Electric Cars are failing with Taxi Drivers

I saw a PIP taxi in West L.A. I wonder what his ev ratio is.

 

funny you should say that John ...only after smelling a ton of stink on the NY Times /Tesla smear - did it dawn on me that this story may be simple sensationalization too. Please overlook my back of the napkin calculations here. Even in the 1870's there were an estimated 40,000 + rickshaws in Japan. So for round numbers let's say we're talking 100,000 Japanese taxis modernly ( you can always double or triple the number at your leisure ). Say they replaced 1% of all taxis in Japan with EVs ( probably less but you can still follow the logic ). Based on that let's say we have 1,000 leaf taxis that we're talking about . In the article it states a FRACTION of these will QC as much as 6x or 7x/day. 5% of the Leafs?? Let's get liberal & use 10%. Now we're talking 100 Leafs. Once again we've beat a dead horse ... we've determined electric cars aren't for everybody all the time ... maybe only 90% percent of the time. "Stop the Press!! "
Stupid media ... drama ... anything for a story.

By the same drama logic we should have killed off laptops in the mid eighties. The batteries sucked and the unit itself cost thousands - and that was back before the dollar was deflated tremendously. The hard drive in my first one ( back when most didn't have hard drives ) was a whopping 20megs ... and per meg, memory cost in the thousands. Somewhere between then and now the hand ringers seem to have have taken over -
" oh look - it's failing"
"oh it's not practical" -
"oh it's no good" -
"oh if it's not better and cheaper and easier then I want no part of it"

Jumping back to my pathetic first laptop ... it "wowed" me if only for its spreadsheets ... not having to redo tons of "what if" math ... and what a time saver and a bargain and a great utility this thing was.
I'm really not trying to win over all the naysayers ... they existed for the first autos - the first airplanes and the first PCs. I'm just hoping the ratio between nay sayers and early adapters isn't diminished each successive generation, as technology continues to make life easier and easier for so many.
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Yep. Would REALLY like to know how many capacity bars those Leaf taxis have lost, more about their driving habits and how they're arriving at those range figures.

Also, would be interesting to know if Nissan tested any of the battery packs to determine how much capacity they've lost, beyond the not very granular battery capacity indicator (pic at File:Scott 3 bars s.jpg - MyNissanLeaf, mapping at Battery - MyNissanLeaf that was removed from later revisions of the Leaf service manual, for unknown reasons).

 

260,000 was the number that came up in google, 60,000 in Tokyo. I have no idea how many leaf taxis there are, but it will be a small percent of Japan.

I can't quite figure out why Nissan thought the leaf would make a good taxi, but obviously they did, and this is not good PR for them. The media of course will act as if this is about BEVs and blow things out of proportion. Let's face it Japan is not buying the leaf in the numbers Nissan had hoped and bet on. That does not mean it will not get successful in its next run, but America may turn out to be a stronger market than japan, and that requires different messaging.

 

^^^
FWIW, Nissan's been broadcasting the Leaf as a taxi a bit recently like at

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According to this Boston article;
US bill could pave way for hybrid taxi fleets - The Boston Globe

Gee! imagine that ... after a (likely/nearly) quarter million miles of back to back QC'ing ... the Leaf batteries have lost excess capacity !!​

That's crazy talk !!​

Now if my (bad) math is ok, at $4+ gallon ... 10mpg ... 220,000 miles over 2years of taxi driving? - you just blew through 22,000 gallons of gas, or $88,000 not counting oil changes, tune ups ... smog checks etc. Stupid EV's ...
Gee . . . I wonder how many replacement/refurbished battery packs I could buy with that $88,000 ...

 

I agree with what John said earlier, its different in EU. I am mystified sometimes when I go to EU to see the power plant management. One thing is we have more nat gas. CoGen is always a good idea, where the waste steam from a power plant can be used in a refinery or other plant. CoGen can get you 40-50% efficency in a coal power plant, but we do not do as much here....we like 30% efficiency.

 

bad EV news makes a good story, no doubt. Maybe Nissan didn't think Leafs would be a good Taxi. Maybe Nissan's actuarial folks found more value in knowledge/experience obtained from higher numbers of real world Leaf miles on traction packs being abused in the worst conditions ... freezing cold ... high heater use ... hot/humid days with batteries getting cooked 7x a day via high QC use. When Nissan commissions this likely scenario, it makes me wonder what else could it be.

 

Those kind of miles work out to around 300 miles a day. That sounds like fuel savings would pay for a tesla S 85 kwh All you need is a quick charger at the depot. Still a phev taxi fleet would make the most sense if someone could build them with room for luggage and good range. Still camry, fusion, prius, prius v, c-max hybrids would save a great deal of fuel in the taxi fleet.

 

Divide 110,000 miles by 265 days, 24 hours a day. Now work out how long you will be charging to even achieve that. Then remember that you'll not be able to complete those miles as that 110 mile airport run one way is a non starter before you set off. It won't add up, believe me.

My old company had some fleet taxis that covered 100,000 a year and they were worked 24/7 and worked hard. They never had time to cool down. An EV is never going to handle that.

The could handle a more gentle 10 hour daily shift from a owner driver, but even then it's debatable as earlier figures show. It's not all about replacing fuel cost savings with the battery or even servicing parts. It's the time involved in charging (repeatedly) and more importantly, finding the charger where you actually need it.

 

A charger at a depo is great, assuming you're anywhere close. Chances are, you're 50 miles away when you need a top up. Even if you're only 10 miles away, you're not going to want to drive 10 wasted miles in traffic to waste 30 mins charging, assuming it's not already being used, to then head off out looking for business. Even in a small time where I worked, I'd be upset having to return to base every 50 miles or so to charge. Remember, you have go to leave a safety buffer incase you get caught short on a job. No point running the charge down to the last 10 miles and having a customer suddenly decide they want to add a further 10 miles to their journey.

I had so many 2 mile journeys turn into 30 mile ones that I lost count. Your own personal taxi usage patterns don't necessarily reflect what others out there cover.

 

What I was thinking is with the Tesla's much longer range, 3.6x longer epa range than the 2011 leaf taxis, that it would be a much better fit for taxi duty. I doubt that even on very cold days you would need to charge the Tesla faster than every 100 miles, and that a quick charger at the depot along with the other public charger would make this much more doable. That's not for every cab driver but for many. If gas really costs $40K a year, the price of the car makes less of a difference

 

A combination of of BEVs and EREVs could probably serve the Taxi industry well. I keep thinking the VIA Escalade conversions, with a fast charger, could replace the airport limo fleet for business clients.

 

EREV type vehicles are most commonly referred as PHEVs.
Just to make a point that all kinds of PHEVs are also elegible (not only one kind, like Chevrolet Volt once was defined).

 

unfortunatly, the more generic PHEV, like the PiP, are not zero emissions while in the city.

 

Unfortunately, one more specific PHEV, like the Volt, exceeds Prius average emissions while in CS mode, which in case of continuous service (not pluging in) may be the case, while in the city.

 

We are talking EV range here. Emission and CS MPG are irrelevant.

 

There goes the EREV. Only BEV counts then.

 

2011 Nissan Leaf At Two Years: 32,000 Miles, No Signs Of Age

2011 Nissan Leaf At Two Years: 32,000 Miles, No Signs Of Age

 

Not surprised, he is in UK, latitude 50-57 degree.
No hot weather degradation to battery.
BTW, no major US city has latitude above 50 degrees.