Who’s going to drive you home tonight?
So by now, you’ve voted (you have right? Voting closes today!) and picked out what you’re going to wear to the awards (and if you wear a magenta dress too, I might just have to cut you), so have you settled upon your public transport options as to how you’re going to get home afterwards?
If you’re going to be drinking, you of course can’t drive. And we’re not recommending you leave before midnight, so that means the buses are out. Unless you’re planning on walking (which we advise you to do in pairs, naturally), you’re probably going to get a taxi. How about you try out a Green Cab? Their all-Prius fleet and commitment to planting trees to offset their carbon, along with their “‘ethics first, business second” mantra sits happily with the dirty lefty hippies of the Wellingtonista. Plus, their cabs stand out, so if you take one home in a less than awake state, you’ll know who to call in the morning if you leave something in the cab, and their police-checked drivers should mean you’ll get safely home.
Disclaimer: I’ve never actually riden in a Green Cab. Yet. But I like the idea. And they have a free number to call – 0508 4 47336 (0508 4 GREEN), which is great for those who are creditly challenged!
thanks for explanation.
reading this i am thiking what an ATO is and why they get permission to go faster up roads if they are doing tests maybe it like a special track manfield up north or something.
At the time I did that test we weren’t an ATO.
It was done to ensure that it could do more than required as a lot of people assumed they wouldn’t have the required power on the hills around Wellington. I too had my doubts so we tested it and passed no problem
I can assure you our Drivers stick to 80kms per hour going up the Gorge.
Samson your best to call the dispatch and ask to speak to Dave he will be able to run you through what the guys are earning and how much they are saving in running costs.
Callum kid, im still waiting for you to give me a valid reason why you were doing 90 clicks up the gorge. i wouldnt like to drive for a new taxi ato that breaks the law.
Dude it’s obvious that some people just care about money and miss the bigger picture! I moved from the UK to NZ because my son suffers from bad asthma and it gets progressively worse whenever we’re in the city centre, doc says it’s due to by air pollution among other things, so I applaud the green taxi’s concept and the rest of you should be supporting it not putting it down.
Maybe you should move to the UK and try living in a polluted city? Honesty you don’t want NZ to become like that, this country is amazing and I hear kiwi’s have a lot of pride, I am not seeing it on this forum.
I was curious about the green taxis so I checked out the website, these dudes plant trees to offset carbon emissions, I don’t know how much it costs to plant trees but I would have to say it’s not cheap, someone has to pay for it so I support Tom’s comments “It’s like asking why a restaurant that has half the food costs doesn’t charge half the price of others” it’s a dum point alright.
I guess that unless you had to move a world away and leave your friends and family behind to give your kids a better future, you will never really understand or appreciate how hard that is. I challenge you all to think about that before you go to hard on these green taxis.
I wish I though of the idea 1st, maybe that’s why some of you are so negative, jealousy brings out the worse in people, I should know I am divorced. ha-ha
Hey u in the nudist beach, a little birdie told me that area is infested with Termites. Is this true?
Hellow again Callumn, do not mention leg room in the back of one of your cabs. Because I could not get a combined I took one of your cabs out of courtenay place with 2 other males on a friday night early dec.All 3 of us are about 6ft, and with the front passenger seat pushed forward we were litterally sitting on top of one another in the back seat, an experience you would never get with status ,combined or corporate or Wellington city cabs. We went to Montgomery Av karori and from the moment we left the Dixon Willis corner the instruments recorded we were on petrol the whole way.This was confirmed by the driver. This illustates the need for independent tests as this would be fairly normal fare???
I didn’t fail to mention the Hyundai, it was in fact one of the vehicles that was considered for Green Cabs but was discounted because the emission rating was still only Euro 4 where the Prius was Euro 4 + (to achieve 4+ the vehicle must have 65% less emissions than what is required for Euro 4) and the NOX emissions were more than double that of the Prius. The fuel economy was about the same on both.
So unfortunately it wasn’t quite clean and green enough but as you have quite rightly stated it is better than the Falcon in every single aspect you have mentioned with the exception of NOX emissions.
Btw based on the manufacturer specs from Toyota and Ford the Prius has more rear leg room than the ford falcon.
The point is to each his own but customers now have the choice to take an eco-friendly option if they wish to.
Dear Callum I am not a Taxi Driver,just a customer and until I see some independent tests comparing vehicles of the same size cc ratings, passenger and luggage loadings and comfort,LPG and petrol economies and carbon emission ratings on Wellington Hills and know what happens to the bateries I am not convinced. Using the primus you are comparing a “Dinky toy” alongside Falcons, Maximas,Avalons and Commordores and you fail to mention the new Hyuandi Sonata Diesel which I accept is superior inperformance to a Falcon and even more sonow with the new LPG prices with another major price rise on the way. I understand from the internet that Toyota are bringing out a new and bigger Hybrid sometime this year. I will be certainly evaluating its performance and looking at independent tests., other than marketing hipe jumping on the green industry band wagon
Could you elaborate on “sitting on top of one another” because although there is less room width wise in a prius it should will 3 big guys plus the Driver very comfortably.
There is a bit less room width ways but otherwise you should be fine.
I am 6 ft 2inches and my knees don’t hit the rear of the drivers seat when it is fully back as being a big guy this was something I was very conciuos of and was in fact the thing that ruled out the Civic hybrid and Skoda Octavia Rail Diesel.
It may have run on petrol for the whole trip provided the driver didn’t take his foot off the accelerator or hit the brake at any time otherwise it would have switched to the battery. Going uphill as you were the battery would have been working in tandem with the petrol engine and in doing so requiring less petrol than a larger non hybrid vehicle making the same trip.
Also don’t forget that after dropping you off, to get back to town the driver would have been going down hill most of the way and would have been running the majority of the time on the battery resulting in nearly zero emissions
I agree with Marcus.
You cares if its run on petrol,diesel or cow dung. you just want A to B transport now and u cant be bothered waiting for a bloody bus. I think the color of those greendinky toys is hiodeous.
Tell the greenies to go to Manila or Bangkok, and you will have a ball converting the locals there. The jeepnies in Manila splurgh out about a gallon of diesel everytime they stop to pick someone up.
Mr Ed Your comments on Hybrid cabs are noteworthy, Regretably all my understanding of the primus is that the bateries are non recycleable and in fact will cost at least $8000.00 to replace when they die. We have the problem now of the only recycling battery plant in the country,namely exide in Petone the community wants to shut down. Hybrid taxis do not run on hydro electric power, when customers hop in them climbing wellington hills with 2or more passengers just obsever that you are running on afossle fuel called petrol. I have yet to be proved wrong that these green cabs are nothing more than a marketing tool, and that they are nothing more tham “dinky toys” when it comes to lifting 4 passengers and their luggage from the airport or ferry terminal to hill suburbs. You may find a modern diesel and falcon, avalon ,commordore on LPG more fuel efficient with less emissions on the hilly terrian with 4 passengers and on cc ratings we are hardely comparing apples with apples. It would be interesting to see how the primus,s performs and their overall carbon footprint per passenger k when they have done 500000k plus. They may be fine onthe flat of christchurch or Palmerston North but I doubt it in Wgtn
1.It takes more than petrol to run a taxi company
2.whilst everyone else is charging a premium for being eco friendly Green Cabs has the cheapest per km and waiting time rates in Wellington. The reason it is not half price is that we are actively paying to offset our carbon emissions right now. Not next year not 50% by 2050 right now.
4.We had 40 drivers who wanted to drive for Green Cabs before we Launched, we turned away 25 of them because they didn’t meet the standards we required.
5. Its dissapointing to see that there’s still so many who don’t care about the environment and living in Wellington a City aiming to be the 1st Carbon Nuetral city in the world.
6. It is lucky than many Wellingtonians actually do care about the environment and are choosing a green cab when they need to take a taxi.
Pity it’s such a dumb point. It’s like asking why a restaurant that has half the food costs doesn’t charge half the price of others: because food is only one component of the cost, the others being rent, wages, electricity, gas etc. I don’t know anything about the taxi industry, but it’s obvious that drivers, car depreciation, administration, advertising, maintenance, insurance, compliance and a whole lot of other costs come into it.
We welcome informed and lively debate here, but some of these arguments are clearly either spectacularly ill-informed or deliberately misleading, and the whole thing smells of astroturf.
Ok time to dispell a few myths I think.
The prius was not the only car looked at for Green Cabs but it was the one chosen for a number of reasons.
Batterys – Yes they can be recycled and will be at the end of a green cabs life. I pushed Toyota quite hard to find information about this before settling on the Prius. (more information around this will be on our website in the next few months).
Hybrid – there is a number of reasons we selected hybrids but a primary one was that we are supporting a technology that moves us away from the use of fossil fuels.
Govt Grants – No we don’t receive any govt funding nor have we.
Cost provided the direct route was taken to Hitaitai it would have been cheaper than combined or any other company as we have the cheapest fare in Wellington.
If you get a ride in a Green Cab and are not happy with the Driver our the route taken please make a note of the drivers name or the cab number. All trips are recorded including the route taken. If there is a problem with anything let me know we would like to fix things. We already had ome drivers go through retraining on certain things such as sat nav to make sure they are going the shortest route
Dead miles – every taxi company has dead miles and the fact that this term was used says that the person either works in the industry or has a lot of industry knowledge. Our drivers have no more dead miles than any other company and a reason we chose our dispatch system was that it also helps us select the closest vehicle automatically to minimise ‘dead miles’.
Power for Hills – if required the Prius can use both the battery and the petrol engine to give the same power output as a 2.5 litre camry but in doing so uses less petrol.
To test the Prius as I had concerns about power I loaded it one up with two large suitcases and two small ones, 5 people nd added an extra 200kgs of lead weight then took it up Ngauranga Gorge at 90kms per hour. No problems so the have plenty of power.
Also if you go up hill you have to go down right? well when a prius does it most often switches completely to the battery alone. This means no petrol and no emissions in doing so.
Emissions Figures
Green Cabs
Prius 106gms CO2 per km
Wellington Combined and other companies
Ford Falcon petrol 248gms C02 per km
Ford Falcon LPG 210gms
(There is a 15-20% reduction in emissions with LPG not the 25% some companies are reporting)
Nissan Maxima 259gms per km
Hyundai Diesel
These are not as bad as the others and from memory have C02 emissions around 168gms per km. reason we didn’t go down the rail diesel path is that it doesn’t move us away from fossil fuels and the main reason
The NOx emissions are more than twice that of the Prius
NOx is believed to be a major cause of smog so imagine what that would do to the air quality if all wellington taxis moved to diesels.
We are also commited to only having the number of vehicles required to cater for the level of business we have. Our vehicles are easily doing 20 jobs per day at the moment whilst many other companies will be lucky to do 10
There is even one company using the same vehicles they always have and advertising they are ‘green’ because they too are following Green Cabs and off setting their carbon emissions, whilst I applaud them for taking the first step towards being green… marketing their vehicles as such I’d liken to a petrolium company having a tanker run aground and spill litres of oil into the ocean. Then turn around and say they are eco-friendly because they cleaned it up
ha ha.
Lastly thanks to those who support us, we will only get better and better.
There is a lot of misinformation being spread by other companies about us as they do not want us to get off the ground just be very wary of anyone stating something who is not prepared to say who they are and what there agenda is.
also for all the petrolheads on here maybe you should have a look at this
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=BqqtJpfZElQ
apologies for the long post.
and I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year.
Hi there black smoke- do i know you? Whats this about government grants? Dont leave me in the dark- this tunnel is dirty enough…. without you shedding any light on this for us.
I say go the Green Cab way. In a country where the majority of our electrical energy is generated through renewable resources, the use of hybrid vehicles makes better economic sense in a world of rising fuel costs.
When you think about it they’re just another version of trolley buses, just smaller and with less graffiti!
Disclaimer:
I don’t work for Green Cabs, or know them.
I don’t work for the government either.
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to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting
>When did this become the Hamiltonista?
When the lovely Noelle suggested it this morning, of course!
“Green is an industry in itself- just like Y2K became late last century.”
So, how much do you know about the Y2K “industry”? The reason that banks continued to function and air traffic control didn’t go haywire is not that there was some sort of conspiracy or invented problem, but that people saw there was a real problem and fixed it. Of course there was a lot of alarmist hogwash in the popular media, but I personally know dozens of people who spent months digging laboriously through ancient Fortran and Cobol source code to identify and rectify the pieces that, if left untouched, would have led to vital computer systems acting unreliably or crashing outright.
Likewise, our reliance on fossil fuels and private vehicles is causing real environmental and social problems, and we need to make some hard decisions in order to rectify, mitigate or avoid them. An extensive, frequent and reliable electric public transport system would be much better than just increasing the fuel efficiency of taxis, but taxis are an important component (they make it much easier for people to live without a car entirely) and every little step helps.
“V8’S RULE THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
When did this become the Hamiltonista?
Before we get carried away on these green cabs and primus cars let us see some carbon emission figures and running costs carrying 4passengers and their luggage to the Wellington Hill suburbs ie which is 80 percent Wellington say airport to sunshine Avenue karori, and compare them with say a diesel Hyandai sonata,a, Commodore,Toyota Avalon,FALCON on LPG, and the petrol versions,and a nissan maxima, which are hardely the same CC ratings. I understand Rockgas has such figures available. The Ford explorer with primus technoly used as an experiemental New York yellow cab was a dismal failure it could not hack a 12hr shift and I understand the only time it ran on battery power was when it was stopped at the traffic lights
Yes, exactly ‘smelly’. My daughter caught one of these cabs from Courtenay Place to Hataitai three weeks ago and driver did not have good english, or knowledge and she had to direct him (she went to a well known street in Hataitai I might add). Cost her $15 which seemed a lot to me.
Are you saying that around 5l per 100 kms is barely adequate and are you also saying you have found a Ford Falcon that is doing 5 litres per 100kms also??
Feel free to ask any of our drivers to show you the fuel economy they are getting with their vehicles, all around half that of a ford falcon. Our guys are getting 800 – 900 kms on a 40l tank of petrol you do the math
I can back up any of the figures I have put on here in fact you can find pretty much all of them on the net.
Could you please substantiate just of your claims about the Prius??
Are you prepared to tell the punters on here which company you are with and what your real agenda is??
On the ford explorer Hybrids I would not be surprised if they failed, It’s a power to weight thing the heavier the vehicle the more it will run on the petrol engine or a combination of both. Luckily there are Prius being used very successfully as taxis in New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Denver, London, Italy, Devon and here in NZ in Wanganui, Whangaporoa and now Wellington.
There is a tonne of information on the efficiency of both the Prius and the Falcons you keep pushing and none of it supports any of the arguements you are putting foward, so once again whats your real agenda?
Dear Callum Your test on the hybrid are totally different to mine thats why I call for independent tests. On flat ground of the Hutt va.lley the primusI have details of performed barely adequatley, however as soon as it was compared to an AU2 Fairmont on Lpg with 10 hour shifts over a week on wellingtons hills. in comparison on running costs ,performance, passenger comfort, and carbon emissions,overall luggage room and bearing in mind the hyundai sonata diesel is better than a Falcon Iwas bitterly disapointed in the performance of the Hybrid primus.,the ford was superior.The recycling of the Hybrids batteries is news to me perhaps a Toyota spokesman could confirm your viewpoint. I still say it is just a marketing gimik, and you completly ignore the failure of the New York Cabs experiements with Hybrid technoly to date in a city much flater than Wgtn. With rising fuel costs I wish you were right, however the facts I have seen and paid for speak for themselves
Hay dude Aldwin did you pay your own fare out here?
come and talk to us and we can show you system reports on what drivers have been doing so far.
you might not believe me if I posted the amounts 🙂
ok, i will think about it – but do you know what the drivers are earning.
I agree dave, we have also to ascertain how green these machines really are. How green are the batteries that run these cars? Green is an industry in itself- just like Y2K became late last century. I will definetly be voting National- lets pray the Greenies dont get past the 5% threshold!
V8’S RULE THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cups of tea or tramping trips? – I always thought they were bishops of Scotland elected to represent Church bodies – Why would you want to use them for making cups of tea or even on tramping trips? We got a few problems here.
Hi Marcos- You are on the ball man- why are they not half price if they use half the petrol. Its a big joke. Too little Too late.
Marcos is on the ball. Why are you not half price, if you use half the petrol? The whole green issue is a big con.Too little too late.
Thank you smelly.
I think some have forgotten the bottom line $$$$$
Good point there. The only good one I have read so far on this blog.
If the Green Cabs use half the petrol .Why aren’t they half the price
6ft 2 inches!!and you want some elaboration on sitting on top of one another with the seat fully back!- very weird this green stuff, but makes great reading.
Oh and Dave J
fuel economy around wellington is about 5l per 100kms less than half that of the LPG falcons or any of the other vehicles you put forward except for the diesels
as mentioned in the previous post going downhill the prius switches to the battery which means Zero emissions
The Prius can carry four passengers has the same bootspace as a Camry and more bootspace than a Falcon that has been converted to LPG
I also in researching GC sat at the airport and made a note of people numbers getting into and out of cabs. The majority of cabs had only 1 or 2 people, occasionally 3 and 1 group all with briefcases only had 4.
So yes we are comparing apples with apples and yes you’ve been proved wrong in that they are more than just a marketing tool. Perhaps you should actually take a ride in one if you haven’t so you can make an informed decision.
btw I used to own a Holden SS Ute, my first job was as rousy in a shearing gang, I support the All Blacks win or lose. I like to think I am your typical Kiwi bloke. I just want our country to be as clean and green as we say it is and cleaner than anywhere else in the world. The question you need to ask yourself is do you?
Finally back onto some intelligent discussion?
Out of curiosity Are you still working in the taxi industry?
My point was all taxi companies have dead miles we have put systems in place to minimise the abount of dead miles we have we place our vehicles around the city during the day and have drivers coming on at different times. Because we are small we actively manage our vehicle movements. There will actually be larger companies than us who quite possibly have more dead miles beacuse they simply don’t have the systems or processes in place to minimise them.
Often if there is a long wait it will be in peak times and all our vehicles will be on jobs already This does not automatically mean we are.
Green cabs was set up to be eco friendly across the board and force other taxi companies to change their behaviors too.
We must be doing something right Wellington Combined has decided to follow Green Cabs and is aiming to go carbon nuetral too.
Also take into account that our vehicles are doing 15 – 20 jobs per day where others are lucky to do 10, is that good use of a carbon emitting resource?
I hardly call providing information for the masses and actual facts and figures ‘greenwash’, especially when there are people coming on here and eluding to Ford Falcons being a more efficient and eco friendly vehicle than the Hybrids that we run.
Also take into account that we have already sorted out the planting of enough trees to offset our emissions (including dead miles) for this year. So if you do choose a green cab your journey is effectively carbon nuetral already. We are the only company that has done this. Add to that that around 99% of other taxis on the road in Wellington are emitting between 2- 2.5 x the CO2 emissions that the Prius does. In some cases with older vehicles even possibly more than 3 times as much.
ATO is the abbreviation for Approved Taxi Organisation, it’s an industry term.
In short a number of people (not all) bagging Green Cabs on here are likely to be working for other taxi companies but don’t want anyone on here to know.
It’s a shame because rather than bagging us if they drive for another company at the moment they should instead come in and talk to us about what we can do for them.
One of things that made me decide to really go ahead with Green Cabs was talking to drivers from numerous companies and hearing them tell me about their frustrations about how everything in the industry is pretty much stacked against them. Things like that they get minimal jobs from their dispatch, that their company doesn’t market them or if they are with a better company that the company keeps bringing on new drivers whether they have more business or not.
I wanted to change things and give them a much better option. And we have. more than half of the guys coming to drive for us and not own a vehicle, on seeing how good it was decided to go and buy their own instead.
so, you are admitting that you dont have enough cars to service the work.
Wait, you wanna drive a primus up a hill? Well there’s your first problem! Shouldn’t you just use them for making cups of tea on tramping trips?
So if you want a Green Cab it pays to book in advance. I know thats not always possible.
how much can I earn driving one of these cabs.
Good work Marcos,
If they claim they dont use the fuel that we know they are using, then it should be half the price of a combined, corporate or dodgy cab. talking of dodgies most of those green driver look familiar as taking me home in dodgy cabs before except they now wear a uniform and have a dinky toy to drive.
I will stick to Combined and Corporate for my airport arrangments as i understand the boot space is very tight. imagine 4 partners going from our office with a overnight bag and lapcase each.
My understand is that these dinky toys are only acheiving 30% battery performance and the rest in that horrible fossil fuel called petrol. i think this green thing is all a bit of a have and they will end up just being another cab company on the rank!
Not anywhere near enough, we desperately need good drivers right now to cater for the demand we have. Hence we are advertising on Trademe and Radio.
It would appear that your environmental awareness is on a par with your literacy.
well hello there Marcos. You dont pull any punches now do you? Interesting how Mr Green has gone all very quiet. Like you say – who cares- I might start my own Smelly blog site- will keep you posted.
I think this is just greeny bullshit.What is wrong with a good smelly diesil or petrol motor.
Carbon credits, “who cares” . I think the owners of Green Cabs have sold their operators a novel idea that will wear of soon.Maybe the operators themselves will realise this after sitting all day on a taxi stand for very little
http://smelly88.blogspot.com/
this from Tom on earlier post.
The recent flap (no pun intended) over noisy tui may seem like a typical silly season non-story, but believe me, it’s a real problem. I live above a major central city intersection, and people sometimes ask whether I’m disturbed by road noise. “No,” I say, “but those bloody birds wake me up at 5 in the morning!” A small patch of harakeke eight floors down is enough to attract hordes of juvenile tui flitting around and chattering and generally carrying on like kids in Manners Mall. Tsk tsk, youth today!
It’s probably just the morning-averse urbocentric biophobic grump in me, but does anyone else notice it? And what is the best collective noun for tui? A disturbance? A larrikin? A raucous?
For the rest of Wellington who do care
the 10,000 that will be planted will offset Green Cabs projected carbon emissions for our first year in operation.
The additional 10,000 trees committed to mark Aucklands launch will double the amount we need to offset and we don’t intend to stop there.
This is based on each tree offsetting 50 pounds of CO2
and our estimated unavoidable emissions in the first year 270.92 tonnes
This is something that gets constantly reviewed and should our emissions increase we will ensure our offsets more than cover them.
Callum Brown is wrong about dead miles. All taxi companies do have them but smaller companies tend to have a lot more of them than big companies. Despatching the closest vehicle does not mean a vehicle close to the passenger will be despatched. The reality is it can be very difficult for smaller companies to cover their work and their vehicles do have to drive more dead miles. Larger companies pick you up quicker because they can send a car much nearer to you therefore cutting down on the dead miles that should be included in carbon calculations for any journey. Mr Brown has said they only have 15 drivers and people on this site are commenting about how long it takes for a cab to arrive. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to deduce from this that this is a company struggling to cover its work. Mr Brown is right when he says I must have industry experience. I use to work in operations for one of the large Auckland companies and I also have worked for a smaller company which is no longer around so I know something about what I am talking about – perhaps more than he does. I am also very concerned about the environment so like many people I am looking for ways to reduce my carbon footprint. Just because someone has taxi industry experience it doesn’t mean they are out to bag Green Cabs. I am excited about the Green Cabs concept in principle. Low emission vehicles and carbon offsetting is obviously a way forward but like many solutions for environmental problems all is not always as it seems. I have merely pointed out one aspect of Green Cabs which people should consider if they seriously want to reduce carbon. I do not appreciate Mr Brown “dispelling the myths” as he puts it by creating new forms of greenwash to suit his situation. Janet.
The faster you go – the bigger the green mess.
Hi there Breaker Bay Kid, you seem to have a firm grip of the situation. Yeah mate you and your partners stick to Corporate & Combined for your Airport arrangements. All the best for the new year.
One more thing, this man from green cabs,
you mention driving up the gorge at 90 kph, i hope you dont want your fleet to follow your emample as the speed limit most of the time is 80 kph except when they drop it to 60 for hazardous conditions.
How can you not have any dead miles ( i use this jargon at the risk of being accused of being in the industry- god forbid) when you only have say 20 cars? It dont take a rocket scientist to realize that theres some…um… maybe …even heaps of DEAD MILES bro.