Turkish auto firm may revisit New York taxi competition

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

This file photo shows Karsan’s Jan Nahum as he announces that his firm lost a tender to produce taxi cabs for New York. Hürriyet photo

A lawsuit against the city of New York for choosing Nissan taxi cabs may be good news for Turkey’s auto producer Karsan, which had lost a tender for the business earlier in May along with Ford.

“Nothing has changed regarding our bid for the ‘taxi of tomorrow.’ The bid is still on given the pending court cases,” Jan Nahum, a Karsan board member, told the Hürriyet Daily News in a written response. “We have received no official notification from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission regarding the results of the bid.”

The lawsuit filed by several disability rights groups against the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission and New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg argued the recently selected Nissan minivan cannot accommodate wheelchairs. The Nissan minivan might, therefore, need to be replaced, according to The New York Times.

If Nissan were dropped, it could pave the way for Karsan, which had lost to Nissan by a narrow margin. According to the lawsuit, taxi owners will only be able to purchase the Nissan NV200 model and will therefore have to buy auto parts exclusively from Nissan, resulting in higher tax fares.