FT/Skapinker: Why London cabs don¹t travel

Michael Skapinker: Why London cabs don¹t travel
By Michael Skapinker

Financial Times
Published: December 7 2004 18:47

My first thought as I slide into the back of a New York taxi is always the
same: why do the world's most demanding consumers put up with this?

It is not the drivers I object to. In spite of their reputation, the New
York taxi drivers I have used have known their way around, spoken passable
English and been perfectly friendly. Perhaps I have been lucky. Many of the
current generation of drivers are from the Indian subcontinent. I always ask
whether they miss cricket. The homesickness and longing that crosses their
faces is invariably followed by a warm conversation that lasts the rest of
the journey.

No, my problem is the taxis themselves. Is there a more uncomfortable
vehicle than a New York cab? Passengers are forced to slump low down, legs
jammed, necks strained from trying to peer over the partition that divides
them from the back of the driver's neck.

It is all the more galling when you have just arrived from London, the city
with the best-designed, most comfortable taxis. Whey aren't the streets of
New York - indeed of every city - full of them?

The London taxi's failure to conquer the world makes an intriguing
management case study. At first glance, it seems a classic case of British
ingenuity stymied by a lack of ambition and commercial nous. Manganese
Bronze, the company that manufactures most of London's taxis, is an
undersized outfit that seems to stumble from one crisis to the next.

Last month, the company sold Zingo, a service for hailing taxis from mobile
phones. The company spent £13m developing Zingo. It sold it for £1. Zingo
helped increase Manganese Bronze's annual losses to £4.1m in the year to
July, from £3.3m the year before.

In November 2003, Jamie Borwick, Manganese Bronze's former chairman who
controls about 37 per cent of the company, voted Ian Pickering, the chief
executive, off the board. The board re-appointed Mr Pickering half an hour
later.

Yet the company continues to produce outstanding taxis. The old model, the
Fairway, is extraordinarily durable. The average London cab is 13 years old.
The most recent model, the TXII, is even more comfortable than its
predecessors. You do not bang your head as you get inside, the taxi offers
more legroom than a first-class aircraft seat and has no difficulty
accommodating wheelchairs. It also comes with a left-hand drive option. So
why did Manganese Bronze manage to sell only 168 taxis in the US last year,
itself an enormous leap from the previous year's derisory 26?

To understand why London taxis struggle, you have to understand taxi
regulation. Regulation explains why it has been so difficult to sell London
taxis anywhere else, particularly in North America. Regulation also explains
why, in spite of all its commercial problems, the London taxi has survived
at all.

The reason London's cabbies drive the taxi is that they have no choice. The
Public Carriage Office specified in 1906 that the city's taxis had to be
able to turn within a 25-foot circle. Only the London cab can do this.

North American cities have different regulations. Taxis do not have to have
tight turning circles, but they do need to pass strict emission tests. The
London taxi has a diesel engine which struggles to pass.

Bruce Schaller, a consultant who publishes the indispensable New York City
Taxicab Fact Book, says New York's rules make life even harder for the
London taxi. All taxis entering service in New York have to be new and have
to be taken out of service no more than five years later. (I have been less
lucky here. Most of my cricket-loving New York cabbies seem to have got
around this one.) These rules make it difficult for Manganese Bronze to
argue that the durability of its taxis compensates for their high selling
price compared with the Ford Crown Victoria, the predominant New York cab.

Larry Smith, however, believes that all these problems can be overcome. In
1998, Mr Smith, a Boston-based entrepreneur, sold his company, Finagle A
Bagel, and flew off on his first visit to London. He told himself that if he
saw a product that really appealed to him, he would make it the basis of his
next business. He stepped off the aircraft, walked out of Heathrow airport,
climbed into a London taxi and thought: this is it.

Mr Smith, whose company now has the right to distribute Manganese Bronze's
taxis in North America, has found it hard going. He and his fellow-investors
have spent $10m getting the taxis through their emission and crash tests and
setting up a sales network. Life will get easier next year when Manganese
Bronze starts producing the taxis with petrol engines for the US market. A
small number of London taxis have already begun appearing in San Francisco,
Detroit, Las Vegas and Ottawa.

Mr Smith thinks it may even be possible to overcome New York's restrictions.
The ease with which disabled passengers can use London taxis could allow the
cabs to stay in use beyond the five-year limit. The taxis' resale value
could make them an economic proposition for drivers who buy them and then
sell them in cities with less restrictive requirements.

To really succeed, however, Manganese Bronze needs to bring its prices down,
which means adding foreign manufacturing sites to its factory in Coventry.
It announced in February that it had signed a letter of intent with China
National Bluestar and the Lanzhou Municipal People's government to make
taxis in China. Those who thought they had heard this before had indeed
heard it before. The company previously had an agreement with another
partner, Brilliance China, that unravelled. Mr Pickering says he is more
hopeful this time.

Mr Pickering says the company is talking to two companies about making its
taxis in Mexico. Manganese Bronze would export kits for assembly in Mexico,
from where it could supply both the local market and the US and Canada. We
shall see. In the meantime, I will keep talking cricket.


http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e6342f1e-48...00e2511c8.html

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 10:32:39 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 04:39:39 +0000, Tam
wrote:
It is all the more galling when you have just arrived from London, the city
with the best-designed, most comfortable taxis. Whey aren't the streets of
New York - indeed of every city - full of them?

You are obviosuly referring to only the so-called "black cabs".
The others are nowhere near as comfortable.

What others? If you mini-cabs, sure but they're very different
things, and I doubt many tourists would be using them unless they knew
full well what they were.

I suspect the black cab can't meet American legal requirements.
And no American cab comapny is going to import cabs unless there
is a well-deveoped service industry for them.

How expensive are New York cabs?

Jim.

In article ,
(Jim Ley) wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 10:32:39 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

How expensive are New York cabs?

Figure about $20k for a stripped down model in fleet volume?

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 04:39:39 +0000, Tam
wrote:

Michael Skapinker: Why London cabs don¹t travel
By Michael Skapinker

Financial Times
Published: December 7 2004 18:47

My first thought as I slide into the back of a New York taxi is always the
same: why do the world's most demanding consumers put up with this?

It is not the drivers I object to. In spite of their reputation, the New
York taxi drivers I have used have known their way around, spoken passable
English and been perfectly friendly. Perhaps I have been lucky. Many of the
current generation of drivers are from the Indian subcontinent. I always ask
whether they miss cricket. The homesickness and longing that crosses their
faces is invariably followed by a warm conversation that lasts the rest of
the journey.

No, my problem is the taxis themselves. Is there a more uncomfortable
vehicle than a New York cab? Passengers are forced to slump low down, legs
jammed, necks strained from trying to peer over the partition that divides
them from the back of the driver's neck.

It is all the more galling when you have just arrived from London, the city
with the best-designed, most comfortable taxis. Whey aren't the streets of
New York - indeed of every city - full of them?

You are obviosuly referring to only the so-called "black cabs".
The others are nowhere near as comfortable.

American cabs used to be made by Checker, and were designed to be
cabs as the black cabes are, but they couldn't make enough money
to stay in business.

The London taxi's failure to conquer the world makes an intriguing
management case study. At first glance, it seems a classic case of British
ingenuity stymied by a lack of ambition and commercial nous. Manganese
Bronze, the company that manufactures most of London's taxis, is an
undersized outfit that seems to stumble from one crisis to the next.

I suspect the black cab can't meet American legal requirements.
And no American cab comapny is going to import cabs unless there
is a well-deveoped service industry for them.


************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:40:42 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 10:32:39 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 04:39:39 +0000, Tam
wrote:
It is all the more galling when you have just arrived from London, the city
with the best-designed, most comfortable taxis. Whey aren't the streets of
New York - indeed of every city - full of them?

You are obviosuly referring to only the so-called "black cabs".
The others are nowhere near as comfortable.

What others? If you mini-cabs, sure but they're very different
things, and I doubt many tourists would be using them unless they knew
full well what they were.

I'm sorry. I didn't realize the subject was regarding only
tourists.

I suspect the black cab can't meet American legal requirements.
And no American cab comapny is going to import cabs unless there
is a well-deveoped service industry for them.

How expensive are New York cabs?

Since the disappearance of the Checker, New York cabs are
normally simply standard automobiles decked out with taxi
appurtenances.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:17:42 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:40:42 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:
How expensive are New York cabs?

Since the disappearance of the Checker, New York cabs are
normally simply standard automobiles decked out with taxi
appurtenances.

Then that might explain the reason, they seem to cost 50,000 US, which
is somewhat more than I'm sure standard automobiles do.

Although in checking the price I did turn up:
http://www.london-fleet.com/media/pr...tcher_0104.pdf

Which suggests they do get about in the US, and are legal there (the
PDF is a press release of a chicago firm that bought 5 to provide
disabled accessible taxi services there.

Jim.

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:33:08 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:17:42 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:40:42 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:
How expensive are New York cabs?

Since the disappearance of the Checker, New York cabs are
normally simply standard automobiles decked out with taxi
appurtenances.

Then that might explain the reason, they seem to cost 50,000 US, which
is somewhat more than I'm sure standard automobiles do.

For full-sized sedans with taxicab modifications?

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 11:56:29 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:33:08 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:17:42 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:40:42 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:
How expensive are New York cabs?

Since the disappearance of the Checker, New York cabs are
normally simply standard automobiles decked out with taxi
appurtenances.

Then that might explain the reason, they seem to cost 50,000 US, which
is somewhat more than I'm sure standard automobiles do.

For full-sized sedans with taxicab modifications?

Well the other price in the thread was 20,000 US, if not then they
would be silly not to buy london cabs I'd've thought, they seat 5
including disabled and they're very robust.

Jim.

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 11:56:29 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:33:08 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:17:42 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:40:42 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:
How expensive are New York cabs?

Since the disappearance of the Checker, New York cabs are
normally simply standard automobiles decked out with taxi
appurtenances.

Then that might explain the reason, they seem to cost 50,000 US, which
is somewhat more than I'm sure standard automobiles do.

For full-sized sedans with taxicab modifications?

Well the other price in the thread was 20,000 US, if not then they
would be silly not to buy london cabs I'd've thought, they seat 5
including disabled and they're very robust.

Jim.

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 11:56:29 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:33:08 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 12:17:42 -0800, Hatunen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:40:42 GMT, (Jim Ley)
wrote:
How expensive are New York cabs?

Since the disappearance of the Checker, New York cabs are
normally simply standard automobiles decked out with taxi
appurtenances.

Then that might explain the reason, they seem to cost 50,000 US, which
is somewhat more than I'm sure standard automobiles do.

For full-sized sedans with taxicab modifications?

Well the other price in the thread was 20,000 US, if not then they
would be silly not to buy london cabs I'd've thought, they seat 5
including disabled and they're very robust.

Jim.