In a surprise reversal, an appeals court judge has ruled that New York City can indeed force all of its taxi drivers to buy Nissan NV200 vans, marking yet another stalemate in an 18-month court battle over the city’s “Taxi of Tomorrow.”
In October when Nissan rolled the first vans to dealers, a judge ruled that the Taxi and Limousine Commission had no authority to establish one taxi model after the Greater New York Taxi Association complained the van wasn’t handicapped accessible or a hybrid. Current regulations require all new taxi purchases to be hybrids and for any taxi van to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act—both of which Nissan, which successfully won a $1 billion contract with the city in 2011, had not done with the NV200 taxi.
As we’ve reported, taxi companies and drivers simply don’t want to be told to buy one vehicle, regardless of the vehicle in question. The Commission has approved 47 vehicles for taxi service (there’s even a few Mercedes and Lexus cabs roaming around) and until Nissan sells a hybrid NV200, taxi drivers can shop from any of the hybrids on that list. While an all-electric e-NV200 is now on sale in Japan, that Leaf-based model is still far from any U.S. debut.
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The latest ruling, according to Bloomberg News, is a “legally appropriate response to the agency’s statutory obligation to produce a 21st-century taxicab consistent with the broad interests and perspectives that the agency is charged with protecting.” Nissan, which spent years developing the NV200 taxi to the Commission’s specifications and has been loaning unmetered yellow vans to journalists, has stayed out of court and kept quiet on the rulings. Expect another volley by the Taxi Association.
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