London Taxi Company plans exports of new low emissions model

London Taxi Company CEO Chris Gubbey has announced plans to export its new lower-emission model as part of a ten-fold expansion.

The Coventry-headquartered company, which is owned by Chinese automaker Geely, said that it wants to sell its taxis to major cities across Europe.

LTC plans to expand its output by ten times to 10,000 taxis and light commercial vehicles by end-2020. Sales to Europe will start in 2018.

LTC 's new manufacturing unit located near its existing manufacturing facility in Coventry is nearing completion. Alongside investing £300m in designing and building the next generation range extended electric black cab, LTC is working to ensure that all new cabs are built by highly skilled UK engineers, graduates and apprentices – and has invested in a number of key training programmes to enable this.

According to Gubbey, approximately one-third of LTC's new models would use British parts.

“LTC has manufactured the black cab in the UK for 69 years, and is investing £300 million in bringing a UK-built Zero Emissions Capable taxi to UK and international markets by 2018. We believe we can lead the charge in ensuring London’s air quality returns to safe and legal levels and believe that London can lead the world in zero emissions urban transport,” he added.

Commenting on the impact Brexit could have on its Europe expansion plans, Gubbey said the uncertainty caused by UK's decision to leave the EU did not lead to any changes in its investment decisions.