London Taxi Company raise £275M to fund new electric TX5 Black Cab

The London Taxi Company – makers of the iconic Black Cab – has raised £275M through parent Geely to fund development of the new TX5 electrified taxi.

It’s three years since Geely took full control of what is now the London Taxi Company, saving the iconic Black Cab from oblivion after years of under-investment saw it being usurped by modern upstarts like the Mercedes Vito taxi.

At the time it took control, Geely said they had ambitious plans for the business to return it to profitability in the short term and grow substantially in the long term. Which sounded very promising.

Fast forward to 2015, and we saw David Cameron and China’s President Xi Jinping given the first look at London Taxi’s new TX5 Black Cab (above), a sensitively updated take on the TX4 (in other words it still looks enough like a Black Cab to keep tourists happy) but with the promise of an electric hybrid powertrain.

London Taxi promised the new TX5 London Cab would go in to production at LTC’s new £50 million Plant in Coventry in 2017, where Geely plan to build up to 36,000 cars a year. Clearly only a small percentage will be the new TX5 (the rest will probably be Geely models), but it showed a clear path to a new Black Cab that would actually work in 21st century London.

Now, to make these plans a reality, Geely has raised £275 million through a Green Bond sale, which was so successful it was over-subscribed by six times, even at a modest 2.75 per cent, demonstrating Geely’s commitment to the electric hybrid TX5 (and other hybrid models) in the UK (and the market’s appetite for Geely debt), and bringing the TX5 a step closer.

What we don’t yet know is what Geely are planning in the way of a hybrid powertrain for the TX5 Black Cab, although they have said it will have a petrol engine at the front and be able to run as an EV for an extended period. Frankly, a range-extender seems a more sensible solution (then all the cabbies can get back to Essex after work without having to plug in first), but we should know what’s planned soon enough.

Frankly, as we’ve said before, if we were Mayor of London we’d be banning new sales of anything other than electric hybrid taxis, and throwing in a Taxi Scrappage incentive for current Black Cab owners.

Do something similar with the endless diesel commercial vehicles in the capital (a problem sensibly addressed already by firms like Gnewt) and London’s air pollution problems would diminish enormously.