This week, T4SM, along with over 60 other organisations in the mobility sector, endorsed an Open Letter rejecting mandatory targets for corporate Light Duty Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) purchases.
The taxi sector operates under important constraints, and as such needs tailored support to effectively decarbonise and keep playing a key role for European citizens, both in terms of services and as an industry itself. T4SM believes that the decarbonisation of the taxi industry must be locally driven, operationally feasible, and economically viable, and we would be concerned should this initiative impose fleet electrification mandates on taxi operators, drivers, and dispatch centres.
Any effort to impose such rigid purchase mandates undermines the current progress. Mandates fail to address the genuine, systemic obstacles preventing faster adoption, such as the high Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and the persistent lack of sufficient charging infrastructure suitable for all corporate use cases.
We believe efforts would be better redirected to enabling conditions such as improving charging infrastructure and grid availability across Europe and providing fiscal incentives in order to support a transition that is already ongoing.
Our goal is and always will be to promote a sustainable, affordable, and just transition of European urban mobility and the taxi sector.
Read the full letter here.
