price war for taxi trips in Hamburg and London TT Update 12-03-2014

What`s new in the taxi world? Our bilingual ‘Update’ summarizes the news of the last days and hours. We recommend using a website-translator because some links can be in foreign languages.

Message of the day

Uber enters Hamburg discount war: Just a day after the announcement of mytaxi to refund its Hamburg customers 50% of the taxi fare, Uber followed suit: 60% off!

http://www.mobiflip.de/prozent-preisnachlass-hamburg-ubertaxi-mytaxi/

http://stadt-bremerhaven.de/uber-mytaxi-aktion-hamburg/

Price war also in London: The journey back from Christmas parties could be cheaper this year. A price war has broken out among taxi booking apps, forcing firms to slash fares in half in the run-up to Christmas.

http://news.sky.com/story/1378545/taxi-apps-price-war-sees-fares-slashed

Quote of the day

„Mercedes is financing its own customers to the brink of disaster.“

Commentary of several taxi employees on the Hamburg discount campaign of the mytaxi app. mytaxi was recently acquired from the Daimler subsidiary moovel.

„If it is 2am in the morning and you’ve just finished your Christmas party and you want to get home, I don’t care whether I do it for £5 or £20 at that point.“

Ron Zeghibe, co-founder of Hailo Taxi, will not take part in the London price war.

Competition

Cheap today, twice the price next year: In a statement on the Hamburg taxi discount campaign the German taxi and car rental association BZP has pointed out the possible consequences.

http://www.schwarzkonkurrenz.de/preiskampf-in-hamburg/

Taxi branding

Green Taxis: A private university is advertising its new locations in Karlsruhe and Saarbrücken on fully branded taxis.

http://www.sellmedia.de/index.php/news/item/13-taxen-werden-gruen

Future

How will mobility function without ones own car? Shift has launched a remarkable model in Las Vegas in which many variations of transport are possible, but again, the taxi plays no role.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/11/07/armed-with-a-fleet-of-teslas-shift-takes-aim-at-uber-public-transit/

Cars

Daimler wins 2014-2015 European environmental award: Daimler has received the “Process” category award for its Nanoslide technology. Nanoslide uses twin wire arc spraying (TWAS) to apply an extremely thin, low-friction coating to the inner surfaces of engine cylinders, enabling fuel consumption to be reduced by several percent.

http://www.ngo-online.de/2014/12/2/daimler-europaischer-umweltpreis/

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/12/20141202-nanoslide.html