Taxi Driver Online

Black taxi drivers offered £1,550 to dump diesel

Black taxi drivers are today handed a £1,550 incentive to dump dirty diesels in a move to help clean up London’s air. Treasury minister Robert Jenrick told the Evening Standard that a tax break for drivers switching to electric taxis is to start next month, a year early.

The Exchequer is scrapping a Vehicle Excise Duty surcharge for new electric cabs purchased from April onwards. In addition to being exempted from the £310 a year charge, which is imposed for five years on all cars costing over £40,000, cabbies stand to gain £400 a month in fuel savings.

The move, a week ahead of the Chancellor’s spring statement, helps put London’s fleet of 21,000 traditional black cabs on a fairer footing with private hire cars and Uber drivers, who can already save money by buying cheaper electric and hybrid saloons that cost less than the £40,000 threshold.

Black cab drivers cannot currently avoid the charge because their highly specialised vehicles, equipped with disabled access, are more expensive, costing around £55,000. Mr Jenrick said: “Replacing just one of these taxis with a cleaner, electric version would rid the city of seven tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. “Now, just think about what could happen if we upgraded them all to these greener, cleaner cabs.”

With over 75,000 black cabs operating in England, the impact of a change to electric vehicles would be significant, but the biggest benefits would be in air quality in the city centres and pollution hotspots like Oxford Street. Chancellor Philip Hammond said: “Ensuring the air in our bustling towns and cities is free from pollution is part of our quest to become the first government to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.”

Chris Gubbey, the chief executive of cab manufacturer LEVC, said his firm would stump up the charge for any cabbies who had ordered electric models to be delivered in March, worth £310. “We will compensate these drivers to ensure that they are not penalised for being the first to make the transition to a cleaner vehicle,” he said.

The measure builds on a £7,500 grant towards zero emission cabs and a £400 million investment in charging points announced in last year’s Budget.

_________________
IDFIMH

£56000 for an electric taxi £1550 incentive payment and probably a collapse in the second hand value of the vehicle they are exchanging I reckon drivers could be a few grand worse off but hey those London boys are all millionaires they can afford it

_________________
lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

I think they are trying, whoever they are, to get the focus off the £56,000 motor to the £40,000 Nissan.

_________________
IDFIMH

I wonder how long it will before LEVC just add another £1550 to the list price like they did with the government grant. I remember when the cab was first mooted and they said it wouldn’t carry a premium over the outgoing cab.