Nissan and Uber have signed a deal to support the introduction of 2,000 all-electric Nissan LEAFs for drivers who use the Uber app.

The fleet of 40kWh LEAFs (www.nissan-global.com), which can travel up to 168 miles on a single charge and are manufactured in Sunderland, will be offered to drivers as part of Uber’s Clean Air Plan.

Nissan will provide Uber with a dedicated EV education programme, transaction price and marketing plan to ‘drive uptake of the zero-emission vehicles’.

Uber says this deal will help to deliver its vision for every car on the app in the capital to be fully electric from 2025.

Launched in January 2019, Uber’s Clean Air Plan aims to tackle air pollution by helping drivers upgrade to an electric vehicle through the introduction of a Clean Air Fee: 15p a mile is added on to all London journeys which will help drivers with the cost of adopting an electric vehicle.

Uber (www.uber.com) says that the Plan has raised more than £80 million in its first year to support drivers transitioning to electric vehicles, with more than £200 million expected to be raised over the next few years.

Through the Clean Air Plan, drivers will (on average) save £4,500 (depending on the number of miles they have driven) from the cost of switching to an electric car.

Once a driver has adopted a fully electric vehicle, the Clean Air Fee is used to support the on-going vehicle costs.

In the first year of Uber’s Clean Air Plan, 900,000 Uber journeys have taken place in electric vehicles, an increase of more than 350% on the previous year.

The company says that “over 500 drivers every week” are now using zero-emission electric vehicles.

To meet the increasing demand for electric vehicles in the capital, Transport for London has installed more than 1,000 EV charge points in the last year alone.

Conversely, central London has nearly half as many petrol stations per car as the Scottish Highlands, but only four remain within the congestion-charge zone.