The plan has been known for two years: from January 1, 2025, only taxis with CO2-free propulsion will be allowed on the streets of Vienna. The transition is slow, as so far only 2.6 percent of taxis are said to be fully electric – despite the enormous financing funds. What’s going wrong here?
The switch to e-taxis has so far been limited to Vienna and is part of the ‘Mobility Master Plan 2030’ drawn up by the Ministry of the Environment. However, the planned decarbonization of Vienna’s taxi fleet is anything but smooth: so far, only 220 taxi drivers have switched to an electric vehicle.
A lack of infrastructure prevents switching
“This is not because our taxi drivers are not environmentally conscious or do not want to switch to an electric vehicle – that is absolutely not the case,” Eveline Hruza, press spokesperson for Taxi 40100, explains to krone.at. The lack of public and semi-public charging infrastructure is the central problem. This would discourage taxi drivers from wanting to switch.
And this despite the fact that the city of Vienna provides a lot of financing. The Ministry of Climate (BMK) wants to support e-taxi drivers with 1,000 euros when purchasing an electric taxi. The city of Vienna even provides 10,000 euros per vehicle – spread per kilometer driven for paying passengers until the maximum amount is reached.
E-taxi drivers rely on public charging infrastructure
But financial incentives alone are not sufficient if the practical implementation in daily work is organized inefficiently. Take a Tesla or an E-Skoda: here the charging time at a charging volume of 11 kW is about three to four hours or seven hours. “A taxi driver who comes home after his shift and has to charge his Skoda for seven hours and then has to get up in the middle of the night to get his taxi from the charging station – that’s too inconvenient,” Hruza explains. If e-drivers leave their vehicle at the station after it has been fully charged, they risk additional fines.
Ideally, every taxi driver would have a charging station at home, but that does not correspond to reality, especially if they are in rental apartments. Taxi drivers are therefore dependent on the public or semi-public charging network – such as supermarkets or gas stations. There must also be a charging station available if a taxi driver wants to charge his electric car.
There is currently no online reservation system – as is already used in Finland – and prices are not visible at many electric vehicle charging points. Because these can vary depending on the charging station: “Unlike petrol drivers, a taxi driver only knows how much he actually has to pay at the end of his charging,” Hruza explains.
Only ten percent fast charging stations available
The solution would be fast charging networks with charging capacities from 50 to 150 kW. “Currently, there are only ten percent of such fast charging stations available in Vienna,” says the spokeswoman for Taxi 40100. At fast charging points, the charging time could be reduced by about 50 percent, as is the case with conventional charging stations. According to Hruza, the city’s ambitious goal is groundbreaking and important, but a goal was likely set without thinking about the logistics of how to get to the end.
High particulate matter pollution in Vienna
“We are absolutely in favor of this project,” Hruza said. Only the expansion of fast charging stations would be of great value. Completely decarbonizing taxi fleets would significantly reduce particulate matter pollution in urban areas, and this is already a health problem: it only became noticeable in Vienna in mid-November – experts even warned against outdoor sports. If you take the upcoming EU values for maximum permitted annual exposure to PM 2.5 as a benchmark, Vienna would not have met the requirements for the past three years.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
