2 ... 2 ...Taxis on Trial
A taxicab cannot just be painted yellow, get the taxi stickers and be on the streets. New cars first have to be suggested to the Taxi and Limousine Commission, then the TLC can decide to put vehicles through a probationary period, or not. During such a period, courageous drivers can decide to purchase the vehicles that are pending acceptance. The TLC then keeps a closer eye on the trial vehicles seeing if they can hold up to the stop and go, the potholes, the demons, and the tight twisty lanes of our so called expressways. Within three years or so it is decided whether these vehicles are worthy.
The LTI Taxi, famous as a London cab, even did a stint in our city. For some reason, I don't think it was approved. I don't ever see it anymore.
The LTI meets our growing need for a car with lots of passenger room with easy accessibility. One of the key qualifications for a taxi in London is to have a tight turning radius. The LTI, I could imagine, can turn in a tighter circle than any cab in New York, and possibly all of America. According to their own website, the new LTI gets 25.5 MPG in the city with an automatic, so I assume that translates to 20 mpg in NYC, not particularly special but still better than our Ford Crown Victoria. Also LTI's have a wheelchair access ramp that the driver can slide out from the passenger door to the curb. This one and only New York LTI cab was spotted circa 2005
The Mercedes-Benz E300 D is another extremely popular international taxi from what I've heard from friends who've been to Greece and Israel. Yeah we tried that one too, beats me why it didn't cut whatever is in our mustard. It was rumored that the one driver who owned it, only drove in midtown and would refuse all longer rides. I saw the Mercedes once; the dude was chillen' with his windows down and the sunroof open smoking a cigar. The car had no partition between the driver and passenger, which is a choice drivers can opt for if they purchase a camera that takes a picture of each passenger, however, if the taxicab was considered too small, the TLC might have mandated the camera instead of the partition. RayNYC, who found the image, did his research, and according to the TLC there were just two in operation. He also told me the driver told him the car was twice the price of the Crown Victoria, but gas was half the price. I saw the Mercedes E class taxi circa 1998.
Around the same time the two Mercedes' were on the road, two Lincoln Town Cars were being driven with taxi medallions too. Just like the Mercedes pictured above, they didn't seem to get the right hue of yellow paint as the rest of the taxis. The Town Car was doing extremely well in sales at this time, grabbing almost a strangle hold on the American limo market maintaining a large enough size to satisfy the clientele. A key feature was the air suspension which came in handy on the city streets, evening out almost all the bumps on the road to a smooth gentle ride.
Basically The Town car is a very glorified Ford Crown Victoria, and so for double the price, it wasn't worth using as a taxicab in my opinion, but there are differences such as the air suspension. Today both the Lincoln Town Cars and the Ford Crown Victorias hold respectively overpowering leads in the limousine and taxicab markets. It is their easy and cheap maintenance and reliability, plus their size, and their comfortable ride which give these cars their dominance in these markets. The Town Car outnumbers all other luxury cars by a huge margin in New York City. This market dominance grabbed hold in the early 90's when Lincoln's maintained a constant large size over the Cadilac which changed sizes of their cars from year to year, and Lincoln held the market with their good reliability. However the Town Car wasn't approved.
The Chrysler PT Cruiser Lithium-Ion taxi was promised to drive 150 miles between charges and have a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour. Negatively it would take 6 hours to recharge and it would cost between 50 and 75 thousand dollars, however it was predicted to save a driver up to 15 thousand a year.
At the time it seemed almost as likely for this car to work as it did for the Ford Escape Hybrid. Retrospectively, the PT Cruiser was a laugher. This crack team of professionals who had bragging rights of working with government and (?) NASA contracts for electric vehicles, couldn't make a car capable for the job. It couldn't handle the cold weather for one. Secondly, only once did the Cruiser cruise for 90 miles, usually it only traveled 40 in a day, the rest of the time it was being towed. The average mileage I travel in my shift is between 100 and 200 miles, usually somewhere just under 150. This PT Cruiser must have been a hallucination, 'cause I never seen it.
Brainstorming in 2007
It was only so many months ago, but it was the beginning of an attempt at a renaissance in taxi awareness. With hybrid technology making Ford Crown Victrorias look pathetic besides its impending end of production, the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission had to take visible steps towards a new industry standard taxicab. 2007 marked the 100th year of the taxi cab in New York, and so it was time to shake things up. The NYC taxi was realized as an icon of the city, and so they began to work with a design team to create ideas for a taxi with greater passenger access, more user friendly credit card machines, and a logo that would give the taxi a brand identity, something easy to recognize and understand like any good corporate logo.
STILL CONSTRUCTING:.....
Standard Taxi
Penta?
Taxi Concept for 2008:
Ford Transit Connect
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