Power rangers

Combining electric power with a normal engine, Plug-In Hybrids are the answer to range anxiety. We rev three of the best to the max…

range Anxiety is the electric car ’s Achilles heel . A chur ning feel ing in the pit of your stomach as the dista nce-to-empt y rea ding creeps ever lower, IT makes EV owners start to pa nic ab out rea ching the next re charg ing stat ion.

The plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) cleverly swerves around this pitfall. Essentially, PHEVs are regular cars with petrol or diesel power that also cram in a battery, an electric motor and an external charge point to give all-electric running for short periods.

A PHEV’s e-mode typically lasts for 10-50 miles – much less than the 100plus miles offered by pure electric vehicles. This is because the hybrid kit has to fit in under the bodywork along with a regular engine, gearbox and fuel tank, so the batteries have to be smaller and less powerful to free up space and keep the weight down.

But for most of us, PHEVs offer enough juice to undertake the average return commute emissionsfree, while never leaving us high and dry if we need to cover hundreds of miles in a hit. For tech-savvy drivers, they’re probably the best all-round eco-friendly compromise.

To see how these cutting-edge cars fare in the real world, we’ve lined up three of the best plug-in hybrid hatches on the market right now: namely, the Volkswagen Golf GTE, the Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid and the Audi A3 e-tron. All of them cost around £30k, and all promise an incredible 134-176mpg, as well as 15-31 miles of silent, planet-friendly motoring when fully charged.

Only one can win, but first all have to tackle the State of the Art obstacle course. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen…