No parking charges, no congestion charge, no road tax, no worries about spiralling oil prices, no carbon dioxide emissions. That is the promise that two West Oxfordshire engineers are presenting to Londoners at this week's British International Motor Show.

Could this beat the horse and cart or even the much-ridiculed Sinclair C5 in offering urban dwellers a way forward: a car which is as green as pedal-power, but without the effort?

Evert Geurtsen and Julian Wilford, formerly of Rolls Royce, obviously think so. Mr Guertsen, who previously worked at General Motors European Technical Centre in Luxembourg and Lotus Engineering, has teamed up with Mr Wilford to set up the Nice Car Company in Cassington.

Nice stands for No Internal Combustion Engine. Instead of having an oily engine under the bonnet, their little car has an all-electric unit and can reach up to 40mph over a range of up to 50 miles ideal for city dwellers, say the makers.

They approached the Aixam-Mega Group of France, European market leaders in ultra-lightweight vehicles, with their idea for an eco-friendly car designed for urban living. Several hundred thousand pounds of investment later, much of it sunk into the project out of their own hard-earned cash, they are presenting the Mega City available from October at just under £10,000.

Speaking from the Motor Show in London, Mr Geurtsen said: "We have pumped several hundreds of thousands of pounds into the car and put our houses on the line. We have passed the point of no return, but we are quietly confident about the future.

"We have only got a stand here 60 sq metres in size, and we're up against companies with stands that seem the size of football pitches; but we're generating a lot of interest, all the same."

He added: "Much of the work for this car was done in France, but our technical expertise was needed to tailor it for the British urban market for the two-seater. And we are working hard on the next generation of four-seater models."

And in the week in which we are likely to see pump petrol prices break the £1-a-litre barrier, could the two be stealing a march on mainstream car manufacturers? Ford, for instance, this week announced that it will invest £1bn in Britain to make cars lighter and more fuel efficient Ford is lobbying hard to have its future low-emission cars exempted from parking charges in Westminster, and congestion charges in central London; but the Mega City, and the hybrid petrol-electric cars favoured by both Oxford's Lord Mayor and Tory leader and MP for West Oxfordshire David Cameron, are already exempt.

Ironically Oxford, unlike London, provides no such concessions for electric or hybrid cars; so Mr Cameron can park his car free near his place of work but must pay if he parks in the county town.

David Robertson, county councillor with responsibility for transport, said: "At present I think even a horse and cart would have to pay a fee if it parked in a parking bay.

"But we are working closely with the city, and reviewing charges for environment-friendly vehicles could be something we will look at."

He recalled: "Oxford was the first city to introduce electric buses. Sadly, this project failed because of difficulties with battery charging."

Mr Geurtsen believes Mega City will have no such problems in London. He said: "The Nice Car Company has teamed up with Ecotricity, the renewable energy provider, to offer its owners electricity generated exclusively from wind turbines.

"The Mega City can literally be powered by the wind. With the carbon dioxide produced in the manufacturing process offset in London by planting trees with Trees for Cities, Nice drivers couldn't be nicer to our city."

He added that electric-car technology had moved on in the past few years and that the Mega City's unique selling point was that it provided worry-free motoring similar to that offered by conventional cars.

All the same, if the battery were to run down completely it would take eight hours to charge up (similar to an old-fashioned milk-float!), but Mr Geurtsen reckons that most owners will simply top it up for an hour or two here and there, as well as leaving it on charge overnight. An optional specially-designed satellite navigation system will be available to guide drivers to the nearest free charging point. The statistics on which the two directors have risked their capital look enticing. London needs environmentally-friendly cars and on average 42 per cent of London journeys are made by car more than 11 million journeys a day.

These cause congestion, noise and pollution, with London having some of the worst air quality in Europe. With an average journey length of just 4.3 miles and typical average speeds of 12 mph, they maintain that London trips can be covered easily by the Mega City Good luck to them. I suppose I would buy one if I were a rich person living in London but having to spend an hour or two every time the car needed topping up might become a nuisance; and what would I do when I wanted to take a trip out of town?

Nice has an answer to that too. Mega City owners will have special concessions with Britain's largest car club, Streetcar, enabling them to rent a VW Golf whenever they want at £4.95 an hour with the first 30 miles of petrol free.