LEVC TX vs TXE resale value: what your black cab is worth in 2026

The TX (often called the TX4 in its later years) was the last of the diesel hackneys, fitted with a 2.5-litre VM Motori diesel paired to a five-speed automatic. Production wound down in 2017 as LEVC retooled Ansty for the TXE. Most TX cabs on the road today are between nine and fifteen years old, and many have crossed 500,000 miles. They are honest, repairable workhorses, but they are also the cabs that ULEZ, Clean Air Zones and Manchester's evolving licensing rules were designed around.

The TXE is a different animal. It pairs a 31kWh battery with a 1.5-litre three-cylinder petrol generator borrowed from the Volvo XC90 T8. The wheels are driven only by the electric motor; the petrol engine is purely a range-extender. That architecture matters for resale because it sidesteps every clean-air charge currently legislated in the UK and most that are pencilled in for the next decade.

In rough terms, late diesel TX cabs in honest working order are changing hands for between £8,000 and £14,000. A 2019 TXE sits in the £18,000 to £26,000 band depending on mileage and history. A 2022 or newer TXE, particularly a 5-seat City spec, will fetch £30,000 to £42,000. Those are real trade numbers we are seeing on our desk at /our-prices, not aspirational adverts.

The 2.5-litre diesel in the TX was never a particularly refined unit, but it was understood. Independent specialists can rebuild the injectors, swap a turbo and keep a TX earning for another year for a four-figure bill. The trouble is that buyers are not paying for mechanical familiarity any more; they are paying for compliance. Once a TX falls outside the Euro 6 retrofit window, its catchment of paying buyers shrinks to provincial fleets, export markets and the wedding-and-prom trade.

The TXE flips this on its head. The 1.5-litre petrol generator runs at steady, efficient load points rather than chasing throttle inputs, which means it works less hard than a comparable diesel and tends to age more gracefully. Brake pad and disc wear is dramatically lower because regenerative braking does most of the work in stop-start traffic. We routinely see TXE cabs at 200,000 miles still on original front discs, which is unheard of on a diesel hackney.

All of that filters into residuals. A buyer purchasing a TXE expects predictable servicing costs and zero clean-air exposure. A buyer of a TX is pricing in risk: another zone, another retrofit, another set of wheel bearings.

LEVC sells the TXE with an eight-year or 120,000-mile battery warranty, whichever comes first. That sounds generous in passenger-car terms, but a hard-working London cab will clear 120,000 miles in something between fourteen and twenty months. Practically every TXE on the second-hand market is therefore out of mileage warranty, even if it is still inside the eight-year window.

This is where buyers get nervous and where sellers leave money on the table. A battery state-of-health report, ideally from an LEVC dealer or a recognised diagnostic house, is worth its weight in gold at sale time. We routinely add £1,500 to £3,000 to an offer on a 2020 TXE when the seller can show a recent SOH printout above 85 percent. Without one, the buyer assumes the worst.

Real-world degradation on the 31kWh pack has been better than early sceptics predicted. Cabs that have lived on rapid chargers fare slightly worse than those trickled overnight at the garage, but the difference is rarely catastrophic. The petrol generator masks a lot of pain: even a tired battery with 60 percent SOH will still drive normally, it just sips more petrol.

The TX is no longer ULEZ-compliant unless it was retrofitted with an approved selective catalytic reduction system before the relevant cut-off. Even then, retrofits are a known weak point: failure of the AdBlue dosing module is common, and a non-functioning system pulls the cab back out of compliance. Outside London, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Bradford, Tyneside and Manchester all operate or are reintroducing clean-air zones with their own rules. The patchwork makes a diesel TX progressively harder to relocate.

The TXE is exempt from every UK clean-air charge currently in force, because tailpipe emissions on battery power are zero and the range-extender only operates when the battery is depleted. TfL's Taxi & Private Hire licensing regime also rewards zero-emission-capable vehicles with a longer maximum age limit, currently fifteen years for ZEC cabs versus the old twelve for diesels. That extra licensing runway is baked into TXE resale values.

If you are deciding whether to sell now or run another year, the honest answer is that the TX depreciation curve is steeper than the TXE's and likely to remain so. A TXE will lose money in 2026, but it will lose less of it.

Black cabs do not depreciate like ordinary cars because they do not cover ordinary mileage. A typical full-time London driver covers 60,000 to 100,000 miles a year. Provincial drivers tend to sit slightly lower at 40,000 to 70,000. Buyers know this, so the question is never 'is the mileage high' but 'is it honest and serviced'.

A full LEVC or independent specialist service history is the single biggest price lever on a TXE. Cambelt and water pump intervals on the 1.5-litre generator engine are not optional: miss them and you have a very expensive paperweight. On the TX, evidence of regular DPF regeneration runs, AdBlue top-ups and timing chain replacement at the recommended interval will lift an offer by hundreds rather than thousands, but it removes excuses for chipping.

Trim matters more than people assume. The mid-cycle TXE refresh introduced the five-seat City variant with a folding front passenger seat, USB-C ports throughout, upgraded infotainment and a smoother ride from revised damping. A 2022 City in metallic black with the panoramic roof and rear-seat heating sits comfortably £3,000 to £5,000 ahead of a base-spec 2022 in the same colour. On the TX side, the difference between a basic Bronze and a top-spec Elegance is now mostly cosmetic and worth perhaps £500 to £800 at trade.

• Late TX (2016-2017), honest mileage, ULEZ retrofit working: £10,000 to £14,000
• Earlier TX (2013-2015) with retrofit: £7,000 to £10,000
• TXE 2019 base spec, average mileage: £18,000 to £22,000
• TXE 2020-2021 with SOH report above 85 percent: £22,000 to £28,000
• TXE 2022+ City spec, full history: £30,000 to £42,000

Whichever cab you are selling, the buyer will price in the cost of removing the licensing identifiers before resale. In London that means a TfL deplating appointment, surrender of the proprietor's licence and removal of the roof sign, tariff meter, livery and any borough-specific markings. That work typically costs £150 to £400 depending on who does it and how tidy the previous fitter was with the roof gutter sealant. A reputable buyer absorbs that cost into their offer rather than knocking it off later.

Telematics, dashcams and card-payment terminals also need to come out and have their data wiped properly before handover. The cab trade has had its share of GDPR incidents where old card readers have been resold with passenger data still cached, and serious buyers will check. If you cannot remove a system yourself, factor in another £100 to £200 for a competent auto-electrician.

Finance settlement is the other quiet drag. If your cab is still on a hire-purchase agreement, you cannot sell it; the finance company owns it until the final payment clears. We handle this routinely and pay the lender directly. There is more on that process at /finance-settlement, including how Consumer Credit Act Section 99 and Section 100 voluntary termination interact with cab finance agreements.