Meet the new official New York City Taxi
Danny Tse
Posts: 5,206
It's a Nissan....
From Autoguide.com....
From Autoguide.com....
The city of New York has chosen Nissan as the supplier for the next generation of taxi cabs. This decision will give Nissan an exclusive 10-year contract for the city's massive fleet totaling 13,200 taxis.
The Nissan design was chosen over the Ford Transit Connect van as well as a design from Turkish builder Karzan. The Nissan fleet will slowly replace the Ford Crown Victorias as well as the hybrid Ford Escapes.
The Nissan van is based on the NV200, a model Nissan sells in both Europe and Asia and only recently brought to market here.
Selecting just one automaker and just one vehicle has its opponents with owners of big taxi fleets saying they don?t want to be stuck using only one model. Advocates for the disabled, meanwhile, oppose any vehicle that isn?t wheelchair accessible. Only Karsan's entry met that criteria although Ford and Nissan both offered the ability to make some of their vehicles wheelchair accessible.
The decision to go with Nissan is a major loss for Ford?s plan to offer the new Transit Connect as a taxi in New York. Furthermore, none of the three competitors are currently built in the United States. The NV200 is, however, slated to be built in Mexico. Close enough?
Post edited by Danny Tse on
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Depending on the price difference between the Ford or Karsan, I would have hoped that New York would choose whichever company added jobs and money to OUR economy, and not encourage outsourcing.
Oh well."Dr Dunn admitted that his research could also be interpreted as evidence that women are shallower than men. He said: "Let's face it - there's evidence to support it."
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ryanjoachim wrote: »Depending on the price difference between the Ford or Karsan, I would have hoped that New York would choose whichever company added jobs and money to OUR economy, and not encourage outsourcing.
The last paragraph of the article told the whole story....The decision to go with Nissan is a major loss for Ford?s plan to offer the new Transit Connect as a taxi in New York. Furthermore, none of the three competitors are currently built in the United States. The NV200 is, however, slated to be built in Mexico. Close enough? -
ryanjoachim wrote: »Depending on the price difference between the Ford or Karsan, I would have hoped that New York would choose whichever company added jobs and money to OUR economy, and not encourage outsourcing.
Oh well.
Yep.The last paragraph of the article told the whole story....
No, not "close enough".
Ford has said that it would move Transit Connect manufacturing to North America if demand were high enough. A NYC Taxi contract would have likely pushed it over that edge and made Ford move production.
The Turkish company told NYC that they would build all the taxis IN NEW YORK CITY. At an old pier house in Brooklyn. It would have added over 300 jobs in total to the city.
Ford would have added thousands of jobs because they would have moved all Transit production for North America and South America to the U.S. and worldwide they move like half a million of those little buggers every year.
Nissan? The NV200 is a gussied up Renault platform sold only in Asia and select European markets. Manufacturing is done in China by Dongfeng Motors.
The real kicker is, the NYC taxi companies wanted the Ford because Ford has stockpiles of parts, multiple version including alternative fuel version, diesels that will meet U.S. Emissions regulations and even an all electric version that they could start putting on the streets tomorrow if they wanted. They also wanted it because of the reliability ratings and the fact that most already have establish parts connections with Ford distributors/dealers. It would have been easy to integrate.
New Yorkers were polled and the overwhelming majority liked the Turkish entry and honestly, that one was pretty slick IMO too. So NYC went with a Taxi that New Yorkers hated and the Taxi companies didn't want.
I wonder who's back pocket got filled on that one?Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
Sounds like typical government decision making. Those things will probably fall apart after two years of service. Hopefully they don't sign a really long contract with Nissan.For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore...
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Sounds like typical government decision making. Those things will probably fall apart after two years of service. Hopefully they don't sign a really long contract with Nissan.
It's a 10 year contract.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
Jstas,
Thanks for the back story. I also purchased a Ford Trans Connect last year. If only they had more "civilian" models like this year. -
Jstas,
Thanks for the back story. I also purchased a Ford Trans Connect last year. If only they had more "civilian" models like this year.
There's a whole thing about that. Look up the "Chicken tax". It's the biggest reason Ford doesn't sell a passenger car model of the Connect here. You can get one but you have to import it.
Hell, the way Ford does it now is they build Connects the way they would any Connect in Europe then they ship them over here and before the Connect leaves the dock and enters customs, they have it gutted, all windows behind the driver removed and replaced with steel panels. Then they can sell them as light trucks because they arrived here as passenger cars.
But, thing is, if Ford is going to start selling them as both, they'd have to build them here to get around the taxes. An NYC taxi contract would have given them enough reason to set up a shop her to build Connects as light trucks here. Unless the Transit can take off as a passenger car, which likely won't happen here without something like a taxi service using them, I doubt we'll see it. That's why the NYC Taxi contract was a big deal. The NYC Taxi contract is a drop in the bucket for a company of Ford's size. That Turkish company would have been minting money. Nissan is just going to rob NY tax payers of their money.
It's disappointing fro alot of reasons. And it's going to be really odd going to NYC and seeing Nissans everywhere instead of Ford and Chevies.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
Nissan also provides jobs for americans... how about the Nissan plant in Symrna, TN? or the Nissan Headquarters in Franklin, TN? Or Canton, Decherd...
How is nissan robbing the tax payers? -
It's a 10 year contract.
WTF is wrong with these idiots. How about a trial period? This is just like the retarded 8 year contract the idiots in charge of IT at my job signed with IBM/Dell/ATT. They contracted out our entire IT support and ever since, our systems run like $hi+, it takes forever to get anything fixed, AND it costs us $millions more per year for less service. The funny thing was that it was apparent how poorly the new system was working within the first year and it has only gotten worse since.For rig details, see my profile. Nothing here anymore... -
cokewithvanilla wrote: »Nissan also provides jobs for americans... how about the Nissan plant in Symrna, TN? or the Nissan Headquarters in Franklin, TN? Or Canton, Decherd...
How is nissan robbing the tax payers?
The NV200 will not be built here so naming all the plants where they employ people means nothing.
Robbing tax payers? Because they are selling NYC Renault Twingos with a Nissan van body on them for about $30K a pop on a pile of junk that gets horrible reliability ratings every where else it's sold.
You know how much a new Twingo or Modus goes for? About 12,000 EURO. A Kangoo van which is what the NV200 is based on, about 14,000 EURO. That's around $19K-$20K in U.S dollars. NYC is over-paying by $9-$10 grand for each one of those vans. Sure, there's tariffs and such but not $10K per vehicle worth.
The Ford Transit hits these shores as a passenger vehicle to begin with and gets stripped down and turned in to a panel van to avoid the "Chicken Tax". When they arrive here, they would cost about $18K. If Ford built them here, they'd be right around the $20K mark to equip them as a taxi.
Not only is the Nissan the choice that nobody in New York wanted but it's financially and economically the worst choice. That's how they are getting robbed.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
I wonder who's back pocket got filled on that one?
That pretty much sums it up. Using common sense and good fiscal judgement is never a governing bodies strong point.HT SYSTEM-
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Sure, those aren't built in america, but as you said, neither is the ford whatever the hell. Sure, they could start building them here, but so could nissan, I don't see the difference.
If the figures are right, that does kind of suck, but government contracts are known for being excellent profit... the government seems to like overpaying... I guess that's what happens when it's not your money that you are spending. I bet ford would get the same kind of deal if they got the contract.
