Electric taxis to run in Tokyo, adopting battery switch system

Thursday 27th August, 05:57 AM JST

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13 Comments

kyoken at 07:52 AM JST - 27th August

Great idea. Next be so kind to consider getting these noisy buses replaced by battery versions.
thedeath at 10:21 AM JST - 27th August

sound cool, anyway i hope that the taxi electric engine will make some notable noise when it run. so that people will know if one of those taxi come dangerously close to them.

we all know how some taxi driver drive a car!
kidoave at 12:26 PM JST - 27th August

Hope the taxi fare would be cheaper since it is by Battery
yokomoc at 01:45 PM JST - 27th August

Good to see someone making the junp on this. How long can a taxi run on one of these batteries?

Hopefully the new cars will deviate from the Smokey and the Bandit cop car design as well.
timorborder at 04:27 PM JST - 27th August

Good idea this one. Good to see these companies take a chance to push the technology forward.
JohnBecker at 01:03 AM JST - 28th August

A side benefit - no one will ever stiff the driver of one of these taxis after a ride to Ibaraki.
sf2k at 05:15 AM JST - 28th August

glad their not waiting and going ahead with it. surely the tech will get better with nano-batteries so they can recharge at a faster rate. Tokyo without a real winter will not have as much battery depletion. I regret my own local politicians can't get their act together. Internationally London has had 'juicepoints' since 2002, US cities I'm sure as well.

I suppose it would also cut down the rare case of forcing the taxi driver to go to Yamaguchi or whatnot
sfjp330 at 07:00 AM JST - 28th August

If you live in a highrise apartments in Tokyo or any other major metropolitan cities, where can you find a plug in? I doubt then can build a infastructure for effective plug ins. This is just too costly and inconvienant. Most likely, a small gas powered 600cc type three/four cylinder low rpm engine with 30-40hp used primarily as a generator, and lighweight lithium-ion battery. If they can keep the vehicle below 2500lbs, a similar to the concept of Volt, you can possibly get twice the milage of current Prius.
sf2k at 09:16 AM JST - 28th August

electrovaya.ca of brampton ontario canada already has a nano-type battery that has the same power of a prius battery but the size of a shoe-box. They're in discussion with manufacturers but if that includes a Japanese company I don't know. Thus lower weight for the same purpose means more distance.
rajakumar at 09:20 AM JST - 28th August

Battery switch systems for powering electric vehicle is great . Japan must move up on tech and energy,certainly the battery switch system is energy tech improving.
Farmboy at 03:44 PM JST - 28th August

It's nice to see people making these kinds of changes. It will take a while to work out the problems, but this is the kind of thing that needs to happen.
the_harper at 10:42 PM JST - 28th August

I saw a paper presented to a research conference almost two decades ago proposing batteries with replaceable electrolytes. That would be even better than replacing the whole battery. Instead of filling the car's tank with petrol, you hook it to a bowser that exchanges the depleted electrolyte for fresh. Recharged, done. Sad that we've been so addicted to petrol that only now are we seeing a growing need for battery systems for cars. I have to say though - this article is excellent news. Let's hope the system is adopted in more places around the world. Places like Manhattan where almost every car on the road is a taxi could benefit enormously.
sf2k at 03:01 AM JST - 29th August

well they have battery scrubbers now, so you can desulfate the build up. People with boats have to top off their marine batteries a lot and general maintenance hasn't changed much afaik,

by making the taxi have hot-swappable batteries you set the stage to have no batteries at all and be a grid connected vehicle instead. Thus reducing the need to swap. Road construction crews would love that one!