BEST YET, BUT WHO WILL BUY?

VW’s electric is an impractical dream, says Neil Lyndon

here’s no economic case for an electric car in the current market.” You can hear that kind of talk all the time among neutral motoring industry observers. It amounts almost to a universal axiom among motoring writers – even though it is entirely opposite to the determinations of the political and environmental establishment. It was a bit of a facer, then, to hear exactly those words spoken by a senior Volkswagen executive – especially as the occasion for our meeting was the launch of VW’s latest electric car, the new e-up! (Shall we give them just one outing for the silly lower cases and exclamation mark they insist upon? After that, let’s save our tempers and call it the E-Up.) I was pressing this man to put a figure on the money a customer would have to save in fuel at the pumps to make up for the staggering premium that has to be paid for this titchy electric car (the E-Up costs £24,250, not including the £5,000 bribe that the Government slips into the back pocket of any buyer of an electric car; the standard Up is priced from £8,265-£11,920). He flinched. “Well, it’s an awful lot of petrol, isn’t it? You probably would never see your money back that way. And then, of course, there’s the question of depreciation. The battery is guaranteed for eight years or 99,360 miles, but nobody knows how much life it will have at the end of that period, so it’s impossible to predict how much the car will be worth then. “That’s the main reason why take-up of electric cars has been so disappointing.” Hats off for such admirable candour. If only it could be emulated in the parliaments and government offices (such as the Mayor of London’s) where favouritism for electric cars is so fixed that it amounts to blind and ignorant prejudice. There may be no economic justification for the E-Up, but it’s very regrettable that it makes no sense for a private person to buy one. The E-Up is, in fact, a miraculous little car that deserves to be appreciated by a wider public than a small circle of spoilt and testy motoring writers. The same goes, in equal measure, for the electric Nissan Leaf, which I am keeping at home for a year and enjoying every day. The boxy little Up city car is one of the most scintillating conceptions of VW’s presiding design geniuses, Walter de’Silva and Klaus Bischoff, and deserved to be World Car of the Year 2012, when it was introduced. For comfort, economy, practicality and driving pleasure, it knocked spots off the pre-existing competition. It was slightly uneasy in its ride and less than dynamic in its performance, but its chirpy character and big boot compensated for those blemishes. The lavishly equipped and accessorised new electric version does away with both shortcomings. Its 18.7kW lithium-ion battery adds 230kg to the overall weight of the Up but, instead of burdening its body and making the car waddle like a cow’s overfull udder, the battery gives the E-Up a firm bottom in corners and a startling shot of zip. So much torque or pulling power is on tap that the E-Up will accelerate quite briskly between 60-70mph on motorways. Trouble is, when you put your foot down on the motorway the range indicator deflates like a party balloon drifting into a lit candle. The ostensible range after the battery has been fully charged for nine hours ought to be about 90 miles, but keeping up reasonable speeds even briefly on the dual carriageways of the test route punctured that figure. After 37 miles at the wheel, the range indicator was showing only 35 miles left. So it’s not just an economic case that the E-Up lacks; it’s also any kind of usefulness as a form of transport outside a radius of about 12 miles of urban streets. Alas.