The green pioneer aiming to electrify the cab fleets of London

THESE days every company shouts about its green credentials. Nicko Williamson was ahead of the curve. The serial entrepreneur founded his first eco-friendly business in 2007.

- Oscar Williams-Grut

“This is pre-iPhone,” he says. “A long, long time ago.”

That business was Climate Cars, a green alternative to Addison Lee that offered corporate car accounts using hybrid vehicles, rather than diesel.

After selling that business, Williamson set up WeFlex. The company lets Uber drivers rent-to-own cars, offering financing tailored to fare-based work.

Like Climate Cars, WeFlex has always offered hybrids. Today — as world leaders gather for COP26 — WeFlex announces it is going all electric.

“We were already starting to add electric vehicles going into the pandemic,” Williamson, 38, says. “Coming out of it we just thought: the future is clearly electric anyway, let’s properly take some drastic action here.”

Williamson readily admits to being a pragmatist rather than a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist. He was the teenager reading Richard Branson books at school and set up Climate Cars aged just 23 after graduating with a history degree from Bristol. Going green is as much a great business opportunity as it is ethical.

But he adds: “I want to feel good about what I’m doing. When London’s full of electric cars, it’s going to be a much nicer city.”