I think a lot of pretty big news is hiding under the edges of The Big Story. Fitting into Riverdaughter’s lead, this one just caught my eye:
New York City picks Nissan minivan as next taxi cab
Japan’s Nissan Motor has won a contract to provide the next generation of New York’s famous yellow taxis.
The deal, which is estimated to be worth $1bn (£607m) was announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The design will be based on Nissan’s NV200 minivan model.
The van, which beat US carmaker Ford Motor and Turkish manufacturer Karsan Otomotiv for the 10-year contract, will be phased in starting in 2013.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg acknowledged the Nissan NV200’s boxy form evokes suburbia, but he said the yellow paint would give it the iconic New York touch.
Sweet. I guess Ford doesn’t have any yellow paint?
And if you’re like me, maybe you’re thinking that Nissan will surely make these cabs somewhere in the US – right?
HaHaHa! The joke’s on us:
The NV200, which will be built in Nissan plants in Mexico, is the first to be designed specifically for use as a New York City taxi.
UPDATE: Some versions of the story include this sentence:
Karsan’s proposed taxi. As part of its proposal, it offered to build a plant in Brooklyn, N.Y., to assemble the vans.
But, they still end with that final bit of information that the taxis will be manufactured in Mexico.
The taxi version of Nissan’s NV200 for New York will be manufactured at the Japanese automaker’s plant in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
I don’t know why the bit about the Brooklyn factory was dropped from some stories. Does it mean that part of the offer wasn’t accepted? Or that they just don’t think it’s important?
Filed under: General | Tagged: exporting jobs, ha!, jobs, jobs for no one, unemployment |
The Confluence 
Is there a Brooklyn in Mexico? because when the Nissan minivan/taxi story broke here in NYC a few days ago, they said a plant was going to be built here in Brooklyn. When did they walk that back? I guess I won’t sign up for that car building course just yet.
Wow … that’s quite a switch. I’ll see if I can find a link to that version.
why not make them here??
Wait! Don’t we own GM? Is there a reason we couldn’t swing a sweet deal for the benefit of some poor furloughed shmucks in Detroit?
Good Catch, Katiebird.
It is May in NJ and the temperature outside is *struggling* to reach 60. It seems that for every nice day we have, we must be punished with 5 days of cold, miserable weather.
Same here — cold and drizzly. I’m so glad Mister got my car fixed yesterday (he replaced the distributor and changed the oil) — it would be a miserable if he had to do it today.
It’s cold here in GA today if that makes you feel any better.
It does not but thanks for trying. 🙂
I was surprised that the City has somehow acquired the authority to mandate cab purchases. The choice of car has always been left to the cab owner or fleet owner (who favor Crown Victorias, because they know how to fix them and have spare parts). How did Bloomberg pull off this new power grab?