Electric car retailer Oxygen Group has launched Oxy-Taxi, the first electric car taxi service in Ukraine. The company provides clients with electric taxicabs, and says it will expand its fleet to 50 vehicles over the next three months.
The eventual goal is to have 500 cars, including ones manufactured by U.S. company Tesla Motors, and to make an initial public offering (IPO) in three years, says Oxygen Group and Oxy-Taxi CEO Alexandr Vovk.
“We’re going to build a proper business,” Vovk told the Kyiv Post.
“Ninety-five percent of Ukraine’s taxi market is in the shadows. So a legal taxi business with electric cars and gree energy is going to interest a lot of people,” he added.
Oxy-Taxis in a Kyiv street (photo credit: Oxy-Taxi)
At the moment, all of the electric cars are Nissan Leafs. Each vehicle offers free Wi-Fi, the use of a tablet, payment terminals for paying fares, and even the use of an umbrella from the vehicle to the client’s door, if it’s raining.
To provide round-the-clock services, each Oxy-Taxi car has to recharge at least two or three times a day. To speed up the process, all of the cabs will use two high-power chargers installed by Oxygen Group in Kyiv. Three more chargers are ready to be installed in outlying parts of the city.
This story first appeared in the Kyiv Post, a syndication partner of Ukraine Digital News.
