Free Now Commits to Making all Taxis and PHVS on Platform Electric in UK Market by 2025

Leading ride-hailing app FREE NOW is launching a TV campaign to support its announcement that the company is committing to making all taxis in its UK market electric by 2024 and all private hire vehicles by 2025.

Across Europe, the mobility platform has set a goal of making all of its trips zero-emission by 2030 and in the meantime, while these goals are met, is promising to offset all emissions from 2020 onwards, including through preservation and regeneration of forests and planting more than 20,000 trees across European cities. 

As part of its Green Pledge, FREE NOW will be working with drivers, passengers, regulators, the Government and businesses in the UK, including through investing over £20 million into supporting drivers to switch to electric vehicles.

Launching today (2^nd March) the 60 second TV and VOD campaign, created by London based agency Recipe, is supported by a Radio ad, OOH and press ads – and looks at the various steps that FREE NOW is activating now to fulfill their Green Pledge to convert fully to electric vehicles and to do this ahead of regulatory requirements. The endline: ‘Our Green Pledge is Silence. How do you like the sound of that?’

Matt Waller, Creative Director at Recipe said: “FREE NOW is leading the way to a greener and quieter future. We are increasingly aware of the pollution all around us and this was a fantastic opportunity to let people know how they can make a positive choice with FREE NOW.”

FREE NOW, which merged with Kapten last year to bring black cabs and private hire vehicles together in one app for the first time, has the largest electric fleet in Europe and the largest green fleet of black cabs (80% of all electric taxis in the London market are on FREE NOW).

It is the only app to offer an EV booking option to allow passengers to choose greener journeys and has already taken a number of steps towards becoming net-zero and combating climate change, including becoming the first large player in the UK ride-hailing market to complete more than half its taxi trips in electric vehicles.

Last year FREE NOW became the first mobility platform to enable a solely electric booking option for business travellers, after surveying business leaders in the City of London and finding nine out of 10 would be placing sustainability as a priority following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mariusz Zabrocki, UK general manager at FREE NOW, said: “As a business we play an integral part in the evolution of the London ride-hailing industry towards greener and cleaner travel.  More journeys are being made in zero-emission-capable vehicles, and with the Government’s recent ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, this is only going to increase. We are proud to be the only app to offer electric vehicle (EV) booking options, both for PHV and black cab, to enable passengers to choose more environmentally friendly vehicles whenever they travel. We are already at the forefront of this with over half of our taxi trips already being completed in electric vehicles and we have the largest green fleet of black cabs in London.

“We are going one step further and pledging to shift to a fleet that is fully zero emission capable as quickly as possible. Working with drivers, passengers, regulators, the Government and businesses we all need to act now to improve air quality in our cities, making them better places to be”.