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Statement from LTI Vehicles in response to Evening Standard Article 12.04.07
The publication of an article on Thursday 12 April in the Evening Standard, other publications and associated websites has raised concerns over the future of LTI Vehicles and the continued production of the TX4.
The claim, in the article, that LTI Vehicles will be “killed off” in three years is simply untrue.
The article implies that all taxis will have to meet the new Euro 5 emissions standard by 2010, which is incorrect. There is no requirement for all taxis to meet Euro 5 by 2010. The LTI product has an extension under the new Euro 5 regulations until 2012 and Euro 6 rules until 2015.
There has also been some confusion over which vehicles will have to be Euro 5 compliant and to clarify the situation LTI want to state that any vehicle purchased between now and the introduction of future Euro 5 regulations, will NOT have the regulations applied to that vehicle retrospectively. The new regulations will only apply to new vehicles first registered after the date of introduction of the new regulations.
This is exactly the same as the introduction of Euro 4 regulations. The new TX4 has to be Euro 4 compliant however existing vehicles such as the TX1 and TXII can still be driven and used on the roads as a taxi.
Currently the Public Carriage Office requires all taxis to meet the Euro 3 emissions standards by July 2008 but have confirmed that they have no further plans for increasing this.
The article in the Evening Standard was based on a submission by LTI to a Parliamentary Committee written in May 2006; the information is therefore nearly one year out-of-date. The article overstates the business challenges faced by LTI and overemphasises information in our submission to the Parliamentary Committee.
Furthermore the submission was also made before the signing of a legally binding agreement for a joint venture partnership with Chinese car manufacturer Geely Automobile Holdings Limited in November 2006, which has secured LTI Vehicles’ future in Britain.
LTI also successfully launched the TX4 in October 2006, which provides further long-term security for our business. Indeed the success of TX4 has increased vehicle sales by 35% in the last month.
Like all businesses LTI faces continual challenges, which are raised with regulators, politicians and government and LTI will continue to meet these challenges.
LTI are confident that their current strategy and product plans for Euro 5 will continue to meet market requirements for many years to come.
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