A serial entrepreneur, who wants to create 250 jobs in Oxfordshire by building luxury cars with zero exhaust emissions, reckons the first vehicles will be on the road before the end of the year.

Barry Shrier says his company, Liberty Electric Cars, already has orders in the bag for green Range Rovers - powered by electric motors - and selling for between £95,000 and £125,000 each.

Mr Shrier, who invented the mobile payment system, Pay Box, for giant finance house Deutsche Bank, says he already has £30m funds in place to back the venture.

Now he and finance director Peter Sylvester, who formerly worked for BMW and Harley-Davidson, are hunting for a site near Oxford to set up the new venture.

He said: "Our registered office is in South Leigh, near Witney.

"Now I am looking for a suitable site in Oxfordshire.

"We think this is the place for us because it already has a long car building tradition, exemplified by BMW in Cowley and the fact it is a centre of the racing car industry.

"The skills we need will be available here."

The business will start by re-engineering the Range Rover, which Mr Shrier described as an "iconic" car and fitting it with an electric motor to produce better performance than a traditional internal combustion engine.

Soaring petrol prices and concerns about greenhouse gases have convinced financial backers that now was the right time to start building the luxury electric cars.

The revolutionary cars will need recharging every 200 miles, but Mr Shrier said the recharging process itself will be quick and easy.