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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 05 2017, @09:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the blends-in-with-the-soot dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 1) by rumata on Wednesday December 06 2017, @04:04AM (1 child)

    by rumata (2034) on Wednesday December 06 2017, @04:04AM (#605981)

    Hey,

    another problem with quick-swap is that these packs tend to be big. So big that it makes a lot of sense to treat them as an integral part of the structure.

    Going with a modular / swappable pack means that you need to double up on that. The pack needs to be robust enough to survive handling/shipping/swapping on its own, and the car needs to be able to do the same. Maybe with advanced cleverness someone will come up with a way to make a swappable pack which shares (driving) loads with the chassis, but I suspect it is anything but trivial.

    Cheers,
    Michael

  • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday December 06 2017, @09:50AM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Wednesday December 06 2017, @09:50AM (#606057) Journal

    Cylindrical channels/tubes for structure that penetrate all the way through the units, use spacers [to reduce risk of stuff getting caught] that also serves as contact point for the batteries, make the batteries cylindrical of a slightly smaller diameter and shorter (about 50cm in length)*. This system will allow for designers to freely balance cooling and chemistry [battery, fuel cell (if designed for high airflow), miniature generator hooked up to adjacent fuel-packs (if designed for exhaust)] and also will allow for cooling in the cylinders themselves. Swap by simply pushing in new units from one end and catch the on the other. Pack only needs to carry itself and the stress in one direction of being pushed (kinda like a soda can with contents). (basic industrial design really - not fancy but it works)

    That will make the structural thing a separate part, also will allow for isolation of failed batteries (cut off the whole tube), and will make it easier to deal with fires in the batteries (just seal off or flush the afflicted tube). And if the car is properly designed (but they'll probably cheap on this) you could make it possible to retube the car as well.

    The issue will be access to the working faces, but maybe make the "skirt" of the car possible to fold up or something.
    Will have the extra advantage of allowing the same swapping-equipment to be used for trucks, cars, busses, military vehicles (and only require minimal changes for electric wheelchairs, albeit at that size you'd probably want a "single length swapper" instead) if the enginneers are allowed to think about flexibility for 15 minutes.

    (* = Look up "candu refuelling" to see this basic idea used in nuclear reactors)