As Nicko Williamson celebrates his companies second year of profit, he is excited by what the future for green driving may be able to offer capital cities such as London.
The young entrepreneur, only 27 years old has founded and manages his own company Climatecars, a grey-coloured fleet of low carbon chauffeured vehicles, targeted specifically for corporates.
At 22 years of age, the Climate Cars CEO found himself getting bored of driving up and down to Bristol University, when he drove past a company trying to sell green fuel. The resulting idea is now a profitable fleet of discreet Eco Grey Prius, taking London’s top businessmen around the capital city.
Nicko Williamson has a great vision for his company as he intends to one day make it have fully electronic vehicles. He has plans to introduce the first fully electric vehicles to the Climatecars fleet in early 2012.
Nicko Williamsons Company can be seen as a test. If it can make financial sense out of purchasing this technology, then it will not be long before carbon free driving becomes a generally accepted normality rather than a city gimmick.
Williamson says that the electric vehicle would have to do about 100 miles before it is recharged again in order for it to make any kind of sense.
Climate Cars is fast approaching a fleet of 70 cars, targeting a turnover approaching £3.5m for next year. This will be achieved through the growing the fleet size by about another 45 cars.
Creating a supply of batteries that could simply be swapped by divers (see www.betterplace.com), is one answer which could work for Climatecars, however Williamson believes the best transition phase would charge points in the city and west end for Climatecars fully electric vehicles.
London’s Hackney Carriages, the ubiquitous black cabs, are now finding themselves under pressure to perform against a new wave of green competitors. The black cab used to be the mainstay of the London transport system, but in recent years is has come under pressure from companies like Addison Lee and a plethora of licensed and unlicensed vehicles.
If Williamson’s hunch continues to pay off the days of corporate black cab account may well be numbered.
