red guard

I had a young Chinese guy in the cab a few days ago. A Tulane student going to the airport for Christmas break. He said he was Chinese so I asked "Shanghai?". He said yes, it was a beautiful city. I said "Red Guard". He laughed and said that his papa had been a red guard.

ethanol and gasoline

I read a while back in Business Week that many mixes of gasohol have been tested with as much as 18% ethanol. There are proposals in Congress to increase the mixture of standard gasohol to 20% ethanol. This is apparently bad for cars which are not flex fuel certified. The parts in the fuel supply system can be eaten up by the ethanol.

After reading this I looked into which fuel suppliers make fuel without ethanol. Sunoco and Amoco and Conoco seem to be the ones. I have found two stations close to me in New Orleans with this fuel; one Sunoco at a former BP station in Metairie and Amoco at a no-name station on North Carrollton up by Canal.

There is a branded Conoco station by the airport but they charge 30 cents more than everyone else.

Now I try to fill up with the Amoco or Sunoco at least every other tank. I get better mileage with it in my Grand Marquis taxi.

12 hours a day, seven days a week

That is the taxi biz. Today I worked 11 hours and grossed $109. Out of that I pay dues to the company and buy gasoline and put aside money to re-pay the childrens inheritance of the capital required to get in this fascinating business. If I ignore the capital costs (forget about a maintenance account) then I earned about five bux an hour.

another taxi post

I just used google 'blog search' for hybrid taxis. New York famously had a rule for taxi's to get a certain fuel economy. This resulted in a bunch of hybrids being put into taxi service. I am unclear, but hybrids may have been specifically required. The link in the title above is to a small article talking about the safety of the Escape hybrid contrasted with the Crown Vic. The big Vic is indeed a very safe car and New York has a special stretched version using the Town Car wheelbase. New York cabs have barriers between the driver and knife wielding crack heads in the back seat. There is no room for this stuff in a short Escape.

A stretched Escape? Good idea but would Ford do it? Not just for taxi's and not enough power for police use, which is the largest purchaser of fleet cars. A hybrid Crown Vic? They'd never do that, they are trying to cancel the car altogether even tho it is the largest selling passenger car in Florida. They want the police to get used to a front drive package.

taxi

I've been driving a taxi again for a month. In Jefferson and Orleans parish's. I get a pretty junky car being the new guy. I am stuck with a big diesel pickup out front, making payments and full insurance. A 1999 F250 powerstroke. Been trying to sell it for a year, never lowering the price fast enough. So, now I am thinking of trading it in for something to use as a taxi. First I was thinking of a Grand Marquis/Crown Vic, the most widely used taxi. Strong and reliable. Enterprise car sales has one year old rentals for $14K or so. There is the Caravan/Town & Country as well, which hauls more people but gets worse fuel economy. The big Ford/Mercury gets amazingly good mileage for such a large car. They've been perfecting it for 30 years.

I just started thinking of getting a Ford Escape Hybrid instead of a large car/van. Enterprise has one available. There are a couple newspaper articles about using an Escape hybrid as a taxi in San Francisco and New York. One San Fran driver is quoted as being happy with the fuel cost savings and saying he had 120,000 miles on it with no trouble. Ok, how about at 300,000 miles? The Crown Vic Police Interceptor does that with no problem. I cannot find anything written by an actual driver of an Escape hybrid.