Report on the electric Taxi event in the City Hall Marquee: From our Roving Reporter.
No doubt this early start was to enable his press release to make it to his uncritical cronies at the Evening Standard and to avoid questions from the 'oiks' of the cab trade!
Anyhow as predicted, obtaining hard information on all the critical issues that drivers and fleet owners need, such as the above and others such as battery pack life and renewal costs, were like catching a slippery fish.
Also on show, along side the MetroCab and the modified LTI TX4 was the Turish Karsan and whilst they were all certainly pleasant to talk to, no one knew anything for definite.
LTI showed off their TX Hydrogen fuel cell.
For all the TX fans there is great news on fuel comsumption. LTI will be fitting a lighter chassis/Monocoque.
The most helpful marketing team were the Turkish outfit KARSAN that originally developed this concept for the big apple, but lost out to the Nissan NV200 Taxi of Tomorrow.
Back to the mayors pronouncement that no new vehicle will be licensed from 2018 unless it's zero emissions.
We are all making the assumption that you can buy a current model on the 31st of December 2017 and run it for 15 years.
BUT....and there's a couple of a great big BUTs that none of the TfL staff could answer:
* Will a 2017 Euro 5 cab still be exempt the congestion charge?
* Will a 2017 Euro 5 cab still be exempt the congestion charge?
* Can they continue to Rank Up or Ply for Hire in the proposed zero emissions zone?
As ever more questions than answers, the only definite outcome from today is that the resale value of current cabs just went south big time.
Be Lucky!
Taxi Leaks Roving Reporter
Taxi Leaks Roving Reporter
PHOTO GALLERY:
All photos ©2014 FitzTaxi.