Said to be the first corporate EV car rental deal in London, the partnership will see employees encouraged to swap taxi journeys of over six miles for bookings of the two cars from the firm’s central London offices in Westminster or Southwark.

Bridget Jackson, head of sustainability at PwC, said: 'The journeys our people take at work in central London can be to locations with no direct transport link, or involve carrying materials either too bulky or confidential for public transport. We only need to convert around two of those journeys a day that currently use cabs, to our new electric vehicles to make this add up for us.'

The i-MiEVs provide a live member car care support line via the Connect by Hertz in car communications system, including statistics on emissions and usage. The cars will be charged at the two PwC offices or via Hertz's wider network or Source London's network. Employees could also charge them overnight via a three-pin socket.

The 12-month pilot forms part of a new scheme to lower the firm’s overall transport emissions and could see the vehicles rolled out to PwC's regional offices.

Jackson added: 'It’s a pioneering initiative for PwC and fits our commitment to work with new technologies, test how they fit in our mix of needs, so we can reduce our overall environmental impact. We need to understand the day-to-day reality of working with electric cars, just as we test any other transport on offer, so we can lower our overall emissions, potentially rolling out the scheme nationwide.'