The black London taxi is an iconic vehicle, but as the name suggests, seeing one in Dublin could cause you to double take. Yet, a few months ago that’s exactly the taxi that brought me and my other half home from a night out. I was baffled by it. But it turns out there’s not much of a mystery to solve. The manufacturer, London EV Company, or LEVC, simply sells these cars to everyone and anyone with some Irish-based taxi drivers seeing the benefits of this purpose built vehicle in Ireland.
The London Taxi in Ireland
SIMI Motorstats confirms that there are indeed a number of LEVC London-style taxis on Irish roads. Since 2021, 10 have been registered in Ireland, in counties Dublin, Kildare and Laois.
Given our ever so complicated history with England, it’s understandable that many would be uncomfortable with seeing an English icon on Irish roads. It doesn’t absolutely sit well with me. But that night when an LEVC pulled up to pick me up, I got to see why it’s a popular choice of taxi for drivers.
Modern London taxis built by LEVC are now electric and in 2017, parent company Geely opened the UK’s first car plant in dedicated to manufacturing electric vehicles, including these taxis. The taxis are really spacious with room for 6 passengers. This makes the cab ideal for people on a night out in Dublin. There is also a partition between the back and the front adding security for the driver and passengers.
Some models of the LEVC London cabs are arguably the most accessible cars on the road, with various features making them extremely wheelchair friendly with added ease of access features like pivoting seats. More of these would be welcome in my eyes given that just 1 in 4 of taxi drivers are driving a wheelchair accessible vehicle in Ireland today.
Looking at these cabs makes you fully understand why a dedicated purpose built taxi makes so much more sense over converting a regular road car for taxi usage. And there’s no room for range anxiety to creep in either. The average taxi driver in Ireland covers 44,000km per year and works 5 days a week. Back of a napkin maths suggests that on a daily basis, taxi drivers in Ireland cover about 169km per day. A single charge of a LEVC cab would cover well over 3 days worth of driving.
Will We See More London Cabs in Ireland?
For the taxi driver, these LEVC cars are incredible “places to work”, offering comfort to passengers but from a business point of view, security and excellent range. They are, however, a costly initial purchase. It’s difficult to work out how much getting one into Ireland would fully cost, but the base model itself would cost around €80,000. This would need some import charges added to it and some grants subtracted, adding to how difficult importing one might be.
And that’s the main reason taxi drivers likely don’t look into this option. Which is a shame, because from my experience these taxis are excellent. Maybe there’s a case to be made for their importation to be encouraged by the government and an effort made to “Irish” them up a bit with a classy green colour or similar?
Featured image courtesy of MD Motors, Dublin via DoneDeal.
