NYC Taxi

NYC just lost a court case where they were going to require one particular make of taxi. And then that taxi was a four-cylinder mini-van that gets 25 MPG .

I would have recommended something like a Chrysler 300 with a MB BlueTec V6 turbo-diesel and that would be something like 30 MPG . Also, these new turbo-diesels don't puff smoke, meet emission requirements, and have a lot of torque. Of course high-torque engines are perfect for city driving .

More likely available would be the VW Passat TDI with a four-cylinder turbo-diesel and that gets 30/40 MPG .

But NYC could use this taxi setback as an opportunity to do something else. NYC could require zero-tailpipe taxi emissions for the year 2018 or so.

Now how can taxi's be zero-tailpipe emissions ? Well, since they can use central refueling locations the taxi's could be fuel-cell vehicles. And several car makers have been saying that fuel-cell vehicles would be available around the year 2015. In fact the country of Germany is planning a system of hydrogen refueling stations .

And so NYC, which has very large and concentrated taxi usage, could have fuel-cell taxi's.

Of course, a fuel-cell vehicle produces electricity from hydrogen (without combustion) and that runs an electric motor. The fuel-cell vehicle has the advantage over an electric-vehicle in that it weighs less and can be refueled quickly .

Then the hydrogen is produced by steaming natural gas at a commercial plant.. It is possible to reform the hydrogen from natural gas at the refueling station but this is not often done (except at waste treatment plants which reform hydrogen from their methane gas) .

Furthermore, there is significant usage of fuel-cell forklifts at major warehouses . And there are funded projects of city buses using fuel-cells
..

London has some fuel-cell taxi's but unfortunately they use an out-of-date vehicle platform that weigh too much .

My fuel-cell taxi would look like a Chrysler 300 but it would be built like a Corvette . Being built like a Corvette means that it would have a girder frame and a fiberglass (SMC) floorpan and bodywork .

Low weight is important because the total amount of energy used is currently the most important factor . Lighter weight vehicles can use smaller powerplants and smaller powerplants use less fuel

PolicySpy wrote:
> London has some fuel-cell taxi's but unfortunately they use an
> out-of-date vehicle platform that weigh too much .
>
> My fuel-cell taxi would look like a Chrysler 300 but it would be
> built like a Corvette . Being built like a Corvette means that it
> would have a girder frame and a fiberglass (SMC) floorpan and
> bodywork .
>
> Low weight is important because the total amount of energy used is
> currently the most important factor . Lighter weight vehicles can use
> smaller powerplants and smaller powerplants use less fuel

And cost $87,000 USD.
15 year depreciation does not work well with cars.

PolicySpy > wrote:
>London has some fuel-cell taxi's but unfortunately they use an out-of-date vehicle platform that weigh too much .
>
>My fuel-cell taxi would look like a Chrysler 300 but it would be built like a Corvette . Being built like a Corvette means that it would have a girder frame and a fiberglass (SMC) floorpan and bodywork .

No good. Drive it over the curb a few times, go through a few potholes, and
you've got chassis issue really quickly. And the fibreglass is not easy or
cheap to repair; one crackhead with a piece of steel rebar can make a big mess.

>Low weight is important because the total amount of energy used is currently the most important factor . Lighter weight vehicles can use smaller powerplants and smaller powerplants use less fuel

New York taxis use most of their fuel idling. If you want to reduce fuel
in a taxicab, the first thing to do is go with a hybrid system where the
engine isn't constantly running while you're stuck in traffic. However,
the repair costs on a taxi are very substantial already and if you make
them any higher you're going to kill whatever advantage you have.

There's a reason the Checkers stuck around so long even when the technology
was profoundly obsolete.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in
:


>
> There's a reason the Checkers stuck around so long even when the
> technology was profoundly obsolete.



The primary reason Checker stuck around for so long was that many
municipalities (NYC being one) had regulations which specified that any
vehicle used as a for-hire hack had to be specifically designed for that
purpose. And Checker was the dominant manufacturer of taxi-specific
vehicles.

During the 1960s and 1970s, these regulations were all eventually repealed,
which was the death-knell for Checker. To make up for the steep decline in
taxi sales, Checker tried to concentrate on sales to the general public,
but Checkers were outmoded and expensive, so the demand was never there.

--
Tegger

Scott Dorsey wrote:

No good. Drive it over the curb a few times, go through a few potholes, and you've got chassis issue really quickly. And the fibreglass is not easy or cheap to repair; one crackhead with a piece of steel rebar can make a big mess.


PolicySpy writes:

A girder frame simply concentrates the frame strength where it is needed and then lightweight materials can be used where strength is not needed.

A hydroformed girder frame directly ties the rocker panels into the suspension mounts.

However, steel instead of aluminum stands up better to fatigue cycles. And so an aluminum girder frame would have a larger tall-wise rectangular section shape than steel. Then the aluminum girder frame would only have a small weight advantage over steel but would stand up to fatigue cycles by being very stiff. Again, an aluminum girder frame would be a larger section shape than a steel girder frame. Most likely for a taxi, use a steel girder frame with fiberglass floorpan and bodywork.

Another note, current car design practice would be a stiff chassis and then a compliant suspension.

But with a traditional folded-sheet-metal unibody, the tie from rocker panel to suspension mounts is not visible. Also, there are no obvious front and rear bulkheads. It's a flexmobile but also heavy. It has a metal floorpan, metal roof, and metal rear fenders. In other words, for the folded-sheet-metal unibody to be stiff it is then very heavy. Or put a folded-sheet-metal unibody on a frame and then that is double heavy.

As for fiberglass bodywork, it has a nice thickness but then comes in at about 30%
less weight than steel. It's ding resistant. It's easy to manufacture because SMC is made somewhat like plastic
..

I'll try re-wording it:

A folded-sheet-metal unibody appears to tie the front subframe into the rocker-panels using the thin flat floorpan. And then it appears to tie the
rear suspension mounts into the rocker-panels also using the floopan.

A hydroformed girder frame runs from front suspension mounts to rocker panels to rear suspension mounts in one piece on each side. And then the girder is a tall-wise rectangular section shape. The frame is strong but weight is saved with hollow girders and with fiberglass (SMC) floorpan and bodywork
..

The subject has three branches but I'll swing back to the turbo-diesel branch:

VW Passat TDI, 31/43 MPG, 3393 pounds weight, $26,295
VW Jetta TDI SportWagen, 30/42 MPG, 3283 pounds weight, $26,250

MB GLK250 BlueTec, 24/33 MPG, 4246 pounds weight, $38,980
MB E250 BlueTec, 27/42 MPG, 4200 pounds weight, $51,400

Now MB has replaced their 3.0 V6 turbo-diesel with a 2.1 four-cylinder turbo-diesel but the four-cylinder engine has two sequential turbos while the six-cylinder engine would have had one turbo for each bank of cylinders and not sequential powerbands.

Also, the company that was going to build police cars with six-cylinder BMW turbo-diesels just shut-down when they didn't get a government loan. But if they had the orders that they said they had then Wall Street might have funded them
..

Just continuing:

Chrysler 300
3.6 V6
19/31 MPG
3961 pounds weight

And see that's too heavy. We just don't need four-thousand pound cars to carry two 150 pound persons (or more).


Nissan NV200
2.0 I4
24/25 MPG
3210 pounds weight

VW Passat TDI
2.0 I4 turbo-diesel
31/43 MPG
3393 pounds weight

And here I'm leading to a point. First I see that the NV200 has more room than a Passat but I worry about the center-of-gravity height of the NV200.

But then the wheel and tire sizes tell another story.

NV200
15 x 5.5 wheels
185/60-15 tires

Passat
17 x 7 wheels
215/55-17 tires

Both vehicles weigh about the same but the wheels and tires of the NV200 don't seem to be enough for levels of modern traction
..

On Saturday, October 12, 2013 5:43:44 PM UTC+8, PolicySpy wrote:
> Just continuing:
>
>
>
> Chrysler 300
>
> 3.6 V6
>
> 19/31 MPG
>
> 3961 pounds weight
>
>
>
> And see that's too heavy. We just don't need four-thousand pound cars to carry two 150 pound persons (or more).
>
>
>
>
>
> Nissan NV200
>
> 2.0 I4
>
> 24/25 MPG
>
> 3210 pounds weight
>
>
>
> VW Passat TDI
>
> 2.0 I4 turbo-diesel
>
> 31/43 MPG
>
> 3393 pounds weight
>
>
>
> And here I'm leading to a point. First I see that the NV200 has more room than a Passat but I worry about the center-of-gravity height of the NV200.
>
>
>
> But then the wheel and tire sizes tell another story.
>
>
>
> NV200
>
> 15 x 5.5 wheels
>
> 185/60-15 tires
>
>
>
> Passat
>
> 17 x 7 wheels
>
> 215/55-17 tires
>
>
>
> Both vehicles weigh about the same but the wheels and tires of the NV200 don't seem to be enough for levels of modern traction
>
> .

NV200 and Passat are both FWD ****boxes