Its Honda Fit hatchbacks can do 18km per litre but savings will not be passed on to commuters
Christopher Tan, The Straits Times 28 Apr 10;
PRIME Taxis has bucked the trend again.
In a taxi market dominated by two- and three-litre diesel cabs, the newcomer has rolled out the tiniest taxis here - the petrol-efficient Honda Fit.
These 1.3-litre hatchbacks are capable of 17km to 18km per litre - frugal compared to the 10km most diesel cabs are getting from each litre of fuel.
Whatever savings Prime cabbies make from these fuel sippers will not, however, be passed on to commuters.
These cabs will have a flag-down fare of $2.80, the base rate of small taxis.
Prime Taxis general manager Tan Soon Chye pointed out that the rate is still the lowest for an automatic transmission cab.
Its managing director Neo Nam Heng said it has added these cars to its fleet partly in reaction to Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport chairman Lim Wee Kiak's call for operators to consider using smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles as taxis.
Dr Lim had said that 1-litre or 1.3-litre models would 'help lower costs'.
Prime Taxis' Honda Fits cost around $58,000 each, about $10,000 less than the next cheapest range of cabs such as the Honda Airwave and Toyota Premio.
Prime thus charges its Fit cabbies a rental of $69 per day, versus about $78 for its next cheapest cab.
The company has started with 10 Fits, and will add another 10 soon. Mr Tan said it will add 'as many as taxi drivers demand'.
Other industry players reckon demand for these sub-compact cabs would not be high.
Mr Tan said their small size is not an issue with medium-built commuters, adding that the hatchback can also take 'two to three pieces of luggage'.
But rivals say cabbies, who typically clock 300km to 500km a day, may find the Fit a less comfortable drive than cars with bigger, more powerful engines and roomier cabins.
Prime's boss, Mr Neo, said the Fit made good commercial sense for its cabbies because of its high fuel efficiency, with the cheapest grade of petrol now costing $1.817 a litre. At 17km a litre, the Fit driver will spend $53.44 on petrol for every 500km, versus $66.65 for the 10km-a-litre diesel cab over the same distance travelled. Diesel now costs $1.333 a litre.
The company also saves on diesel tax, which amounts to $5,100 per diesel cab per year.
Prime has blazed the trail since it started up in 2007. Its fleet is made up of compressed natural gas, petrol and petrol-electric hybrid models.
To Dr Lim's call for the savings to be passed on to commuters, Prime's Mr Tan said this would not go down well with the cabbies.
Meanwhile, some commuters are finding the wide array of cabs here - about three dozen types at last count, painted in different colours - a little dizzying.
Regular cab commuter Lee Li Hua, a 50-year-old private banker, said: 'It's definitely not as clear-cut as before, or as in places such as Hong Kong or New York, where the cabs come in one colour.'
