CA spends $3M on 6 EV Taxis

[AnOutsider]

That might finally get them into double digits on sales

[Robert.Boston]

Although this project has been stupid expensive, it's probably less stupid expensive than the high-speed rail link or hydrogen fueling! Although I don't think BP's approach makes sense for individual drivers in the US (as it complicates the simplicity of home charging), for fleet vehicles that are running 24/7, battery swapping does makes sense.

[RDoc]

It is still unobvious to me that this scheme makes sense, although I agree that there are worse schemes (the bottom is a long way down).

Apparently the Coda is EPA rated for 88 miles. Obviously that will not be typical for a taxi, but the same would apply to a Tesla.
To get 88 miles from a Supercharger with the battery very low would take about 18 minutes. How long is the battery switch going to take?
Also, apparently taxi's in San Francisco drive about 75K miles per year so that's about 205 miles per day, about 78% of a charge which sounds like an hour or so on a Supercharger per day, or perhaps a 30 minute session and another top up of 15 minutes or so.

For an owner/operator they'd just need a reasonably fast level 2 charger available where they park so maybe there wouldn't be any need for Superchargers as part of the scheme, just a subsidy for the owner/drivers to buy the Teslas which are about $40K more than the Codas. I'd think a taxi would burn about $15K worth of gas per year, so maybe it could be structured as a zero interest loan.

The Gen III sounds like it may make this even less defensible, lower cost but still with supercharging.

[chrisn]

None of these things pencil out as proof-of-convents (and aren't intended to), but this seems particularly dumb. I know that San Jose and Oakland airport have incentives (mandates?) for CNG cabs-- and virtually all cabs picking up form those airports are CNG. For fleet applications, I think CNG is a more sensible alternative to gasoline than electricity right now.

If you pause to consider the math (how many cab trips per day from SFO, how many round trips to city per charge, time to swap or charge, number of simultaneous swap/charge stations, electric service required to maintain all of this......), you quickly conclude that this will not scale up anytime soon.....

[TEG]

I find it highly disappointing that they plan to customize some CODAs to accomplish this "milestone."

Shouldn't this be at a phase when they are showing off how a production car will stand up to "taxi abuse" and is therefore ready for widespread deployment?

Is Better Place suggesting that they will lease CODAs to people in this USA as part of their plan?
I thought we expected to see Renault/Nissan vehicles from them.

[rolosrevenge]

I think they'd better spend their money on 60 kWh model S with super chargers. Even taxi drivers need a short break.

[cwerdna]

I don't know any details about this but I stumbled across this awhile ago. FEV is the engineering company mentioned in earlier posts.
FEV, Inc. v. CODA Automotive, Inc. :: Justia Dockets Filings

[ToddRLockwood]

Seems like the Model S would make a better taxi in almost every regard. The Coda has only 14.1 cu/ft of luggage space, vs 31.6 for the Model S. If they used the 85kWh version, they might not even need supercharging.

[cwerdna]

Apparently Better Place is going to use the Coda for their Bay Area taxi service. My first impression is that this is because no other manufacturer was willing to work with Better Place.
Better Place, Coda an unexpected partnership for airport taxi battery swaps - AutoBlog Green
../

I think the above is dead now given Better Place shuts down US, Australian operations - Globes .

[AnOutsider]

Wow, no wonder there's so much skepticism toward Tesla. No one else is making it in this biz.