Electric Taxi Acid Test

I’d planned to take public transit from Trudeau Airport to my brother and sister-in-law’s house in Montreal, but when I emerged from the arrivals area, however, I was immediately greeted by a banner advertising Téo Taxi, with an all-electric fleet, and I remembered that I’d signed up for an account last year but never used it.

Never one to turn down an opportunity for a novel experience, I quickly downloaded the Téo app, and booked myself a car.

The app told me that it would be there in 8 minutes and, sure enough, by the time I reached Gate 6 (on the departures level, a temporary source of confusion), my driver, Aghil, was waiting for me in a Tesla Model S.

Aghil turned out to be a personable chap, and gave me the lowdown on what it’s like to drive a Tesla, what the battery life is like in a Montreal winter, and what it’s like to drive for Téo. And he expertly drove us in a such a way as to avoid the paralyzing rush hour traffic along Rte. 40.

My plane landed at 4:56 p.m., I left the airport at 5:11 p.m., and Aghil dropped me off in the city at 5:56 p.m., a trip of 45 minutes.

The fare was $55; with a 20% tip it came to $66. Which is a lot more than the $13.25 that it would have cost me by a combination of the 747 bus and the Metro. But it also saved me 30 minutes and a lot of luggage-juggling-on-escalators, was a zero-emissions trip, and gave me a chance to ride in a Tesla for the first time.