Electric driver’s cars: do they exist and, if so, can they stir the soul like their piston-powered brethren? Let’s find out at our first-ever EV Handling Day

PHOTOGRAPHY LUC LACEY

Variety isn’t something that the market for electric cars offered much of in its infancy, but as it has blossomed and grown, so it has gradually diversified. When Nissan prepared to launch its trendsetting Leaf onto the UK market in 2011, would we have imagined that within little more than a decade there would be zero-emissions hypercars and pick-up trucks, limousines and quadricycles, offroaders and luxury SUVs, electromodded classics and everyday-use family options of so many different shapes and sizes?

It’s espoused in some places, meanwhile, that the one kind of car that can’t be fully and convincingly electrified is the sports car. The driver’s car, performance car, enthusiast’s choice: call it whatever you like. We’ve challenged that line of thinking so many times on these pages as we’ve driven and tested so many new electric models, and over the next few pages be taking a hammer and tongs to it with the help of a field of 11 of the most driver-centric new electric cars we could assemble.

And so, having for so long run annual tests to recognise the greatest new driver’s car of the year, as well its affordable equivalent, we’ve picked 2022 to begin doing the same thing for the market’s electric options. Starting with affordable offerings from little more than £30,000 and ranging up through practical family cars with performance ambitions to sports cars costing more than £100,000, we want to know which electric car on the market today offers the most driver appeal for the money.

Is it a £107,000 Porsche? Could it be a £31,000 Mini? And what else could a day on track at Croft Circuit near Darlington, and a second one on Yorkshire’s finest moorland roads, tell us about the state of the electric driver’s car? Read on to find out. 

11THFORD MUSTANG MACH-E GT

AH. ELEVENTH OUT of 11. And a Ford Mustang at that, one of the most evocative names in the fun car world. A lap in the Mustang Mach-E GT starts off innocently enough. There’s an encouraging background hum to accompany the strong acceleration, but it only takes a half-turn for the model to reveal its party piece.

Fords are famous for their ‘tuck’ as you turn into a corner and lift off the throttle. The front end hooks up nicely and the back end duly swings around, the car feeling like it’s pivoting around its middle.