Taxi Driver Online

First 100% electric black cab for 120 years launches in London

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -in-london

Converted Nissan van called the Dynamo licensed to help clean up capital’s ‘filthy air’


Image: The Guardian

The launch of a fully electric black cab for London has been hailed by the mayor for helping clean up the capital’s polluted air.

The Dynamo, a taxi converted from a Nissan electric van in a Coventry factory, is the first 100% electric taxi on the streets of London since 1899. Its predecessor, the Bersey, failed to take off at a time when most cabs were horse-drawn.

Only two vehicle types – both zero-emissions capable – can be issued with new Transport for London (TfL) taxi licences.

About 2,450 hybrid-electric cabs made by the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) have been licensed for operation in the capital since its introduction in January 2018. The LEVC model runs on a battery for about 70 miles, with a petrol engine “range extender” for use outside central London capable of up to 400 miles.

The Dynamo Taxi, based on the Nissan e-NV200 Evalia, has a range of up to 187 miles from a single charge. It costs £55,495, but drivers will be able to claim a £7,500 government grant for electric cars against the price.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he was delighted to see taxi-drivers “doing their bit to improve our filthy air”. Most of the 20,000 licensed black cabs in the capital are diesel.

He said: “Working with cabbies to go electric is a key part of our plans to improve London’s air quality. The Dynamo taxi will accelerate the retirement of polluting diesel taxis from city streets across the UK.”

London has set aside £42m to encourage drivers to trade in older, dirtier vehicles earlier. According to TfL, taxis account for 16% of vehicle nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in central London.

and we are supposed to be impressed with that

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Is it enough to get sarf o' the river at this time a night guv?

Well I'm most certainly not.

When it gets hot and you use the air-con, or the heaters in the winter, that 187 will be 150.

No doubt in a few years time it will be much better, but £55,000 to be a guinea pig is not something anyone with any sense will do.

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IDFIMH

Well, as I’ve previously mentioned, even their sales director (in an email to me) says he expects a ‘real world’ range of 130-140 miles and the price has increased by £2500 since this time last year.

It's actually come out after 5/6 years??!!. Again just like the LEVC the price is way over the viability margin for me.

Until they develop a system of say battery swap stations where you simply lift the battery out and pop a charged one in paying a fee for the "charge" they simply don't have enough for most cabbies

I am also sceptical of all these articles from cabbies/ph claiming their electric cars are wonderful and cheap to run

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

This was Tesla’s big idea several years ago, they even named the garages “power stations” but in the end they deemed it unworkable. It was all to do with the positioning of the battery packs and the safety aspect of this.
The new mpv from Mercedes (the EQV) has a range of 252miles and is basically a ‘v’ Class vehicle.
I think we have to forget about trying to charge “On the go” and just Charge the vehicle when we get home. A real world range of 200miles would do nicely.

Often from the likes in the Dundee trade who're allowed to run old diesels without restrictions, and would prefer the new drivers to run electric vehicles, which is compulsory for new HC and PH plates there

Interesting this on TaxiPoint recently, which was basically about the fact that only some London drivers will have access to a driveway, or whatever, thus only for them is home charging (and thus all-electric) a realistic prospect.

Over 40% of London’s cabbies will NEVER have capability to charge mandatory electric taxis at home

https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/over- ... is-at-home


Which more or less reflects what's been said before on here about having access to your own driveway to make an electric vehicle a realistic prospect, in the near future at least.

But that's what boils my pi$$ - the better off drivers are more likely to have access to a driveway, so ULEVs etc making things even worse for the drivers who are already not so well off.

Same in Dundee - the older drivers who maybe own their houses and made their money when the trade was a lot easier can still run old diesels, while new drivers - likely to be younger, maybe with family to support and unlikely to own a house - have to run electric vehicles

I normally find that those ratty old diesels are being rented to some poor sod for £150 a week which the owner is using to pay the finance on a nice efficient Euro 6