If you like driving as we do, you’ll love driving an EV

IN THIS issue we’re unashamedly devoting more pages than usual to electric cars. We’ve teamed up with colleagues on our sister title DrivingElectric to answer all your questions about living with an EV, and review every car with a plug that you can currently buy.

We’re well aware that electric cars aren’t for everyone; I get plenty of E-mails from readers telling me precisely that. For many it’s petrol (or diesel) or nothing – and that’s fine, we get that. We’ll continue to balance what we write about electrified cars with more great stories about cars we love with internal-combustion engines.

What none of us can avoid, though, is that our government (and others) have decided to ban the sale of new cars with internal-combustion engines (ICE) at some stage in the next decade or two. Cars and nameplates that we love today will disappear from showrooms. Only recently Volkswagen board member Jürgen Stackmann told me that the Golf will no longer be on sale where there’s a ban on the sale of new ICE cars.

So Volkswagen – and pretty much every other car maker – is betting big on electrification. Which means two things: first, more of the new cars we write about on these pages will be electrified. It’s rare that any car is launched without electrification as part of the story – CO2 targets mean that has to be the case.

It also means that with the increase in spend on research and development for electric vehicles, and on infrastructure, the main barriers for many people to owning an electric car – namely price, range and charging – will become less and less of a problem.

So that leaves one important question: will you enjoy driving an electric car? I can honestly say that I have not spoken to one person who’s driven an EV for the first time and not enjoyed it – even the most ardent enthusiast. So why not visit a dealer, where they’ll be happy to let you take a drive in an EV? And let me know how you get on.