Taxi! Volkswagen Electrifies Milan

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: April 19th, 2010

Did you ever drive in Milano, Italy? Take my advice: Don’t. Park your car, take a taxi. That must have gone through the minds of the boys in Wolfsburg, when they were searching for a name for their dedicated taxi prototype. “Mamma mia! Let’s call it Milano!”

An so it came that today, the Milano Taxi, a study of a mass-market taxi powered by an electric motor, made its world debut at the Hannover Messe.

The Milano Taxi is powered by an electric motor with a peak output of 85 kW; energy is supplied from a lithium ion battery integrated in the underbody, giving it a whopping range of up to 300 kilometers, says VeeDub in a press release. That’s three times the back&forth distance from downtown Milan to the Malpensa airport, of which some people claim, it’s in another country.

Serendipity at work: Today, Martin Winterkorn could show the appropriately green taxi to his Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She could have used the thing. The Icelandic volcano ashes disrupted her flight back from the USA to Berlin. They could fly as far as Rome, Italy. Then, the ashes grounded her plane. From Rome, she had to be driven all the way to Berlin, 1700 kilometers – the Milano could have done that with just 6 charges.

#BertelSchmitt #ElectricCar #Germany #Green #Taxi #Volkswagen

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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Russycle on Apr 19, 2010

I believe Milan was the first place I saw a Smart car. Made sense there, I had no desire to drive, and if I did, there wasn't any place to park. I could pretty much get around fine on foot...except to the airport. It's practically in another time zone.

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- Joeaverage on Apr 22, 2010
  
  Man driving in Milan AIN'T NOTHING compared to living and driving in Naples. Did that for three years. Had fun and it was a crazy place. Glad I was single and not worrying about a wife and our kids getting run over there. Note that this was prior to the Internet and GPS. Yeah, we got lost alot. Maps work if your passenger can keep up. Like any city it was challenge to find where the car was parked at the end of the day. So many little tight streets.
  
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Rusted Source on Apr 19, 2010

I hope she doesn't get her microphone confused with the busy end of that extension cord.

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