A fresh electric variant of classic black cabs of London will come on the roads of Amsterdam in 2018. This is the first export industry for the latest model since the Chinese-owned maker, the London Taxi Company, looks to trade 50% of its income abroad.
The company will officially keep its name as the London EV Company later this year. It is also undergoing a fast growth as it was purchased out of liquidation in 2013 by China’s Geely, opening a new facility in Coventry, Central England, in 2017. By the end of this decade, it expects to trade 50% of the approximately 10,000 vehicles to be made every year to overseas markets, comprising a yet-to-be rolled out van. It has been displaying the latest electric plug-in amalgam taxi in most of the cities in Europe.
Chris Gubbeym, Chief Executive of the company, told the media that the company had selected the Netherlands as its first export market owing to its openness to latest technology and the compatibility of the new model with the demands of disabled people, comprising its high and ramp roof. “It is a town that is extremely progressive when it comes to improving and protecting its quality of air,” he told the media in a statement.
“They only recognize what the goods can do for their industry. Specially the ease of getting in and out, as well as the accessibility,” he further added while talking to the media. People in Amsterdam will be unable to book the taxi on the street but as an alternative, it will be accessible as fraction of a Municipal Contract Hire Service offered by Dutch company RMC to transfer the disabled and elderly, comprising to and from clinics, he claimed.
Chief Operating Officer of RMC said to the media that the company had yet to make a decision whether the 225 cars it is obtaining might be painted black or not. But she also said that it was sure about London cabs that it might prove a success in the city and might also be later utilized in Rotterdam.