Featured

Nissan has driven a Qashqai fitted with its new e-Power hybrid powertrain the length of the UK – from Land’s End to John O’Groats – on a single tank of fuel.

The powertrain, which was recently updated to improve its efficiency and refinement, yielded 75mpg in the hands of Nissan engineers while completing the 837-mile drive.

That marked an improvement on the result achieved by Nissan on the same journey in 2007, when a 1.5-litre diesel-engined Qashqai clocked 67mpg.

According to Nissan, the e-Power car's trip took 18 hours (over two days) and the car reached John O’Groats with enough petrol left in its tank to drive a further 100 miles.

The e-Power system behaves differently to most conventional hybrid powertrains: the turbocharged 1.5-litre petrol engine doesn't drive the wheels at all, instead generating electricity for a small 1.8kWh battery which in turn powers an electric motor. The motor is the car's sole driving force, putting out 201bhp and 243lb ft of torque.

Earlier this year, the system was upgraded to a new ‘five-in-one’ construction, integrating the motor, generator, inverter, increaser and reducer into one package. As well as being smaller, this also improves responsiveness, Nissan claimed. 

The test result of 75mpg marks a considerable improvement over the system’s official economy figure of 62.8mpg. However, Nissan hasn't published an average speed or detailed its driving style for the trip. Slow, gentle driving can net much greater economy than is reflected by official laboratory tests.

The UK’s electric car market is growing month on month, and there’s now a wider selection of models to choose from than ever before.

Despite this, the EV uptake on our shores has been lower than anticipated, and the need for incentives to support both the manufacturer and the customer is now considered necessary to encourage further growth. 

The UK government's Electric Car Grant (ECG) is the newest of such incentives and will play a crucial role in making EVs more accessible and affordable for a wider range of people.

The ECG offers a discount of £1500 or £3750 on certain EVs priced under £37,000, with the discount amount dependent on the emissions output of the manufacturing country.

That means some electric cars are now cheaper than ever, with the grant significantly reducing the cost of some of the most affordable EVs currently available.

As of 13 August, 19 EVs are officially eligible for the government’s grant - but which should you actually consider buying?

We’ve compiled a list of our favourites, which you can read below. Our top pick is the Renault 5, but you will need to read on to find out why.

Keep this page bookmarked, as it will be continually updated as new EVs are added to the government’s eligibility list.   

The Red Arrows, eh? Aren’t they brilliant? And what a way for a fast jet pilot to vector themselves into semi-retirement after a distinguished service career hooning about in Typhoons.

What would the automotive equivalent be? Caterham drift school instruction for an ex-rally pro? It’s not quite the same prospect, somehow. So why don’t we create one? Why couldn’t there be an automotive display team staffed by ex-magazine road testers and ‘gentleman drivers’, specialising in formation driving?

‘Skidmark Synchro’ could perform exclusively in slightly low-rent locations: disused airfields, C-list race circuits that most of us have forgotten still exist and those extra-quiet stretches of dual-carriageway public roads that don’t really go anywhere.

There wouldn’t be many places to stand and watch from, but that wouldn’t matter because we would be entirely rubbish, so nobody would come in the first place.

The best place to ‘enjoy us’ would be via an internet live stream shot out of the boot of a Skoda Superb Estate tracking car that’s half full of empty coffee cups and bottles of Windolene.

Skidmark Synchro would, for the most part, be wholly unworthy of its name. Most of our display manoeuvres would be undertaken at 25mph, with cars in oddly close formation, going around corners that you could probably take at triple the speed.

The announcer might say “and now the team presents… Arrowhead!”, and we would shuffle around superfluously behind the camera car.

“The Daredevil Parallelogram!” would, from a few hundred yards away, look 99% identical, except that, for those watching online, the slow-moving electric crossover vehicle nearest the camera would be different, its driver positioned just so in order to hide their ashamed face behind the car’s girthy A-pillar.

On occasion, we would have proper rear-wheel-drive performance cars and do skids. We would have to. Except, when observed live, these skids couldn’t be carefully edited to make the road testers seem at least halfway competent. They would be overwhelmingly half-arsed, ham-fisted, live skids.

Typically, we would have between six and 13 attempts at two- or three-car drift shots behind a camera car, most of which wouldn’t result in any synchronised oversteer whatsoever. Badly timed and positioned sliding, narrow avoidance of collision and general bad temper, embarrassment and blaming of the workman’s tools from those responsible would be their primary content.

Every synchronised skidding display would also have to end with at least one of the car’s rear tyres delaminating, after which it couldn’t take part in any subsequent part of the show.

The members of Skidmark Synchro would each have honorary responsibilities. Skidmark 1 would have the most celebrated reputation as a ‘helmsman’ driver. They would turn up at every display an hour late, never having fuelled their car, be the first to leave and insist on taking the most powerful car with them, whether it’s still needed or not.

The full team would number some 10 in total, but Skidmark 1 would only be willing to talk to Skidmark 2 (the next most senior) and Skidmark 8 (always 20 minutes early, brings cleaning gear and flasks of tea and spends most of the display worrying about what everyone is having for lunch).

Skidmark 4 is the ambitious renegade most likely to agree to a misguided jump shot. Skidmark 6 is universally liked, wears ostentatious trainers and can drift one-handed while simultaneously tapping out a WhatsApp funny. Skidmark 7 is a taciturn vegan of mercurial talent, whom it is impossible to feed from the average garage ‘food to go’ chiller.

And Skidmark 10 is the ‘work experience’ reserve driver, who turns up at every display in his 25-year-old Mazda MX-5, spends displays cleaning, fuelling and shuttling cars around and getting rained on, and yet inexplicably manages to remain chipper and film it all for his or her DriveTribe account. 

Skidmark 1 last cleaned a car in 1993. I haven’t worked out yet how much I will charge for tickets, but I am taking applications for positions in the squadron. If you’re interested, you know what to do.

Skoda has given more details of its upcoming electric estate concept, just weeks before the wraps come off it at the Munich motor show.

The Vision O concept will preview the next-generation Octavia estate, which is due by the end of the decade as the first of Skoda’s legacy nameplates to gain electric power. It will set the tone for the next generation of Skoda's design language while taking influence from previous generations of the Octavia, including the seminal late-1990s Mk1.

Skoda CEO Klaus Zellmer said the concept “sets the stage for the future of Skoda’s combi estate”.

He added: “This is an important segment for many of our customers and one where Skoda has been playing a leading role in Europe for many years. For example, more than three million Skoda Octavia estate cars have been produced across four generations since the modern Octavia was launched in 1998 – the best-selling estate model in Skoda history."

The Vision O will also showcase “the evolution of the Modern Solid design language” that Skoda is rolling out across its line-up, which, the brand says, will manifest in far fewer “decorative” styling elements and a prevailing focus on aerodynamics.

Details visible in the latest preview video include its rakish, sloped roofline and T-shaped rear lights like those of the upcoming Skoda Epiq small crossover.

Daniel Edr, the Vision O project manager, said the concept’s aim is to go “back to the roots” of the Octavia. “From my perspective, the car’s simple and purposeful design draws heavily from the first and second generations of the Octavia, returning to the model’s roots – which are above all about functionality.”

Skoda also says the "steeply raked" windscreen and "gently sloping roofline" are "design cues that have characterised Skoda's most successful estate models".

The Superb and Octavia estates are among Skoda's best-selling global models, with the Octavia Combi, particularly, ranking as its top seller in certain markets.

As a result, Skoda "is committed to continuing the estate bodywork legacy into the future," said the company.

Exterior designer Jounggeen Kim shaped the Vision O's silhouette and said his task was "to apply the Modern Solid language to an estate car". 

He designed the concept to be an "all-in-one" proposition and said: "This car is built to do it all. I see Skoda as a family-oriented brand – practical, reliable and trustworthy. I aimed to reflect those qualities through the new Modern Solid design language.”

Kim added that while the Vision O will be a future-looking concept that adheres to Skoda's current design principles, he took inspiration from past models such as the Yeti and Roomster.

Skoda had originally planned to launch an electric estate version of the Octavia based on the Volkswagen Group’s current MEB electric architecture. However, Zellmer said it will instead be underpinned by the VW Group's upcoming SSP architecture because it will offer “more performance and be more cost-efficient”.

He said: “Wait and see until September, and then we will show you the full potential and technical package that we envision. It will be a concept car, so this is also a test bed for us to see what the resonance from the media, from our dealers and from our potential customers is.”

The production version of the electric Octavia estate is due by the end of the decade at a similar time to the related Volkswagen ID Golf, which will also be based on the SSP platform. It is expected to lead the next generation of electric Skodas and mark the point where its combustion-engined and all-electric ranges start to converge.

To date, Skoda’s electric vehicles have existed in a parallel line-up as the brand prioritises consumer choice and will continue to do so. This suggests the hybridised combustion-engined Octavia estate will continue to be sold as Skoda gradually introduces battery-electric vehicles into its more familiar nameplates.

Before the electric Octavia, two more Skoda EVs are due. The Epiq, a sibling to the Volkswagen ID 2 and Cupra Raval, will be launched next year as the Skoda's entry-level electric car. The brand will also put its previous Vision 7S concept car into production in 2026 as an electric equivalent of the Kodiaq. This is likely to be Skoda’s most expensive car yet, but Zellmer said it will retain its core principles of “design functionality and value for money”. 

However, there are no plans to launch a Skoda version of the recently unveiled Volkswagen ID Every1 concept car, which will arrive as an entry-level VW electric city car in 2027 and be priced from around £17,000.

“We have decided not to be part of that segment,” said Zellmer. “Within the Volkswagen Group, VW [will be left to] conquer that part of the market.”

Skoda is not abandoning entry-level cars altogether, though, and Zellmer confirmed a sub-£17,000 starting price would remain in its range as the Fabia, Kamiq and Scala have all been signed off for updates to keep them in the market for the years ahead. This will include mild-hybrid versions, something that’s required for the upcoming Euro 7 emissions regulations, which re-engineered versions of these cars will have to meet. 

Zellmer is keen to add more hybrids to Skoda’s range, including more long-range plug-in hybrids off the back of the success of Superb and Kodiaq hybrids.

He said: “We want to have more hybrids in our portfolio because this is clearly something that we see reflected in the competitive landscape and consumer sentiment.

"The feedback we get from our dealers and from our customers in those cars [Superb and Kodiaq plug-ins] is very reassuring that we're heading the right way to have the best of both worlds: the range and the ease of a combustion engine, and the peace and quiet driving around and more than 100km [62 miles of electric range] with the E drive mode.”