So basically if I have one job a day that will take me 30 miles from home, I will be f**ked. Yes or no?

This topic gives an outline of the practically of using electric taxis in the UK as of July 2014.

Current Taxi Operators using electric vehicles

There are a minimum of 6 operators already operating one of more electric vehicles. Two of these companies are fully dependent on electric vehicles. See the taxi examples in example EV fleets. There maybe more as there seems to be other people simply switching and not promoting the fact. If you know anyone that isn't on the list please let me know.

Reasons for switching

People are switching to using electric because of sound business reasons, the main one being operating cost. The vehicles can give approximate average real world (motorway driving inc winter) fuel savings as summarised below:

• an equivalent fuel cost of 350 mpg or
• £4,500/vehicle/year savings or
• £87/week savings

Basically enough for a two person cruise each year.

The return on investment (of the difference in purchase price) is recovered in around the first year and the vehicles are expected to be suitable for taxi work for around 3 years (at 160 miles/day, i.e. 48,000 miles/year). After that they can be sold on the second hand market which will be very interested in benefiting from the savings albeit at a lower range.

The result is that rather than having to do long distances to maximise profit, a new option exists where you can reduce costs instead.

Suitable scenarios

In order to make these savings it is not unreasonable to expect to have to modify behaviour, etc.

The range of the vehicles is enough to be practical in the generalised scenario below

• Use in large town/cities where there is plenty of local journey clients
• Use by PHVs to enable selection of local journey clients
• The driver needs
  • off road parking at home to charge overnight
  • access to a second vehicle in the household for the occasional longer household journeys
  • access to an on-site or public (within around 2-3 miles of the centre of operations) rapid charger that charges to 80% in around 30 minutes
  • to use slow time for recharging (it is likely that two 30 minute recharges/day are required, i.e. if busy all day the morning and afternoon tea breaks)

Also, people that switch to off-peak cheap electricity gain the full benefit of electric vehicles.

See more info at general myth buster.

Risks

The only real risk associated with an electric tax is if the rapid charger used is a public charger. Currently most rapid chargers are free to use. However, this isn't going to last for long and there is talk of charging drivers around the same as fossil fuel. This will reduce the savings. However, the more taxi drivers of a given operator switch to electric the more having an on-site rapid charger makes economic sense and there are currently grants available to install them (which we can help access)

As the number of electric vehicles on the road increase (it is expected that there will be 1 million electric vehicles in the UK by 2020) it is not practical to tax electricity, However I think what will happen is that road pricing (e.g. similar to the London congestion zone) will be applied more widely and to both conventional and electric vehicles. So the difference in savings will still exist thereby maintaining the government drive to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050.

I am happy to answer any genuine questions, so please don't by shy

So basically if I have one job a day that will take me 30 miles from home, I will be f**ked. Yes or no?

In a city you have to take in congestion and hold ups, returning to base or a rank, its not long before they need a recharge, sometimes a 2 mile journey could take you 5 miles to return.

So when you come up with a vehicle that can go from lands end to John O'Groats and back with min refuelling requirements then shout from the rooftops,
On 50 litres I can drive 750 miles on a long run, before the fuel warning comes on, and it only takes less than 5 mins to refuel, or 520 just on town work

What happens in winter when the lights are on the heater going then all the additional taxi PH equipment

Thanks for replies.



I hear this a lot when talking with taxi drivers. It isn't about doing the long journeys to maximise profit. Now, there is another option were if you choose to take local journeys you can increase you profits by about £80/week. That is why it currently only really works for PHV with lots of local fares which gives you the choose to accept a fare or not. So infact if an EV were suitable for your market then you wouldn't accept the long runs.

So it depends on the market demand. For example a rural small town may have 80% of market request airport runs, in which case currently an EV wouldn't be suitable.
However, larger towns and cities the percentage of local runs are a lot higher.

Arsharpe, have you heard that old term "lead from the front"


why dont YOU plate what you consider the best leccy car (Tesla or Ampera id say) and show what can be achieved?

Great Idea...and when your 2 seat Austin Spark or Morris Static 5W runs out of Leccy you can call us to get you and your clients home.

Thank you for your thoughts. It is obviously not for you, but there are people that it does work for and has already been demonstrated to work for several years.

For those of you do have geniune questions and don't feel this is the appropriate forum then please free to contact me directly.