London EV Company (LEVC) has announced that it has produced 2,500 examples of its all-new TX electric taxi – and says that the vehicles are already making a huge contribution to reducing urban emissions in London, cities across the UK and in Europe too.
Marking this milestone at an event in Trafalgar Square, LEVC displayed the 2,500th TX to have been built by its factory in Ansty, Coventry, where more than £500m has been invested by parent company GEELY into developing and manufacturing what it describes as the world’s most advanced taxi since 2014.
LEVC says that combined, the cabs have prevented 6,800 tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere – the same as 1,500 return flights from London to Sydney – and they’ve reduced NOx emissions, the major contributor to poor urban air quality, by 99.5 per cent over the previous taxi.
They have also travelled a combined distance of 21 million miles, the equivalent of driving around the world 845 times – or 45 trips to the Moon and back – and have dramatically cut fossil fuel usage, preventing 850,000 litres of fuel from being pumped, saving drivers a total of £3.85 million or around £100 per week each compared to running the old diesel cab.
For passengers – 13 million have ridden in the new TX so far – the benefits include the panoramic glass roof and greatly improved comfort, including the ability to take a forward-facing wheelchair (the only taxi of its type to do that), those who have sat in the back of TX have stayed connected too. Since January 2018, a combined 45 million gigabytes of data have been used, thanks to TX’s onboard WiFi.
Currently, as LEVC’s biggest market, London’s cabbies are leading the charge with over 2,000 vehicles on the capital’s streets. The TX is also available in over 20 cities across the UK, including Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh. It’s proved extremely successful overseas too, with sales in Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Hong Kong and Malaysia.