Everyone associates black cabs with the United Kingdom – and especially London, its capital city. But taxi companies the world over have realized the benefits of the spacious and, thanks to an extendable ramp feature, even wheelchair-accessible cabs. One such example is Taxi Ruf Düsseldorf. The version of the London “hackney carriage” used in Düsseldorf is, in keeping with modern times, equipped with a plug-in hybrid drive system and range extender allowing it to travel around 100 kilometers on electric power alone.

The vehicle, which features state-of-the-art components from the Rheinmetall Group in the form of two electric coolant pumps and an electric water recirculation pump, is manufactured by London EV Company Ltd in Coventry, now a subsidiary of Geely Automobile, a Chinese corporation. The need to develop this cutting-edge version named TX4 cab, which is even available as a left-hand-drive model, was prompted by rules imposed in 2010 by Boris Johnson, who was the mayor of London at the time. These stipulated that starting in 2018, new taxis would be licensed for use in London only if they were capable of zero-emission driving at least some of the time. So with more than 5,000 vehicles, the TX4 already accounted for around a third of London’s entire fleet of taxis in 2022. Thanks to its turning radius of just 8.54 meters (28 feet), which makes it the ideal vehicle for use in inner cities, it can now also be seen on the streets of such places as Bahrain, Bangkok, Berlin, Johannesburg, Singapore and Sydney.

Bildergallerie