Soy Motor - Etioca Miner: a new concept of electric taxi presented in Madrid
Taxi drivers will not have to buy the car, which will be given to the company to operate.
According to its creators, it will allow, together with other services, to increase the current turnover by 20%.
The third stop of the Etioca Road Show 2023 World Tour was held in Madrid, an event focused on taxi drivers and delivery companies where the functional prototype called Miner, a revolutionary electric taxi that seeks to offer a new way of working for taxi drivers and delivery companies, was unveiled.
The mobility of the future will undoubtedly be influenced by the reduction of emissions and by a clear and remarkable technological development. Over the next few years, we will witness a huge metamorphosis, which will change not only the vehicle itself, but the way we ourselves see and use the transport at our fingertips. A transformation that is already taking shape, with car-sharing companies, electric scooter rentals and even electric vehicles that do not even need to be purchased in order to operate.
This is the case of the Etioca Miner, an eye-catching electric prototype designed in collaboration with Giorgetto Giugiaro, which aims to become the taxi of the future, which taxi drivers will not need to buy. It is powered by a 120-kilowatt - 163 hp - electric motor and can reach a top speed of 150 km/hour. It measures 4.95 metres long, 1.95 metres wide and 2.01 metres high, while the wheelbase is 3.5 metres. The battery is 100 kilowatt/hour, and in the WLTP urban cycle, it offers a range of 350 kilometres.
In addition, based on the latest knowledge of the pandemic, each vehicle will be automatically disinfected when all passengers have left the interior, using a mixed system of ultraviolet light and disinfectant spray. In addition to changing the batteries, the driver can also wash the vehicle daily at specific stations.
This is the first project of Etioca holding, a company founded by Mark Ishakov, an Israeli entrepreneur and inventor, and which has designed an electric and sustainable vehicle, whose business programme does not contemplate the sale, but the loan of the vehicles, without the need for down payments and even with electric charging and daily washing. A car aimed at a new generation of entrepreneur-taxi drivers who are no longer obliged to buy a car because Etioca offers them the exploitation of their new project.
A car that has been shown in Madrid, at the door of the Atocha station -currently known as Estación de Madrid-Puerta de Atocha-, in what has been its second outing on Spanish roads, after its passage through Barcelona a few weeks ago. Those in charge of presenting the project were the founder of the company, Mark Ishakov, and the CEO of Etioca, Roberto Fiorello, who also communicated some of the information of most interest to taxi drivers and businessmen: usage costs.
Etioca Miner usage rates start at 0.36 centimetres per kilometre driven, but there are also packages that include additional services such as battery changes, daily washing, insurance, maintenance and vehicle replacement in the event of a breakdown. To register, a payment of 100 euros will be required, which will be returned to the Etioca debit card on the same day that the vehicle is delivered to them, which will be the case from 2024 onwards.
Those taxi drivers who make the pre-booking will be registered in the Etioca application, which will allow them to reduce waiting times through geolocation and enter the network of users of the aforementioned application. They will also be able to use the Etioca ECO cryptocurrency - one ECO is equivalent to one kilometre - and through an integrated system, each taxi driver will have the opportunity to receive a cash refund as a reward for having contributed to “mining” each new Etioca digital currency. The Fintech and Etioca system allows to increase the current turnover by 20%.
It has been a project that has required five years of work, during which an analysis of the needs of the taxi sector and urban mobility trends has been carried out. For this reason, the Etioca Miner has been built on a modular platform called ‘Anna’, which not only allows the creation of vehicles for the transport of people, but also delivery vehicles, ambulances or special vehicles -security and defence- can also be developed. All of them with sustainability as a basis.
By the end of 2024, the first 10,000 examples will be in circulation and annual production in 2025 is expected to reach 45,000 cars. By 2027, the plan is to reach 100,000 units per year. The company is looking to increase investment to $400 million to finance the industrial plan and reach $1.2 billion in the next three years. Currently, according to the company, there are 90,000 pre-bookings in Italy, Israel, Latvia and Spain.
