Who built the first taxi?

In 1897, Gottlieb Daimler built the world's first dedicated gasoline-powered taxi vehicle. Equipped with a taximeter, it was called the Daimler Victoria and was delivered to German entrepreneur Friedrich Greiner. He founded the world's first motorised taxi company in Stuttgart.



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Ultimately, the word taxi originates from the ancient Greek word t???? (taxis), which means 'arrangement, order'. Taxi is a shortening of the French term 'taximètre'. Germans named this device 'taxameter'. This word stems from the medieval Latin word taxa (taxation), which initially applied to rental cars.

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The concept of taxis have been around since the 17th century, when horse-drawn carriages first became available for hire in London in 1605.

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The concept of taxis have been around since the 17th century, when horse-drawn carriages first became available for hire in London in 1605.

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The famous London taxis are actually called 'hackney carriages' but in London we just call them 'black cabs/taxis'.

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A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice.

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According to Yellow Cab Co. tradition, the color (and name) yellow was selected by John Hertz as the result of a survey he commissioned at a local university, which indicated it was the easiest color to spot.

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Not that the first U.S. taxis were yellow — they were actually painted red and green. In 1907, businessman Harry Allen imported his red and green vehicles with their taximeters from France to New York.

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By the mid-1800s, however, carriage services saw a new, faster model called the hansom cab. Joseph Hansom designed a smaller, lighter carriage that only required one horse to pull it. In fact, these coaches could easily traverse city streets and travel around traffic.

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Taxi drivers, also called cabdrivers or cabbies, use a meter to calculate the fare when a passenger requests a destination.

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By 1625, London innkeepers hired out carriages. In 1635 in England, the Hackney Carriage Act was passed as the first legislation to cover hireable horse-drawn carriages in the country. In 1636, the first London taxi rank appeared at the Strand outside the Maypole Inn.

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Though there has never been law requiring London's taxis to be black, they were, since the end of the Second World War, sold in a standard colour of black. This, in the 1970s gave rise within the minicab trade to the nickname 'black cab' and it has become common currency.

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The plural form of the word taxi is taxis.

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Although there are some phonetic differences, the growth of international tourism made the use of the word “taxi” more and more universal so that, nowadays, almost everyone can understand its meaning.

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