well around the city and may be making savings for us in fuel costs.

'However until the six-month free trial period is over no decisions will be made on whether to continue using an electric vehicle.

'We did have an incident recently during a visit to Chichester when topping us the charge took longer than anticipated and the mayor needed to be back in Brighton and Hove.

'As a result the mayor had to get a taxi back to Brighton.

'We will be taking this into account as part of our six-month review.'

The former mayor's car, a hybrid Toyota Prius, has been put up for sale.

A Freedom of Information request made in March this year to the council revealed that a council installed electric car charging point outside the Green party officers had been used just three times for a total of five minutes in seven months.

From July 2011 to February this year only 0.02kW of power was drawn from the point outside the offices in Hove, East Sussex.

The other eight charging points in Brighton - which cost up to £18,000 EACH to install - were used for a total of 913 hours and 28 minutes in 257 transactions during that time.

Brighton and Hove City Council is currently offering incentives to those using the points - it is free to use and will be until September 2012.

Users will also get three hours free parking while they are charging their cars.

At the time a council spokesman said: 'Low usage initially is inevitable - you have to first install the charging points before people will buy the vehicles and that's where we are at present.'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... power.html

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Serves the likes of him right...why should his community charge payers sponsor his green obsessions and why should he expect a car for nowt.

Greedy in the first place for taking a car Leant from Renault and also he shows a lack of patriotism by not using a green (if he must) car that's manufactured in Britain.


As for the Leccy power charging points that usage costs an average £167 for every hour of leccy it issued....If that's the way forward..forget it!!

So how many whip rounds do they have before they start using tax payers money?

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Plus another £? to get him from that engagement back home again, and another £? for the recovery of the electric car. And which numpty driving couldn't see the big gauge that says they have x number of miles left on the charge and didn't realise it wasn't enough for the journey, do they run out of petrol as well 'cos they never look at the gauge ?

And what's a Mayor in Brighton doing going to an engagement 33 miles away in Chichester, thought they only did local stuff ? £70 for a 33 mile cab ride - bargain to the taxpayers, did he just flag one off the street !

You are having a laugh. I used to drive our Mayor on engagements. Most of them were visits to other authorities for dinner. Each authority would organise at least 2 functions per year where all the other authorities in the area were invited. One of the visits each year would be down to the south coast for our Mayor to visit the Royal Navy boat adopted by our Borough. Only the boat is not actually named after our borough. It is not even named after a town in our Borough. It is named after a town in the next Borough but they didn't want to adopt it. That trip used to cost £800 for the transport. by the way, I didn't do that trip.

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Grandad,

Maybe green Mayors would benefit more from Electric Gravy Trains rather than Electric cars..

It also didn't mention the trip he took to London when he had to stay at a hotel costing ££££ss as the battery didn't have enough charge to get him back.

Clearly Green Mayors don't use the train.

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IDFIMH

M'thinks Renault would be less embarrassed if they were to take his 60watt Renault Fluence ZE off him before he does their Green reputation further harm..

Green also = naive.

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Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

he looks familiar

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

not that naive.......free car,free taxi, free lunch.....

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Well. You'd expect something for nowt for having to dress up like a refugee from Camberwick Green..

If he's green, then we should be allowed to paint him green

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I just got to thinking, I don't think Ive ever seen a Renault saloon as a Taxi or a PH! anyone ever used one for such?

i seen a couple of lagunas

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin