NYC Taxicabs

The Nissan NV200 has been chosen as the next NYC taxicab.

It's a mini-van with a sliding door, on a car frame, and it weighs about 3,000 pounds. I see it listed with a 1.6 108 HP engine and I'll guess the torque at 90 ft/lbs. I see it listed with a 1.5 turbo diesel at 85 HP and 148 ft/lbs of torque. I found the weight at three different values but I'll go with the 2791 pounds.

Well, a 2800 pound vehicle with a four-cylinder engine is not going to be a good taxicab unless it is turbocharged. The reason is that current turbocharging produces large amounts of torque at low RPM and that makes city driving easy. And when the driving is easy the real world MPG results will closely match the specifications.

So I'll make some vehicle weight to engine torque comparisons:

NV200, 1.6 gasoline engine, no turbo, 2791 / 90 = 31 pounds per unit of torque NV200, 1.6 gasoline engine, if it were a turbo, 2791 / 113 = 24.7 pounds per unit of torque NV200, 1.5 diesel engine, with turbo, 2791 / 148 = 18.9 pounds per unit of torque

Passat Wagon, 2.0 gasoline engine, with turbo, 3450 / 207 = 16.7 pounds per unit of torque Passat Wagon, 2.0 diesel engine, with turbo, 3450 / 236 = 14.6 pounds per unit of torque

Reply to
PolicySpy
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Faulty reasoning.

Reply to
Paul in Houston TX

For the four-cylinder taxicab:

Current turbocharging produces large amounts of torque at lower RPM's and that makes city driving effortless.

Reply to
PolicySpy

have you ever been to london? or even san francisco?

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Reply to
jim beam

Here's the subject origin:

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Reply to
PolicySpy

The Karsan vehicles are made in Turkey.Karsan offered to build/assemble some vehicles in New York if New York City chose Karsan.I think New York City has decided not to go with Karsan.I say New York City would do well to choose Ford for their Taxi of Tomorrow.Only my opinion.

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cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

All the torque in the world won't make driving in NYC effortless.

If anything, I would like to see a limit on the total available horsepower for NYC taxicabs. Also I would like to see a law preventing driving on the sidewalk.

One of the nice things about the Checkers is that they didn't have great acceleration. This limited the amount of possible silliness.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

About twenty years ago I went to an auction in my local area.A guy and his wife (or his girlfriend) bought an old Checker Taxicab.They paid $700.00 for that Checker Taxicab.Those Checkers were Great Taxicabs way back then, they were built like a Tank.Checker once built at least one Jeep. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

Scott Dorsey wrote:

PolicySpy writes:

Current gasoline turbos produce peak torque at less than 2000 RPM and then hold peak torque to upper mid-range.

Current diesel turbos produce peak torque at less than 2000 RPM and hold peak torque to low mid-range.

But when the vehicle is easy to drive in city driving then the drivers will be easy on the vehicle.

Reply to
PolicySpy

I think I read the new Taxi of Tomorrow will have a big window on top.That will be so those people can see the Ice and Snow on there in the wintertime.I remember some Ford cars back in the 1950s had two plexiglass windows on the hoods of some of those cars.I never could understand the point of that.A styling gimmick, I guess. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

I dont remember this at all, but I am not doubting what you say. Maybe they just werent so popular here in Dogpatch.

Reply to
hls

Maybe cuhulin meant these?

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Reply to
AMuzi

Some 1950s Ford cars had two windows mounted in the hood so people could see the engine without opening the hood.I have only seen one up close before, way back when I went down town to a movie.The car was parked on the street. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

Oh, I remember those Fords. Cuhulin threw me when he said they had windows on the hoods.

Reply to
hls

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