Get Market Pulse's stock picks in your inbox! Sign up for our free Newsletter today!
Nissan has a contract to deliver a fleet of new taxicabs to New York City starting in 2013, according to Bloomberg on Wednesday. The new model, dubbed the NV200 minivan, is less a traditional cab and more of a comfortable mobile office with more amenities and leg room than a standard cubicle. Safety features add to the package, which Nissan has priced at $29,700 in the city contract.
So what can a mobile professional expect in the new cab? There’s whopping 10-inch more leg room in the NV 200 than in a Ford Crown Victoria, which is helped by the fully flat floor. That should make it easy to work a laptop or tablet, even if you want to stretch out or cross your legs. Your mobile office will smell fresh and clean thanks to air-filtration — with a grape phenol-coated air filter – and cooling system controlled by the passenger. The fabric seats are made with an antimicrobial vinyl resin so workspace germs need not apply.
Perhaps the best functions — from a productivity standpoint, that is — are those to keep mobile device batteries topped off. Nissan included 12-volt electric outlets and a pair of USB ports to recharge phones, tablets and other portables.
The only problem I see with the new cabs is the transparent roof. Sure, you’ll get a nice view of New York’s architecture and sky, but that won’t help those looking down at their mobile device screen. We’ll have to get Ryan Kim, our mobile man in the Big Apple to get a test drive in one of these to check it out!
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
- CES 2012: a recap and analysis
- 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
- Updated: Forecast: global mobile subscribers, 2010–2015
