taxi

  • Frazer-Nash Metrocab London taxi

    Starting in 2018, all new taxis in London will need to be capable of running as zero-emission vehicles--a policy recently announced by Mayor Boris Johnson. That's quite a promise, and a significant engineering push will be needed to make it happen. But already, several manufacturers are working on taxis to help make the British capital a cleaner place. Currently, London's streets are among the most polluted in Europe. The evidence of the decades of soot thrown out from diesel taxis and buses can be seen on curbs and building facades around the city, but it's the effect on residents that's the...

  • 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car tested as taxi in New York City, April 2013
    NYC Issues Roadmap For Electrifying One Third Of Taxis By 2020

    New York City hopes to electrify one third of its taxi fleet by 2020.

  • Metrocab range-extended London taxi unveiled by Boris Johnson
    New Electric Taxi To Make London's Black Cabs A Little Greener

    London's famous retro-style black taxis are as much a part of the landscape as Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament, but so too is the pollution they create. The diesel engines used over several generations of taxi have been picked for their durability--racking up many hundreds of...

  • Toyota Camry Hybrid NYC Taxi [Photo: Flickr user gomattolson]
    Will NYC Taxis End Up The Same Mix Of Hybrids As Any Other City?

    So what will New York City's next taxi be? As little as a week ago, you might have assumed that Nissan's NV200 'Taxi of Tomorrow' would become the dominant cab in NYC. That plan has now been curtailed, at least to some degree, by a state Supreme Court ruling that the city's plan to standardize its...

  • 2014 Nissan NV200 Taxi, New York City's Taxi of Tomorrow
    NYC 'Taxi Of Tomorrow' Rule Deemed Unlawful; Fatal Blow?

    The power to contract and compel medallion owners to purchase the Nissan NV200 from Nissan for 10 years does not exist in the City Charter. And with that sentence, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shlomo Hagler ruled yesterday that New York City's plan to standardize its 14,000 medallion taxis is...

  • 2012 Tesla Model S beta vehicle, Fremont, CA, October 2011
    Could Google Buy Tesla? Should It?

    Speculating on what will happen to Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] can be endlessly entertaining, and the discussions have taken up terabytes of server space already. But last week, a Forbes contributor suggested an intriguing notion: Should search giant Google buy Tesla? The conventional wisdom has been...

  • First Nissan NV200 New York "Taxi of Tomorrow" rolls off the line in Mexico

    New York, your Taxi of Tomorrow is on its way--as the first examples have just rolled off the line at its factory in Mexico. Taxi of Tomorrow is another name for Nissan's NV200 van, chosen by the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission as the city's official taxi--replacing cars like the venerable Ford Crown Victoria. Nissan has already confirmed (via Indian Autos Blog) high demand for the Taxi of Tomorrow, and the Cuernavaca plant is working 23 hours per day, six days a week to cope. Unlike the Crown Vics, many of which are repurposed ex-police vehicles, the Taxi of Tomorrow is...

  • 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car tested as taxi in New York City, April 2013
    One New York Cabbie Loves His Nissan Leaf Electric Taxi

    There can be few tougher tests for a car than as a taxi in New York City. Tough roads and even tougher traffic makes the city a workout for any vehicle, but one cabby is enjoying the Nissan Leaf he's driving as part of the city's electric vehicle trials. In fact, driver Uppkar Singh Thind described...

  • 2014 Hindustan Ambassador BS4 diesel
    New Clean-Ish Diesel For World's Oldest Production Car (In India)

    You've likely never heard of a Hindustan Ambassador--and unless you're an old British-car geek, you've certainly never seen a Morris Oxford Series III. But the Ambassador--fondly known as the "Amby"--is both India's de facto taxi cab and the oldest production car in the world. Now it's been fitted...

  • Traffic
    Can Smartphone Apps & Carsharing Really Cut Cars On The Road?

    Sometimes, change is painful, devastating -- just ask the folks at Blockbuster Video or the residents of any neighborhood that's been split by new freeways. Sometimes, change is wonderful, life-giving -- just ask the folks at Netflix or ambulance drivers who now have faster ways to get from the...

  • 2014 Nissan NV200 Taxi, New York City's Taxi of Tomorrow
    OK, NYC Taxis Can Be Hybrids After All, City Says

    Politics in New York City are a tough, bruising game. Pit a billionaire Mayor with a desire to make the city work better and cut carbon emissions against the entrenched interests of taxi owners, and you get an ongoing battle. The latest skirmish is a concession by the NYC Taxi and Limousine...

  • BYD e6 electric taxi in service in Shenzhen, China
    BYD e6 Electric Taxi Fleet Launched In Hong Kong To Cut Pollution

    It might not be going on sale to U.S. consumers, but the BYD e6 will eventually appear in the U.S. in commercial fleets--perhaps to a taxi stand near you. Taxi duties seem to be the e6's true calling, and it's already operating in China in just such a role. Now it's going on duty in Hong Kong too...

  • BYD e6

    BYD, a company struggling to sell its e6 electric crossover in its home market, has decided it won't be sold at all to private customers in the U.S. Instead, says the ChinaEV blog, the e6 will be a fleet-only vehicle in the U.S, as the company instead concentrates on its electric bus sales in North America. BYD, which stands for 'Build Your Dreams', makes a range of vehicles in the Asia-Pacific market, from compact cars right up to commercial vehicles and buses. The company recently announced those projects may be coming to an end, as it seeks to stem falling profits by putting more effort...

  • 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid New York taxi (Image: eBay Motors)
    Used High-Mileage Hybrids, Yellow Taxi Paint Thrown In For Free

    We've talked about the longevity of hybrid cars on several occasions before, usually when some myth about batteries dying at ridiculously short intervals comes up. But just how much faith would you put in a high-mileage hybrid? Enough to part with your cash for an ex-NYC Ford Escape Hybrid taxi?...

  • 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car tested as taxi in New York City, April 2013
    NYC Officially Launches Nissan Leaf Electric Taxi Program

    Within a few weeks, a handful of New Yorkers each day will ride in a new kind of taxi: an all-electric Nissan Leaf. On Monday, to celebrate Earth Day, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg joined with Nissan officials to announce that six Nissan Leaf taxis would go into service this spring. The...

  • 2014 Nissan NV200 Taxi, New York City's Taxi of Tomorrow
    Formerly Hybrid-Hating NYC Cab Owners Slam Taxi Of Tomorrow...Because It's Not Hybrid (Yet)

    New York cabbies love their hybrid taxis--they're far more efficient than previous taxi designs, and proving incredibly reliable too. But those hybrids are under threat from Nissan's NV200 'Taxi of Tomorrow'--van-turned-cab which won a contest to provide New York City with virtually all of its...

  • 2013 Nissan Leaf (Japanese trim)
    Japan's Electric Taxis Falling Out Of Favor With Drivers

    All is not well with Japan's electric taxi drivers. Two years ago, in February 2011, the city of Osaka introduced a fleet of fifty Nissan Leaf taxis. The deal was a cooperative arrangement between Nissan, 30 taxi firms, and the government--each was being subsidized to the tune of 1,780,000...

  • Toyota Camry Hybrid NYC Taxi [Photo: Flickr user gomattolson]
    Toyota Doesn't Seek Hybrid Taxi Sales--Cabbies Just Love Them Anyway

    Taken a taxi anywhere recently? Nowadays, there's a pretty good chance that if you have, it's been a hybrid--low running costs and great reliability records are starting to make them popular with drivers, as gas prices creep ever upwards. Toyota's Prius and Camry Hybrids are becoming a familiar...

  • BYD e6 electric taxi in service in Shenzhen, China

    With Hong Kong's poor air quality responsible for thousands of deaths every year, the city is desperately seeking ways to curb escalating pollution. Plans to take many of the city's dirtiest vehicles off the streets should help, but electrification of the city's taxi fleet is another possibility. Nissan, BYD and Toyota may soon all be supplying plug-in vehicles to Hong Kong's taxi fleet, reports Energy and Capital (via Autoblog Green). Hong Kong's streets rumble to the sound of over 550,000 vehicles, only 310 of which were fully electric, by April 2012. Electrifying much of the city's...

  • Hybrid New York Taxi by Flickr user Yodel Anecdotal
    U.S. Taxis Get Greener; Hybrid & Electric Cabs Increasing

    For decades, the stalwart of the taxi ranks has been the full-size sedan. Sturdy, simple and cheap to buy, cars like Ford's Crown Victoria have become part of the landscape in cities like New York. But with rising gas prices and concerns over emissions, things are really changing. While not yet a...

  • Ford Escape Hybrid New York Taxi. Image by Flickr user Jason Tabarias
    NYC's Hybrid Taxis Stay On The Road As Sandy Gas Shortages Hit

    As the U.S. East coast copes with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and New York City breathes life back into its flooded 105-year old subway system, public transit is currently in short supply. News images of huge queues for gas, people queuing around the block for buses and tens of thousands...

  • BYD e6 electric crossover to be used by London taxi fleet greentomatocars
    BYD e6 Electric Crossover Will Be London Taxi, Still MIA In U.S.

    The city of London, England is set to have its first all-electric taxi fleet from the second quarter of 2013. Taxi company greentomatocars and Chinese carmaker BYD have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will see greentomato cars running a fleet of 50 BYD e6 electric crossovers...

  • Better Place Battery Swap Station
    Coda, Better Place Team Up To Make SF Electric Taxi Fleet

    Back in 2010, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency was awarded a $7 million regional grant to oversee a fleet of 61 electric taxi cabs, complete with four battery sapping stations. Two years later, neither the taxi cabs, nor the battery swap stations have been launched. According to...

  • 2014 Nissan NV200 Taxi, New York City's Taxi of Tomorrow
    Nissan's Taxi Of Tomorrow Could Kill Off NYC's Hybrid Taxis

    Just as London has its iconic black cabs, New York would be a distinctly different place without thousands of Ford Crown Victorias cruising its streets, in their distinctive yellow livery. Even so, the past decade has seen vehicles like the Ford Escape Hybrid becoming a popular yellow cab...

News First Drives Electric Cars Hybrids Guides Green Life