Staff and customers at Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions will have the opportunity to test drive the Nissan Leaf at the leasing provider’s Newbury and Trowbridge offices.

The electric vehicles will also serve as pool cars for staff travelling between the Newbury and Trowbridge offices and those attending customer and supplier meetings within the vehicles’ approximate 80-100 mile range.

Charging points have been installed at both offices to ensure that the electric vehicles are convenient and always ready to use. Staff using the vehicles will log any journeys and their experience so that the leasing firm can build up its own user-based data to share with customers.

Simon Oliphant, CEO at Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions, said: “Our customers are increasingly asking us about using electric vehicles for their business, but understandably have concerns through lack of experience with the technology.

“Having these vehicles on site is the perfect opportunity to give customers a taste of the future and the benefit of our experience, whilst also keeping our staff up-to-speed on the practical use of the cars.”

Hitachi Capital has already supplied the first fully-electric vehicle on contract hire to the Environment Agency, which now has a Mitsubishi iMiev on its fleet.