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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 Grishnakh on Thursday December 07 2017, @01:49AM
Try finding space in London that is convenient for cabbies to get to and has space to build a hot swap station, I doubt you'd find anywhere central.
I'm not familiar with the London taxi service, but surely they already have some kind of depots they use. I was just proposing re-using those. Now of course, this could be faulty thinking on my part; if they have all the garages way outside the city and just drive in every morning, then obviously that isn't too useful for mid-day swaps.
Regardless, you're right about charging points, and the other posters who've pointed out that even Leafs with their small 80-100 mile range have worked well as cabs, shows that my battery-swap idea really isn't necessary, and just recharging during their regular breaks should be sufficient.
I think it's also worth pointing out that these taxis should do much better on electric power than fossil fuels (diesel in their case): these vehicles do lots of low-speed start/stop driving and idling in traffic, so they probably get horrifically bad fuel economy, much like garbage trucks. Electric vehicles do far, far better in these conditions since they have regenerative braking and don't have such a huge efficiency penalty on accelerating from a stop the way a gas/diesel engine does, nor do they waste energy idling the way gas/diesel engines do.