Bojan Vrbnjak
Od January 1, 2025 will be in Hamburg newly registered only emission-free taxis. This was recently decided by the city council of the port city in the north of Germany within the framework of the Act on climate protection. The regulation also applies to cars for rent, which are ordered with a driver and do not have a taxi tag.
The city since April 2021 encourages the transition to local emission-free taxis. At that time, in addition to federal funding, funding was provided to offset additional costs for the common 460 electric taxis, of which it was 60 for transporting wheelchairs. Before starting the project"Future Taxi” only five electric taxis drove around Hamburg, but today there are already more than 350. That answers it 12 percent of the taxi fleet in Hamburg, which puts the city in a leading position in the country.
On top of that 350 by electric taxi also belongs 25 Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicles. In favor of this vehicle, the long range speaks for itself 650 kilometers and relatively low price around 66.000 euros. About the same size Jaguar I-Pace, which is also more often seen as a taxi, costs good 90.000 euros. For Tesla Model S, which offers 634 kilometers range, comparable to the Mirai model, the buyer has to pay approx 114.000 euros. It counts as a disadvantage a small number of charging stations for hydrogen. The list of colleagues from gplautogas.info shows at least 90 charging stations in Germany. Since the start of the project, electric taxis in Hamburg have already saved more than 2.000 tons of CO2, but if the entire fleet were converted, the load would be reduced by even 25.000 ton. Despite the charging procedures, the operation of the project seems to be working, with electric taxis operating at least as often as fossil fuel taxis.
In terms of current costs are electric taxis also significantly cheaper, as stated in the press release of the Senate of the City of Hamburg. Now it is necessary to process the entire driver park of taxis. The survey found that most taxi companies think the change is a good thing. Company Hansa Taxi is about to launch its own order number for electric taxis, a taxi app free now (formerly known as myTaxi) notes that more and more users are opting for the option electric taxis in the application. And if they order chauffeur services with rental cars for various events, a vehicle without emissions is often required. And this spring, the port city plans to introduce another million-euro financing program. This will be used to finance additional 360 electric taxis. In addition, they are supposed to put another 40 new stops for electric taxis with 80 fast charging stations.
The problems they face taxi companies in the transition to electric mobility, include lack of charging options at taxi stands and limited selection of models. List of mobility-talk.com shows 23 models cars that are also available as taxi versions. Among them are all four models of the manufacturer Tesla and delivery vehicles such as mercedes equv in evito, but no other personal Mercedes vehicle such as the two models SKIP ali EQE-SUV. There are also electric delivery vans from the Stellantis group as they are Opel Zafira-e, SUVs as they are VW ID.4, Hyundai ioniq 5 ali Let's EV6 and limousines such as Nissan Leaf in Polestar 2.
