Finest, greenest, & safest taxicab in the world. The story of cab 2545

maybe the man has o contract with toyota to be all smiles about his prius !!! haha i want to see him be so offensive about toyota when he starts dishing out money left and right for batteries. its like he is new in the trade and thinks its all gain and winnings !!! but batteries that die out at less than 200000km is not an expense that a professional would put up with if it was known .and thats a fact !!! IF I HAD KNOWN THAT THE BATTERIES DIE BEFORE 200K I WOULD HAVE NEVER EVER BOUGHT THIS CAR !!! AND I DONT THINK HOW CHEAP A SALVAGED BATTERY IS ...IT IS STILL A MAJOR WASTE OF MONEY !

 

NOTATION . there is nothing wrong as of yet at 135000 km with my cab yet .

 

Socrates, I realize you may be fearing a cost to come, I can understand...

But look on what you have avoided (so far and beyond): clutch, turbo, pads, egr, fuel, starter, alternator, dualmass flywheel, injectors, glow plugs...

 

Classy taxi. Love the look. It will be interesting following your post. Most people, other than owners, have almost zero experience with a Prius. Would love to hear some of the comments, (pro and con) from your customers. Keep us updated.

 

DIESEL REALLY SUCKS YOU GOT A POINT THERE ! BUT IF ITS GOING TO BE THE SAME COST TO MAINTAIN .... 2 BADS DONT MAKE A GOOD .I SAY

 

And your local back street taxi garage can fix a diesel with ease and very cheaply. The Prius in Europe is still weird to them and thus requires main dealer diagnostics if things go wrong.

My steering motor has gone twice at a cost of about £1,800 EACH. Now a steering pump can go on a diesel, but they don't cost that! My inverter went pop at 71k miles at a cost of about £1,500 fitted and needed main dealer diagnostic.

If I was still in the taxi game I'd have to think long and hard about getting another Prius. Nice ride, cheap on fuel, but not as reliable as I was let to believe and a royal pita when it went wrong.

 

grumpy i just spoke to a other woman taxi owner he hybrid battery died at 180000km she just made it in warranty but the next batt isn't covered at 180 but at 100km . and to top it all of something is up with her computer they tell her and the screen doesn't come on in the morning until the car warms up,,, they told her to run it like that until full fail !!! hahahaaaa

 

I disagree. I've seen many posts from Mr S and he was initially a supporter of the Prius as a taxi, as was I.

I think there is definitely a big difference between European and US taxi driving or environments. This is a response that I posted today in another thread on here explaining the typical taxi environment I drove in. And when I said drove in, I mean 10 hours a day. If my car ever got the chance to go more than half a mile without stopping, it was a luxury.

If I ever managed to get upto or over 30 mph in an average day, then it was an exception. Most inner city/town limits are 30 mph and slow moving, meaning the car is often on electric and isn't going quick enough to switch the engine on for any significant length of time. Obviously all towns and road networks are different, but my town was rather compact with lots of congested arterial routes and slow(er) side roads with lots of speed humps and 20 mph speed limits. By the time you ever get upto 30 mph, you're slowing down for a speed bump or a junction.

I've never driven in America but guess it's much more wide open and the traffic generally free-er moving than here. I appreciate you have traffic jams as we all do, but my driving was a 10 hour traffic jam where one was lucky to get to 30 mph. I sang the praises of the Prius, I read the report about the Canadian cab company that ran one to 1,000,000 km with no issues and assumed that even if I got 200,000 miles out of the battery then I'd be happy. As it is, I retired my Prius from taxi work at 64,000 miles and yesterday my HV battery fan came on and my level indicator dropped to 2/8 bars. It wasn't a hot day as was about 4c/39f and I'd only just been driving about 15 minutes. That's before my well documented failure of the inverter at 71k miles and the failure of two steering motors. To show how different my use patterns are compared to the US, my brakes needed replacing every 30,000 miles! No I wasn't being ripped off by the Toyota dealers as I got them double checked by a trusted garage.

The Prius is designed for US sales and it would appear it shows. I fear if my Prius was still used as a taxi, the HV battery would also have failed. With hindsight it was showing signs of this around 55k miles.

 

No, that sounds exactly like a typical weekday in New York, Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco, and pretty well all the other major US cities I've driven in.

 

Then there must be a difference between the US and the Euro versions then.

I still don't think any American taxi suffers to the same extent as our narrow, slow and congested streets. I will be interested to see how the owners in places like Thailand get on with battery issues though. I think they have more congestion than us.

I'm not making up the issues I've experienced and anyone who knows me from my time on here will know that generally I've been very positive about the Prius BUT it is now turning round and biting me on the ***. The fact that other European users are having issues indicates something is up somewhere. Either the car is significantly different OR the driving environment is. My money is on the latter.

 

Also remember that temperature is just as important for battery life as age and charge cycles. In a hot climate, the car sitting in the sun all day, and driving without using the air conditioning to push cool air through the battery, it may last only half as long.

All of the representative statistics from credible sources that I have seen tend to indicate that the Prius is one of the most dependable cars on the planet.

Several years ago, Toyota issued a statement that despite many requests for a taxi-package in the US, they would not officially offer a taxi version of the Prius, because it had not originally been designed or tested for such extreme duty, and they did not know how it would hold up.

Within Europe, and even within countries in Europe, there are also large differences in driving styles and conditions. It may well be that under certain extreme conditions, the Prius reaches the limits of its design capacity. However, there are also cab companies in Europe who have operated fleets of Prius for many years, and continue to be rewarded with above average reliability, and below average costs.

 

3600 miles in three weeks !!!! that is some driving ... your post on27 Feb said 63.000

But if you drive 7 days a week it comes to 170+ a day ... I would have thought a taxi logs more

 

Just to give an idea of the conditions I used to drive in and probably a good explanation of why I suffered 'issues' with my car, you might want to read the following. My town is the 3rd worst for congestion in the UK after London and one road in Manchester. The average speed coming in at 1.5 mph. No, not 15 mph but 1 point 5 mph. Now at that sort of speed, the car is going to undergo a lot of strain. Other cars seem to manage taxi use in these conditions, but the Prius did appear to suffer more. Even the Peugeot I had (the but of many of Clarksons jokes about reliability) was more reliable that the Prius and never actually broke down leaving me stranded.

Harrogate road among UK’s most congested - Business - Harrogate Advertiser

 

With that speed/congestion, I think you may have been better off with a rickshaw...
Having seen both England/London and USA/Washington DC, I do agree that it looks a bit rougher over in England than here. Streets are narrower, turns tighter, the traffic doesn't really flow as well with everyone trying to merge into single lanes, and you guys drive on the wrong sides of the road, too.

 

I live in NY there are still a fair number of GenII taxicabs are running in NYC. Last year was 2009 when GenII was sold (new) ... it would be good to hear from some cabies in NYC for comparison. I am driving my Prius in NYC daily (not a cab of course).

 

Awesome real world testing.. "pedal to the metal" and still 35mpg! that's great. Is that calculated or computer?