NYC Taxi

London has some fuel-cell taxi's but unfortunately they use an out-of-date vehicle platform that weigh too much .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

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.

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

snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote in news:l39qv0$br1$ snipped-for-privacy@panix2.panix.com:

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During the 1960s and 1970s, these regulations were all eventually repealed, which was the death-knell for Checker.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.

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 an d then lightweight materials can be used where strength is not needed.

A hydroformed girder frame directly ties the rocker panels into the suspens ion 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 secti on 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 fram e 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 pane l 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-m etal 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 ab out 30% less weight than steel. It's ding resistant. It's easy to manufacture becau se 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 roc ker-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 pane ls 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 i s 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 .

NV200 and Passat are both FWD shitboxes

The LX-body Chrysler 300 was/is a rolling abortion. A whale.

The previous LH-body 300m weighed 3600 lbs - and it didn't look like a Bentley or drive like a submarine. The LH body was designed for either FWD or RWD, but Daimler killed the LH body and forced Chrysler to design the LX body to use old and expensive E-class mercedes parts.

The convertible LH-body "300n" model shown at the 2000 Auto Show in Detroit was a gorgeous car, ready for production with hemi V8 and RWD. But that production-ready concept car was quickly swept under the carpet when Daimler forced Chrysler to build the hideous tonka-toy, fischer-price piece-of-shit known as the LX-body 300C - a car that weighed as much as the late-60's C-body Chrysler land yachts.

300m's were equipped with 2.7L engines in Europe and used as taxis. I know - I had several taxi rides in them in Germany and Netherlands back in 2003 - 2005.

As for having taxis with diesel engines - I don't care how clean-burning they are, diesel engines emit horrible smell and those cars should be made with a feedback pipe so that the driver can get a good, strong, and continuous whiff of the shit that he's forcing other people around him to breath.

If NYC doesn't already smell bad enough, it will smell like a true shit-hole with diesel-engine taxis.

And another thing about 3OOC is the woeful turning circle. The steering lock is set for AWD and it seems Chrysler are too lazy to tweek it for RWD.

And this is a bad thing in what way?

Interestingly the British company that makes London taxis went bust last year. They had a monopoly making cars that met the strict rules. The regulations were not repealed, it is just that Nissan and Mercedes now make vehicles that met those rules.