The London Taxi Company, which makes and sells London's fleet of black cabs, has unveiled the next-gen black cab: the plug-in hybrid TX5. The new cab will be manufactured at a new £300-million plant near Coventry—the UK's first new car plant in over a decade. The new cabs are expected to go on sale in 2017.

The TX5 will have six seats, a panoramic glass roof (yay!), space for a forward-facing wheelchair, and the passenger doors will once again be rear-hinged. For the driver, there's more leg room. Perhaps most importantly, each TX5 will broadcast a Wi-Fi hotspot for Internet access, and there'll be power points so that you can recharge your devices. The TX5 also looks slightly different from the TX4, though its silhouette is still fairly black cabesque.

There aren't many details of the TX5's hybrid powertrain, but here's what we do know: it'll have a small petrol engine (not diesel!) and a small battery. The TX5 will operate on battery power until it runs out, and then the petrol engine will kick in to top up the battery. In January 2018, new regulations will require all taxis and minicabs in London to be capable of zero-emissions driving for at least 30 miles, so it's fairly safe to assume that the TX5's battery will be capable of around 30 miles.

The TX5 was unveiled yesterday as part of a state visit by China's premier Xi Jinping. The London Taxi Company is owned by Geely, a Chinese car company (which also owns Volvo). The TX5 will be built on Chinese electric vehicle technology, and the new plant will be funded by Geely. The London Taxi Company says that half of London's current stock of black cabs will be replaced by the TX5 within the next five years.

The current mayor of London, Boris Johnson, sees electric and hybrid-electric vehicles as a key part of improving the capital's air quality. During a session of the London Assembly yesterday, Johnson said that “I want to particularly encourage electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids—they are the way forward." Estimates vary from report to report, but some studies (PDF) have claimed that black cabs—which are currently all diesel-powered—account for around 20 percent of the nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter pollution in London.

At the moment, diesel vehicles will be hit by an extra surcharge when London's "ultra low emission zone" (ULEZ) comes into force in 2020. Following the VW emissions scandal, though, some politicians have instead called for a complete ban on diesel vehicles in the ULEZ.

Johnson said that levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter are coming down in the city—but, in the eyes of at least one other member of the Assembly, they're not coming down fast enough. "The Mayor should admit past mistakes and now say that we are no longer going to put a badge of 'ultra low-emission’ on a set of vehicles that are in reality nothing of the sort,” said London Assembly member Stephen Knight, as reported by The Guardian. By "past mistakes" Knight may have been referring to the Boris Bus Battery Blunder.

“The only vehicles that should count as ultra-low-emission compliant should be vehicles tested in real-world tests. In practice it would give absolute clarity to car-drivers and fleet-owners to simply say that the ULEZ will be diesel free.”