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BBC:
Electric black taxis have hit London's roads under plans to improve air quality but critics say their cost will put drivers off "going green".
The cab costs £55,599 up from £45,000 for the newest petrol equivalent.
Chris Gubbey, boss of manufacturer the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) insists the cab will "play a major role in helping to improve air quality".
The launch comes weeks ahead of rules requiring new cabs in the capital to be capable of emitting zero emissions.
More than 9,000 such taxis, roughly half the current black cab fleet, are expected on London's roads by 2021.
The £10K price difference should break even in two years of savings on fuel, less if maintenance costs are factored in. But will that make up for lost revenue from fares the cabs can't accept while recharging?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 06 2017, @12:05AM (1 child)
Why? What would that solve? Its a serious question. You haven't thought through the economics here.
You would propose then to pay the highest price possible for disposal/recycle, well in excess of the actual cost of such services (because technology will bring the cost down in the meantime, and the price of recovered materials is only going to rise over time).
Everything except the puke smell in a Taxi is recyclable. Especially the batteries, which can be "mined" for all sorts of metals, the motors may need new bearings and brushes (are those even used?) to be ready for re-use or recycled for the metal.
Toyota already has in place a blanket $200 offer on the worst condition battery packs for old Prius cars. Problem is, the damn things just won't die. And even after they leave auto service they find their way into energy storage use that is less demanding. Because of position in the car, Prius batteries usually survive crashes. Its the Least often replaced part on a Prius, and you never have to buy at factory price because scrap yards will sell them to you for half or a third of that price.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 06 2017, @03:55PM
the motors may need new bearings and brushes (are those even used?)
No, of course not. No one uses brushed motors for anything these days. Even consumer-grade cordless power tools at Home Depot are advertising brushless motors right on the package. Brushed motors are completely obsolete thanks to high-density and inexpensive power electronics: it just doesn't cost much to make a BLDC motor controller. Even simple little fans in your PC use brushless motors.
Toyota already has in place a blanket $200 offer on the worst condition battery packs for old Prius cars. Problem is, the damn things just won't die.
They do die: individual cells go bad over time, or (this might be only on older units) they have corrosion problems with some of the connections. But there's YouTube videos showing how to rebuild your Prius batteries, so I imagine there's specialists out there who buy up the bad (or partial-capacity) battery packs and rebuild them for resale, since brand-new ones from the manufacturer cost an absolute fortune.