Whats happening in the taxi business? - car select

[edwardh1]

using new york city as an example

10- 15 years ago it was RWD mostly crown vics. or impallas also rwd.
They you saw many odyssey and sienna mini vans. I went there recently and saw a huge mix, mainly of small ford and other mini suvs, and some smaller Fords I was not familiar with?
seems a great testing ground for drivetrains.
who / what is winning?
some hybrids, still a few mini vans

 

[KD0AXS]

They're still using mostly Crown Vics around here.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Lots of Camry, Escape, and occasionally Prius and Fusion hybrids in Boston.

 

[R80RS]

In our capitol city of Madison, it's almost all Prius with some Odyssey/Sienna vans. Very very few domestic RWD sedans.

 

[earlyre]

Didnt NYC sign a contract with nissan for some purpose-built minivans a couple years back? I remember a big kerfuffle as they werent built in the US..

 

[edwardh1]

Originally Posted By: earlyre
Didnt NYC sign a contract with nissan for some purpose-built minivans a couple years back? I remember a big kerfuffle as they werent built in the US..


yes one cabbie told me there were not many being used?

 

[FFeng7]

Around here almost all the cabs are retired police Crown Victoria cars. The local cab company also has a few Dodge Caravans and Chevrolet Uplander vans. I also wondered how the minivans held up to cab duty.

 

[MoneyJohn]

Originally Posted By: earlyre
Didnt NYC sign a contract with nissan for some purpose-built minivans a couple years back? I remember a big kerfuffle as they werent built in the US..

If I remember correctly, that decision in pending in the court, because someone sued the city saying that Nissan will have monopoly and they are not impressed about it.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: FFeng7
Around here almost all the cabs are retired police Crown Victoria cars. The local cab company also has a few Dodge Caravans and Chevrolet Uplander vans. I also wondered how the minivans held up to cab duty.


NYC used to run a different (P73?) CV that had an extra six inches of wheelbase. You wouldn't really notice it unless it was parked next to a "shorty".

IIRC they get used up so quickly in NYC (2.5-3 years?) it just makes sense to buy new. Where the medallion is half a million bucks, the actual vehicle purchase price doesn't matter nearly as much.

Up here if you can get a cab it's a retired cop car or 01-06ish chrysler or ford minivan.

 

[Tdbo]

Around here, vehicles for taxi service are primarily retired police cruisers. Therefore, mainly Crown Vics with a few Impalas tossed in. In a few years, the fleet will be Chargers and Taurus/Explorer PI's.

 

[46Harry]

I've seen quite a few Toyota Prius taxis in the LA area recently. With the gas hovering close to 4 bucks per gallon, I can understand why. There are still many Crown Vics in service too.

 

[c502cid]

A little off topic, but in my travels in China, each city was dominated by whoever had the closest manufacturing plant to the city. Shanghai was VW, Beijing was Hyundai, Dalian was a fine car called the Republic, some called it a Red Flag, and the VW. All of them are manual transmissions and the drivers treat them like automatics. Take off in first gear, shift to fourth and leave it there. You cringe how hard they lug in gear from a crawl.

 

[dparm]

With the Crown Vic being out of production, they were forced to find alternatives. I think the cab companies also saw the value in other vehicles that were just as reliable. Personally I never thought the CVPIs in taxi form had very generous rear seats; the trunks were big, but leg room wasn't vast.

 

[stockrex]

cost less to drive, cabbies are getting smarter.

 

[NHGUY]

The NY contract with Nissan for their vans was declared null and void.I guess it was a backdoor deal that didnt go thru the proper channels.Now Nissan is stuck with all those vans.I'm wondering if their was some collusion of sorts.Reminds me of when Chrysler was going to pace the Indy 500 with a Stealth (Mitsubishi)....Japanese branded stuff does hold some resentment in America still...Ford wanted to replace the Mustang with Probe (Mazda based) and that started a firestorm of complaints.Ford kept both...Probe eventually died.

 

[mrsilv04]

Around here, it is an interesting mix.

The majority are 4th and 5th generation Grand Caravan and T&C's.

1st and (a few) 2nd generation Scion xB. The first generation units must have at least 300,000 miles on them.

Very few CV's anymore.

A few Tahoes and Suburbans at the airport.

 

[Rand]

around here in the bigger citys like akron its alot of retired police cars..

smaller cities just seem to use whatever. Random car they got a deal on.. thats good MPG.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: dparm
With the Crown Vic being out of production, they were forced to find alternatives. I think the cab companies also saw the value in other vehicles that were just as reliable. Personally I never thought the CVPIs in taxi form had very generous rear seats; the trunks were big, but leg room wasn't vast.


But they're cheap, tough, and will run 500,000 miles with even spotty care!

 

[Throckmorton]

I've actually seen cabbies using something that looks like a traditional London Cab. I'm not sure who makes it or what the underlying platform is, but it looks like a vehicle being made exclusively for livery/taxi fleets -- kind of like the old Checker Marathon.

 

[RISUPERCREWMAN]

The Crown Vics are hanging tough here & still the Major Player in my area! Go Ford!