I’ve driven the future and it doesn’t work: the trouble with electric cars

There were a whopping 36 electric cars on the road per standard public charger last year, but range anxiety is only one of the reasons that the electric car revolution is faltering rather than firing on all cylinders in this country. Our man Sean O’Grady hits the highways to find out what’s going on...

It’s not easy being green... the number of public charging points has failed to keep pace with the growth of electric cars (Getty/iStock)

So there I was, just back from the “unveil” of Volvo’s stylish little new electric car, the EX30, and all ready to get home and bang out an essay defending this flawed but necessary and revolutionary transition. As it has become fashionable lately to write articles along the lines of “I bought an EV and now I hate the damn thing”, I was all set to redress the balance.

Arriving back at Heathrow (I don’t need an argument about the ironies right now), I made my way to the state-of-the-art Ioniq 6 saloon that Hyundai had kindly lent me. The extremely accurate range projector told me I had 80 miles left in the batteries (on a good day and fully juiced it’ll take you 300 miles), and home was 90.

No problem, I thought. I’ll just take a little tea break at the services, plug the iconic Ioniq in (it’s got gorgeous retro styling, by the way), and I’ll be home in time for supper.