New Nissan, Not Up To The Job?

In May, the city of New York foolishly picked a Nissan van - one that doesn't handle wheelchairs - as the single model to start replacing the current hodgepodge fleet by next year.

Oops.

As it now stands, only 231 cabs can take a wheelchair, and efforts to launch some kind of dispatch system for that handful of taxis have come to naught. People like Karl Nguyen, the wheelchair-bound Californian we profiled this summer, are just left at the curb.

This is not just a moral problem; it's a legal one.

Having such a tiny percentage of accessible taxis has put the city in the cross hairs of a federal lawsuit accusing it of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's a case New York could easily lose.

That same federal law requires all taxi vans to handle wheelchairs, which has led the Justice Department to probe whether the city's Nissan pick puts it on the wrong side of the statute. 

The bill's original sponsor, Sen. Tom Harkin, insists New York is in trouble.

The solution is simple: Scrap the Nissan award and allow any accessible van to be painted, outfitted and approved as an official yellow cab.

The yellow cab lobby will surely baulk, fearing higher costs. Too bad. The law is the law, and fairness demands cabs that serve all people.

Outside the boroughs, it's an equally fine mess.

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Editorial Comment:
Many people heralded this vehicle as a cheap option to London's Taxi emissions problem, including myself. 


To be fair to John Mason has said;  TfL looked at the  Nissan NV200 van and it is unsuitable.


Doesn't mean it cant be produced as a WAV version, after all look what they did to the Vito!

But again, Londoners and Taxi drivers alike are not keen to get rid of an ICON...

Taxi drivers veto the Vito as cab orders take a nosedive

Londoners either like them or loathe them, but taxi drivers seem to be voting with their feet - orders for Mercedes Vito black cabs have fallen from 234 in the first half of 2010 to 171 this year.

The trading statement from the Vito's UK distributer and developer Eco City Vehicles comes just a few weeks after traditional cab maker Manganese Bronze said it was regaining market share from the Vito.

Eco City seemed to contradict that, saying today that its share of the London taxi market was "building momentum".

It also claimed the reason for its orders falling was that drivers had been holding back their purchases until the new model was launched in April. Margins fell from 17.7% to 13.7% as it cut prices to shift stockpiles of the outgoing model.

Chief executive Peter DaCosta said: "Our first-half results were affected by challenging trading conditions and a blip in new orders whilst customers waited for the much anticipated launch of our latest Mercedes Euro V Vito taxi."

Revenues fell 9.2% to £11.6 million.