Taxileaks and the London trade reveal the falsehoods about electric Cabs.

The Telegraph gets it wrong about the new MetroCab and Steve McNamara say's no one asked his opinion.

The Telegraph's Scott Campbell stated: 

This new electric London black cab, could save drivers up to £200 per week in fuel costs. ( Amazing claim!)

Metrocab’s six-seater vehicle is the first taxi to be powered entirely by electricity, but it has a small petrol engine that generates power to recharge the vehicle’s batteries, meaning that "it never has to be plugged in".

(Further into the article, we find conversation about the lack of appropriate charging points??? nice bit of consistency Scott.)

Sir Charles Masefield, the company’s chairman, who seems to know more about Taxi driver's finances than Taxi drivers know themselves, said: 

"Drivers can make vast savings by using the vehicle, which will cost the same as LTI’s traditional diesel black cab. A typical London driver does about 200 miles a day and they’re spending about £50 on fuel. 

(Would be nice to know who they consulted on these figures)

On average you’ll spend about £10 a day on fuel so you’re saving £40 a day, which is about £14,000 a year,” he said.

(That's only if you work 200 miles every day, 365 days a year!)

“It’s different in a huge number of ways from anything that is on offer or even anything that is currently under development so it is actually the next generation ahead.”

The Vice General Secretary of the LTDA, Steve McNamara said: 

Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, said that industry workers, including drivers and mechanics, were ignored by Metrocab during the development of their flagship electric taxi, which is due to launch later this year.

“We’ve got just over 10,000 members now. I speak to hundreds of cab drivers every week, I speak to all the other organisations, 

(tut tut Steve, not true...UCG and RMT to name but two!) the proprietors, the mechanics, I get dozens of phone calls from them, all the different charity groups and no one I’ve spoken to has had any dealings with them at all,” Mr McNamara told The Telegraph.

The Source London website, shows just four rapid charge points for electric vehicles in London with one centrally, on Eagle Wharf Road in Hackney, but commercial vehicles are banned from using it. 

However, a TfL spokesman said that this is a technical glitch and there are in fact 129 rapid charge points across the capital.

McNamara said that regular and fast-charge points are not good enough for cab drivers as they would have to wait for up to four hours to recharge their vehicles.

A spokesman for Dial-A-Cab, said the company had not been consulted about Metrocab’s new vehicle, but its drivers were asked to complete a survey to gather information about potential locations for new charging points.

McNamara went on to say:

“The Mayor has driven it, TfL commissioner Peter Hendy, has driven it, but none of them buys cabs. 

They could not have got it more wrong if they tried. These people don’t know the industry and they’ve got it so wrong.

“They’ve put themselves on the back foot before they’ve launched it and you think, 'how much more can they get it wrong?’ This is not a car they’re going to be selling to the public."

Its amazing how TfL have managed to get t it so wrong, as the other vice general secretary of the LTDA, Bob Oddy, is the Mayor's advisor on transport, on the board of TfL. Would be interesting to find out just what advice he's been giving the Mayor on this issue.

source;www.taxileaks.blogspot.co.uk