DOING THE SAME JOURNEY IN 2010

Twelve years ago, aided by my extraordinarily patient partner Emma, I took four days to drive a Mini E prototype from Brighton to Glasgow. We started on a Monday morning, just as we did in the EV6 – but we only made it as far as Luton at the end of day one. We could pretty much charge only at 3.7kw three-pin posts on our route, mostly found in town centre shopping centres. So we spent a lot of time shopping for greeting cards and drinking coffee, needless to say.

By the time we got to the Scottish border, we resorted to trailing an extension cable from our hotel room window and charging on dodgy hotel room 6A wiring. I slept with the fire extinguisher close at hand that night.

After we had arrived in Glasgow, a little tired and trauma-stricken, we flew to London, took a cab to the office car park and then got in a diesel Mercedes-benz E-class and drove home. It felt like dizzying freedom from worry.

Today, electric motoring isn’t like that, thank heaven. But plenty of coffee consumption is still part of the equation.