Hamburg Focuses on Electric Taxis Starting 2025
Monday
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20
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02
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2023
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It is official: the EU parliament voted that no more NEW internal combustion vehicles are to be registered from 2035 in Europe. This is a major step to help the mobility sector to finally turn sustainable. And while reactions in Europe’s largest economy Germany ranged from ‘finally’ (e.g. us here at MOTION) to ‘how on earth could that happen’ (the car industry and most politicians on the right wing of the spectrum), the city of Hamburg went one step further. The second largest German city, up in the North of the country, announced this week that for taxis, the end is to come even sooner, as early as 2025.

Taxis are to be completely emission-free from 2025 as the Hanseatic city will only allow electric taxis on the road from 2025. When in Germany, there needs to be an official wording for these vehicles: "emission-free taxis and chauffeur-driven rental cars". Such wording leaves space for fuel cell vehicles too, however despite its strong backing in parts of German media, there are effectively just 25 of these H2 cars on the roads in Hamburg today.

The Future Taxi Project in Hamburg

The Hanseatic city has been supporting the changeover since April 2021 as part of the "Future Taxi" project. Taxi companies receive financial aid if they convert their fleet to e-taxis. Over these almost two years since the beginning of the financial support, the number of e-taxis jumped in Hamburg from 5 vehicles to over 350, thus representing over 12 percent of the taxi fleet today.

In order to double this number, the city will start another funding programme worth one million Euros this spring. A recent survey by Hamburg University of Applied Sciences supports such efforts: The vast majority of Hamburg's taxi companies are in favour of the switch, but also demand a wide range of suitable vehicles and sufficient charging options.

And the first investigations show that the e-taxis work. Electric taxis are capable of providing at least as many journeys as their counterparts with combustion engines. In fact the length of the shifts hardly differs despite the charging breaks the electric vehicle needs to take. The main difference lies in the running costs, which turn out to be drastically cheaper with e-taxis.

The ramp-up of e-taxis will be additionally supported by the creation of initially 40 new e-taxi stands with exclusive fast charging points, so called ‘High Performance chargers’. "The city of Hamburg is once again setting the tone on the topic of the transport turnaround in Germany. We expressly welcome the fact that Hamburg is setting a binding deadline for newly licensed vehicles in the taxi industry…” states Alexander Mönch, President of Mobility provider FREE NOW.

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Photo courtesy of Robert Strehler / FREENOW.

"The Future Taxi project has produced three important findings. The positive climate effects and e-taxis have proven to be reliable, comfortable and cheaper in operation compared to combustion taxis. The great demand for locally emission-free taxis shows that the industry is ready and willing to leave the combustion engine age behind."
Anjes Tjarks, Senator for Transport and Mobility Change in Hamburg
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