Electric Vehicles: “The penny has dropped”

via taxi-point https://ift.tt/2JTa8XH

Sometimes social media throws up some great posts that only a handful of drivers get to read.

London cabbie, Cliff Mahoney, gives his take on where electric vehicle technology is heading in the capital and how opinions maybe shifting as more expensive vehicles become the norm.

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The penny has dropped!Driving in London is about to change foreverand it maybe for the better? At least for London’s Cabbies and your kids.We all know that pollution is bad in the metropolis and it needs something doing about it. Well that's what is happening. Let's forget the Taxi trade for a moment. Very shortly a clean air area will come in. This is within the boundary of the North / South circular. If you own a older diesel vehicle it will cost you a whopping £35 a day to move within this area. Meanwhile they are looking to trial a Non petrol or diesel vehicles zone in a dozen or so streets in Hoxton. This new initiative is to force people into electric vehicles (EV). It won't get any resistance as it's just a few back streets that even Taxis rarely use. But here's the real light bulb moment. The city of London want to make the Beech Street tunnel EV only. Like the 20 mph speed limits, before you know it the whole of greater London will be a EV only zone. It will probably start with the current congestion charge area. So I'm slightly regretting updating the wife's diesel last year.Everyone will have to purchase EV's and that's also an issue because they are about a third more expensive than the current model car you drive.This will make owning a car a very expensive option and out of most people's reach. Look at the price jump of the new TXE taxi which is I'm reliably informed a Volvo XC60 converted to be a cab. The Volvo is £60k in basic form much the same as this new Taxi.So how to get around this new green clean city where's the transport infrastructure if we can no longer afford the family car? Well it's there already or the seeds are there. Very soon we will have Cross Rail, there are already many car share rental schemes, many cycle lanes to tempt you, plus cycle hire, 120,000 cheap third world minicabs, rickshaws and of course the iconic black Taxis. Hopefully we will loose a chunk of these polluting minicabs, that app probably seemed like a good idea. But it's a monster that's run away with them. Plus the robbing rickshaws will be run off our streets, but three mayors haven't done a thing so who knows?Once all the cars are off the road then we will be able to get around much easier and more people will use Taxis. But it's a bugger if you have a family car and this zone will eventually stretch out to the whole of the greater London area. Once they have cleaned up greater London and your kids can breathe again. They will start in all the other big city's and towns. Diesel will be confined to the country side, where they burn all the fossil fuel to provide power for all these new EV vehicles.I'm not quite at the point of rushing into Ascott's and strapping myself up for a new EV. But I'm looking very close at this vehicle now. Although if your a cabbie and you trap a job to the New Nobu Hotel Shoreditch you won't be dropping them at the door soon, unless your in a TXE.“

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April 18, 2018 at 02:28PM https://ift.tt/2ufVjKI THESE POSTS ARE NOT OUR ENDORSEMENT