The London Taxi, or Hackney Carriage, has been a celebrated icon of British life since the 17 th century. It is loved and respected in equal measure around the world. Relied upon my millions of travellers, tourists and commuters every day, the familiar black cab is an integral part of the City's transport network and enjoys a special place in the hearts of visitors and residents of London and the UK's other major cities. The story of the London Taxi begins long before cars were even invented.
The first Hackney coaches - large and luxuriously trimmed horse-drawn carriages - appeared during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1. Wealthy Londoners often looked to recoup the high costs of keeping horses, drivers and coaches by hiring them out to lesser members of the gentry. A more organised and structured taxi service was introduced in when Captain John Bailey - a regular member of Sir Walter Raleigh's many expedition teams - set up London's first taxi rank. He started with four Hackney Carriages by the Maypole in the Strand, and set strict rules for what drivers could charge.
He also introduced a code of conduct for his employees - along with a special livery to mark his carriages out from the crowd. The popularity of the horse-drawn Hackney Carriage continued for the next years with the biggest change coming in when a faster two-seater, two-wheel carriage arrived from France.
The taxi story took another turn at the end of the 19 th Century, when The Capital's first motorised cabs hit the street. Just to prove that London was already thinking of the future, the first examples to hit the streets were electrically-powered, zero-emissions vehicles. All engines — if they are present at all — must be petrol, and if that engine is being used, for instance, to provide a battery with extra juice, it must release no more than 50 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre of travel, less than half the amount released by the average new car sold in Europe.
In his initial designs for the TX, Ancona toyed with a deliberately futuristic feel. Early designs looked like a British take on the cars in I Robot — all smooth lines and gleaming glass. At the rear a panoramic sunroof seamless spilled out of the rear passenger windows, wrapping the entire passenger compartment in a glass cocoon. The temptation was to go with a design that was deliberately fresh and contemporary, says Ancona, but with the average taxi having a working life of between 15 to 20 years, what seems modern in might feel fusty by The classic black cab has a cute, welcoming design, Ancona says.
The new design needed to communicate this departure from the past, without straying too far away from the classic London taxi look. Soon, Ancona and is team opted to drop the avant garde approach for something a little more traditional.
We had to capture that same feeling. They started by using design tricks to visually lower and stretch the TX. A curving indentation that runs along the bottom of the doors captures a puddle of light, helping to trick the eye into lowering the vehicle.
The chrome trim framing the windows introduces another long horizontal line, distracting from the height of the car. The familiar rounded roof of the TX4 is gone, replaced by a much flatter profile more reminiscent of older taxis, but the distinctive humped bonnet and bumpy rear are still there. The result is car that is instantly recognisable as a black cab but also feels less workmanlike, and a touch more luxurious.
This modest injection of luxury is a deliberate move, says Gubbey. Despite his confidence in market demand for premium rides, Gubbey is well aware that the taxi market is squeezed like never before, particularly with Uber offering two premium tiers in London on top of uberX and UberXL. Besides, Gubbey says, his taxis are hardly anti-ride-hailing, or even ride-sharing.
There are already a handful of apps — such as Gett and myTaxi — that let Londoners summon black cabs via their smartphones. Uber remains tight-lipped on ride subsidies, but a analysis found that its customers were only paying 41 per cent of the cost of their journeys.
The ride-hailing firm is fiercely resistant to regulation — for years it lobbied local and national governments to be recognised as a technology firm, not a transport company. Its refusal to meet the minimum requirements demanded of other taxi firms has led to outright bans in Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary as well as suspensions in Finland, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
The firm has a similarly stubborn stance when it comes to its workers' rights, and only just agreed to give drivers in Europe sickness and injury payments — benefits that critics say still fall well below the level it should provide under long-established employment law.
London's clean air targets aren't just sorely needed for a city where pollution levels regularly breach legal limits — they might also force the taxi industry to modernise. And where Uber would rather see itself as nothing more than a platform, LEVC is firmly committed to the idea that its products will only succeed when they're paired with a professional, fully employed driver.
Read more: Hey Tesla, how hard can it be to actually make a car? Inside, the seat arrangement has been tweaked to fit an extra passenger, up to six people in total. But did you know these things about Uber's arch nemesis Step out of Coventry station and chances are there'll be a black cab to greet you. Although these vehicles aren't unique to London, Coventry has more than its fair share — probably because they're manufactured here.
But black cabs have been manufactured in Coventry since , when Carbodies started making the FX3 taxicab. The FX3, by the way, came in black as standard — the colour stuck. That's right, while we're slapping ourselves on the back for the ' revolutionary ' electric taxis churned out of Coventry, Walter C.
Bersey's London Electrical Cab Co. The fleet of 'Hummingbirds' was so-called because of the gentle noise they made, and their black and yellow livery. Said the Dundee Evening Telegraph , "It has been ascertained by test that [the battery power] is sufficient for running 50 miles — about day's work — although not continuously at the highest speed.
London wasn't yet ready for the electric revolution. The highly-reputable Dictionary of London Phrase and Fable suggests cites a long-held belief that the 'hackney' epithet was derived from the French word haquenee — which means 'trotting horse' the kind of horse that used to be hired out.
Taxis, too are hired out and used to be pulled by horses — so there's your etymology. BUT the book also suggests that actual Hackney in actual east London was once such a green and pleasant land, that it was FAMED for its horse-grazing pastures, and the French nicked 'haquenee' from there, sometime after they invaded in That's another theory, anyway.
When Peter Watts delved into this for Londonist , he also touched on the idea that the Dutch or Spanish may have invented the name — before coming to the firm conclusion that nobody really knows.
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