IN THE NEWS
NORTH WALES TAXI BOSS TRIED TO GO GREEN BUT BID ENDED IN FAILURE - THIS IS WHY
A Rhyl taxi firm boss tried to go green with a major investment he hoped would support his business and the planet. According to the Daily Post, Steve Derby spent close to £50,000 on two MG5 electric cars for his cab firm Busy Bee Taxis - replacing diesel vehicles. He wanted to help reduce costs to power his vehicles and do his bit for cli- mate change at the same time, with the idea first raised with him by Den- bighshire council. But after just a few weeks he has been forced to return the cars and go back on to diesel. The reason for this was that the infrastructure for rapid charg- ing is not in place. This has meant long charging waits or Steve driving to a rapid charger at Bodelwyddan - sometimes in the mid- dle of the night. He said: “We invested in the MG5 which can do 214 miles on a full charge. On average a driver will do between 100 and 150 miles on a shift so the idea was there would be a day driver working till 4pm, put the car on charge and at 5pm the night driver would take over.” He understood a 50 minute charge would give an 80% charge of the bat- tery - meaning that the hour between 4pm and 5pm would fill up the already part charged battery for the night shift. But he said: “The reality is that on a bad day when it’s nippy and raining, you put the wipers and heating on and maybe lights, and instead of bringing the car back at 4pm with 60% it was more like 30%.” Then there was the issue with charging power - with them initially trying just charging from the rank which was tak- ing 15 hours for a complete charge. They tried a Morrisons charger over the road where they had a rapid 50KW charger but said they’ve never had that level of charge from it and are also pay- ing more for the power. Steve added: “Also my idea of going over at 4pm often didn’t work out
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because someone else would be on it so there was no charger. “The only true 50KW charger was on the A55 at Starbucks in Bodelwyddan. I was there at 2am in the morning charg- ing these cars, trying to get them ready for the next day. The night drivers were having to take time out to charge. It just didn’t work.” Steve enquired about rapid chargers at the rank but was told told if he fitted a 50KW charger it would take away any electric from the rank and a planned new shop while charging. They are also £24,000 each. He has been able to return the cars to Car ‘n’ Cab Care - although has lost around £1,000 on each. Steve added: “We wanted to do the right thing and tried every avenue but the infrastructure is just not there at the moment. It’s fine for a normal driver who can charge overnight at home but they don’t work for us at the moment until that infrastructure improves.” Car ‘n’ Cab Care comment: This infor- mation is sadly true at least for any operator wanting to double shift a taxi using a public charger. If the vehicle was used for a single shift utilising one 7 kW charger for two cars then that would work as one charges in the day and one at the night Car ‘n’ Cab care offered to fit two 7 kW chargers for free to help Steve’s drivers and his business but this would not work for double shifts. For owner drivers with a driveway, then
a 7 kW charger is fantastic for them. Or if an operator buys a rapid charger then that will also be fine for use as a vehicle to be double shifted. To get the best from any electric car, a 7 kwW charge at home is best and is of course great for your pocket What we found from analysing tracker information was that these cars were worked harder and faster at night due to less traffic and also the night drivers pulled away a lot faster as expected. Many drivers have purchased the MG5 and have also changed energy suppli- ers. Octopus seems to be the best rate of electric at 5p per kW per hour at night time and day time 14.5p per kW per hour. If we work out the miles per gallon for electric paid that would be around 180 mpg with the cheapest rates. Car ‘n’ Cab Care is working with differ- ent councils to show the importance of charger units for the trade only. Car ‘n’ Cab Care accepts the issues some drivers will have without home chargers. New drivers would be referred to self-charging hybrids or euro 6 derv if charging facilities were unavailable or not near Car ‘n’ Cab Care. Councils will need a substation to power rapid chargers and full electric vehicles if dealing with multiple vehicles. We will have the largest charger, I’m sure, for some time What we promote is to home charge your car and if you need more power for longer shifts pop over to Car ‘n’ Cab Care as no public are allowed. As Car ‘n’ Cab Care is installing a 300 kW hyper charger in two stages for three vehicles to utilise, we can charge a lot faster as long as the DC charger on-board is bigger than 50 kW. Anyone who does not have a drive in our area will be fine to utilise our 24- hour taxi only station. But many drivers do have drive ways, so let’s start with them.
JUNE 2021
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