Public Transport

In the Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan, the Mayor has committed to:

• Work with industry to develop technical solutions to the issues surrounding the electrification of taxis; and

• Work with the Private Hire Vehicle sector to identify the potential market for electric vehicles and the incentives required; and

• Work with bus manufacturers and other cities to determine the operating requirement of an electric bus and develop technical solutions to overcome the operational barriers.

This website will track the progress of these commitments.

Taxis

There are clearly opportunities for electric vehicles to become part of the taxi fleet, but given the demands on typical taxi operations and daily range a number of barriers need to be overcome before electric taxis would become commonplace.

Private Hire Vehicles

Like taxis, the issues of daily range and speed of charging will need to be resolved before a toll out of electric private hire vehicles is likely. However, early adoption of the electic vehicels may be possible either as a specific part of the operators fleet, or in certain areas, such as inner London, where range may be less of an issue.

Buses

It is the view of Transport for London that battery powered buses are not yet able to meet the arduous operational requirements of buses used in London (18 hours per day). However, this will not always be the case. In the meantime, hybrid diesel-electric buses deliver significant fuel and emssion savings and offer a pathway to fully electric buses in the future.

TfL currently has almost 60 hybrid buses in operation and from 2012 all new buses entering service in London will be hybrids. As battery technology improves it will be possible to reduce the reliance upon the diesel combustion engine. Eventually buses will become completely reliant upon a battery (or another form of energy storage device) for their power supply.