CAPITAL NEWS
HYDROGEN TAXIS TO SERVE LONDON BY 2012 OLYMPICS
A taxi that runs on the latest hydrogen fuel cell technology is being developed with the aim of being ready for full road trials in time for the 2012 Olympics.
The car looks and drives just like a stan- dard London black cab - but underneath the bonnet is some cutting-edge technolo- gy by sports carmaker Lotus.
The fuel cell taxi can hit a top speed of 81mph, go from 0-60mph in 14 seconds and has a range of more than 250 miles on a full tank of hydrogen.
Like electric vehicles, the new taxi does not produce any emis- sions from its tailpipe but, unlike battery- electric cars, it will only take a few min- utes to fill up from empty.
The widespread intro- duction of hydrogen cars has long been a goal of some green campaigners, because eventually they allow transport fuel to be generated from renew- able energy. Wind and solar plants could be used to drive the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen - and the hydrogen piped to fill- ing stations. However, in the short term, hydrogen vehicles are likely to be powered by fuel derived from oil. Henri Winand, of Intel- ligent Energy, which makes the fuel cells used in the taxis, said
they were an ideal way to begin building the infrastructure required for a hydrogen-based transport system - seen as one of the big stumbling blocks for the wider introduction of hydrogen vehicles. He told the Guardian: “With fleets you can deploy a little infra- structure, which you can build up with the more fleets you have, rather than going straight to consumers who might be wonder- ing where the next filling station is.” London’s deputy mayor, Kit Malthouse, announced last year that by 2012 there would be six hydrogen filling stations in the capital. He said he wanted around 20-50 taxis in operation by then as part of the Black Cabs Go Green programme, as well as 150 hydrogen-pow- ered buses.
“The intent is to take the taxis and retrofit a powertrain that has zero tailpipe emis- sions,” said Mr Winand. “But also it has to deliver some very important things: a reasonable range, very quick refuelling time and no modifying the passenger or driv- er space.”
After modification, he said no one would be able to tell the differ- ence between a hydrogen cab and a regular one apart from the lack of diesel fumes. The first few hydrogen taxis, which were fund-
ed in part by the gov- ernment’s Technology Strategy Board, have already been built at the Lotus headquar- ters in Norfolk.
Intelligent Energy, leading the consortium for the new hydrogen taxi, has designed and built the fuel cell, which uses hydrogen to make electricity. Lotus is responsible for integrating the fuel cell into the body of the taxi – in their design, pressurised hydrogen is stored in a tank where the internal combustion engine of a standard cab would be. The fuel cell pro- duces electricity and feeds it to a battery pack under the floor of the taxi’s passenger area. The batteries then drive motors in the wheels. “To do that with a purely battery-electric vehicle, you would have to take up most of the space at the back with batteries, where the passengers are, or certainly you would constrict that space substantially,” said Winand. “And you’d probably have to stop halfway through the day to plug in somewhere.” Mainstream manufac- turers are also getting interested in hydro- gen. Daimler, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota have all announced plans in recent months to have fuel-cell vehicles avail- able for the consumer market by 2015.
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Just click PAGE 46 PHTM APRIL 2010
REDUCTION IN VEHICLE TESTING FEES FOR FIRST TIME PASSES
Other taxi and pri- vate hire licence fees frozen at 2009 rates.
Last month, Transport for London’s Board approved changes to taxi and private hire licensing fees to come into effect from 1 April 2010.
Inflationary pressures would have ordinarily justified an overall 1.4 per cent increase on most licence fees, but given the current eco- nomic climate, a freeze, and in some places a reduction on fees has been agreed. The fees to be frozen at 2009 rates include: • Taxi driver three year licence fee
• Taxi annual licence fee
• Private hire licence application and inspection fee
• Private hire operator licence application fee
• Private hire operator five-year licence fee All funds generated from taxi and private hire fees are used to cover licensing and administration costs. The additional funding generated by an increase in these fees would have been around £261,000. However, TfL is confi- dent of being able to make up the differ- ence via efficiency savings instead, including reviewing existing business poli- cies and processes, identifying and reduc- ing waste and ceasing non-business critical
activities.
The TfL Board also approved a £10 reduc- tion on the London taxi licence application and inspection fee, bringing it down from £111 to £101. Tied to that will be the intro- duction of a £50 re-test fee to encour- age more taxi drivers and vehicle owners to ensure their vehicles are in top condition and pass their annual and on-street or other inspections first time. This is stemmed from a concern at the low first-time pass rate, which is currently at 38 per cent; and to encourage drivers and owners to ensure the general standard of the vehicle is compli- ant at all times. For private hire opera- tors, changes to the fee structure for removing or adding operating centres will also begin from 1 April. The fee payable for removing an oper- ating centre from a private hire vehicle operator’s licence will increase from £25 to £50, and the fee for adding a new centre will increase from £25 to £200. These fees have not risen since 2001 when operator licensing began, and reflect more accurate- ly the significant costs involved in processing the licences.
John Mason, TfL’s Director of Taxi and Private Hire, said: “Every penny that TfL receives from licence
fees is spent on pro- viding the services we deliver and I am com- mitted to providing the best quality service whilst reducing back office costs. This is why I felt that we should freeze most license fees this year and work hard to find savings instead. ‘’I know that there will be many in the trade who may be wary of the introduction of a taxi re-test fee, but we have to do everything we can to increase the first-time pass rate and encourage every- one in the trade to do all they can to keep the standard of vehi- cles maintained at all times. By making these changes those who pass their annual inspection will benefit from a £10 reduction in the current cost and will no longer sub- sidise those drivers who continually fail. “Whilst we expect that over the course of the year the income from taxi vehicle tests will cover the cost of pro- viding the service, if there is any surplus at all then this will be used next year to make further reduc- tions to the test fee.” In addition to these changes, the one-off Knowledge of London ‘appearance’ fee for Suburban (Yellow badge) taxi driver applicants will increase to £200 to be in line with the fee for All-London (Green badge) applicants.
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