The Geely owned London EV Company (LEVC) which produce the electric London Taxi TX announced that it will start trials of its electric delivery van in London with potential customers such as the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade in the second half of 2019. The target segment of LEVC Electric Van is demanding city delivery cycles of 100miles per day currently serviced by medium sized 1-tonne diesel vans.

London Taxi Co, the Geely owned company since 2013, this week unveiled its production-ready electric taxi, the TX, which is based on the FX4 black cab that went out of production in 1984. The 60-year-old British company changed its strategy to produce electric vehicles exclusively and opened its EV production facility at the end of March in Ansty, Coventry, and will rebrand itself as the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC).  The new model will be a range extended car with a 70-mile (112km) electric range and 400-mile (640km) total range. The first 150 black cabs will be seen on London’s roads from November 2017 to comply with Transport of London’s (TfL)new rules that all new cabs must have zero emissions capability from 1 January 2018 with the intent to phase out diesel cabs by 2023. 

TfL will support the initiative with co-developing 80 charging points by 2018 which will increase to 200 by 2020. The average London Cabbie covers around 120 miles (192km) per day and costs around £43,000 ($56,000) which is financed by the London Taxi Co through a private hire vehicle finance scheme. Although no formal pricing have been announced word on the street is that the TX will sell for around £50,000 ($65,000). LEVC also announced that it already received an order for 225 TX’s from the Dutch taxi operator, RMC, for use in Amsterdam. The TX competes with the Uber financed Toyota Prius and Mercedes Benz Euro 6 Vito Taxi (not EV), priced at £47,000 ($75,200).