The city of Hamburg is the first German state to ban new registrations of combustion engine taxis from 2025, reports newswire DPA in an article published in Tagesspiegel.
“We hope that this decision in Hamburg will have a signalling effect – for Germany and the whole of Europe,” said Hamburg’s Green transport senator Anjes Tjarks.
Electrifying the entire taxi fleet will save 25,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, he added. The city started to support the switch to emission-free taxis in 2021.
At present, more than 350 of the city’s taxis are electrified — a share of 12 percent, the highest share in Germany —25 of which are powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
Industry representatives called the ongoing shift to emission-free vehicles a success. “We are firmly convinced that the future of our industry is electric and that this changeover date is feasible,” said the CEO of Hansa Taxi, Thomas Lohse.
The EU last year agreed to end combustion engine sales by 2035. Yet some states and cities have already gone further – Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden plan a phaseout by 2030.
Partly due to its massive car industry, which continues to depend largely on the sale of combustion engines, Germany has been more hesitant to implement bans on conventional cars than many other EU states.