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 yet another stalemate in an 18-month court battle over the city’s “Taxi of Tomorrow.”
In October when Nissan rolled the very first vans to dealers, a judge ruled that the Taxi and Limousine Commission had no authority to establish 1 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 completed with the NV200 taxi.
As we’ve reported, taxi organizations and drivers just do not want to be told to get one automobile, regardless of the car in query. The Commission has approved 47 autos for taxi service (there’s even a few Mercedes and Lexus cabs roaming about) and until Nissan sells a hybrid NV200, taxi drivers can shop from any of the hybrids on that list. Even though an all-electric e-NV200 is now on sale in Japan, that Leaf-based model is still far from any U.S. debut.
The most current ruling, according to Bloomberg News, is a “legally acceptable response to the agency’s statutory obligation to generate a 21st-century taxicab consistent with the broad interests and perspectives that the agency is charged with guarding.” Nissan, which spent years building 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 one more volley by the Taxi Association.
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