Yes, I’m surprised too. Since the demise of the XM and Xantia, I’m not sure there has been a Citroen that I actually want to own. Nice as a C6 is, they’re a bit – needy. And huge. And scary.

The Citroen I would really like to own is not huge. It’s not really a Citroen at all – it’s a Mitsubishi. But hold on a minute. What actually is a Citroen these days? The C1 is a Toyota while everything else is just rehashed Peugeot. Hydropneumatic suspension is dead and the entire range is one big pile of Meh. The Cactus looks a bit interesting, and has a nice interior, but I wouldn’t rate it as desirable.

Stupidly exciting. No, really.

The C-Zero on the other hand, that really does appeal. For a start, it’s based on a Japanese Kei-car – built to strict regulations on size and speed. My Perodua Nippa began life as Kei-Car (though it’s 847cc is over the 660cc limit). I’ve always loved Kei cars and the skinny, high-up looks of the C-Zero put me in mind of the 2CV.

Best of all, the C-Zero is electric, so EV kicks ahoy! One of the first electric cars in fact, with the Mitsubishi i-MIEV on which it is based launched in 2009. It seems to be a fairly good one as well – I’ve spent a lot of time looking into this. Now sure, it’s no Nissan LEAF – it’s far smaller for a start and a lot lighter – a good few hundred KG. That makes a difference. While it’s range is firmly in the 60-80 mile range, that’s pretty similar to an early LEAF. It’s an entirely useful amount of range, just not for every journey you’ll ever do. I reckon it’d cover about 90% of my journeys. The range isn’t brilliant, but that’s because the battery is a lot smaller than a LEAF. It has to be, the car is much smaller. The major benefit here is that charging time is reduced – seven hours from pretty empty to full compared with ten hours for a LEAF. Appealing.

But the good news doesn’t end there. Citroen (and Peugeot with the identical iON) actually suspended their agreement with Mitsubishi while they tried to sell existing stock. I think that must be complete now and with the agreement rumoured to cover 100,000 vehicles (split between Peugeot and Citroen), they seem keen to make a real crack of it again – the price has dropped to a remarkable £11,995 on the road (including government grant). That’s astonishing! These cars were £28,000 or more when they first hit the market.

Given that a brand new Renault Twingo starts at £9495, it puts the C-Zero on a far closer par with a petrol equivalent. It makes me want to dash out and do something stupid on finance, which is a feeling I haven’t had for many years. I won’t of course, because my wife would kill me, and I quite like living a finance-free existance, but even so…

You’re probably wondering what a C-Zero is like to drive though. So am I. Frustratingly, I’ve been utterly unable to get my hands on an i-MIEV, C-Zero or iON so I’ve no idea. None of the manufacturers seems to have one on the press fleet and dealers have been less than sympathetic. And often bloomin’ miles away too!

Needless to say, if you do own one and don’t mind a strange chap with a beard having a drive, do let me know!

Every time I plug my smart phone in for its daily dose of electricity, I’m reminded of my love for electric vehicles (EV). Cars that to make go further, you simply plug into a socket.

Also, every time I go down a hill in a conventional (or ICE for Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle, I’m appalled at the sheer waste. All that potential energy lost though the brake system as heat. If I was in an electric vehicle, that energy could be recouped as range-extending electricity.

It may seem a small thing, but when I tested the Nissan e-NV200 Combi, I found it easy to generate more than 1kwh of electricity (per charge) through regenerative braking. Now, that might not sound much, but as I discovered with the Volkswagen e-Golf, it’s possible to drive 5 miles or more per kilowatt hour. That’s five miles of range generated for free! Pure gravity. It must be said, those figures were obtained without trying particularly hard either. Even with the short range of electric vehicles, I tend not to hang about.

Nissan e-NV200 Combi. Encourages economical efforts.

That said, I’m pretty sure that I drive much more economically in an EV than an ICE. It’s all too easy to just put my foot to the floor with petrol power, as you don’t get an instant sense of how bad that is. Shove your foot down in an EV and while you (usually) get a wonderful shove in the back, you also watch the range begin to plummet. With an EV, you have to drive efficiently.

Here’s the thing though. I still find that HUGELY enjoyable! When I had the e-Golf, I drove it on a very testing challenge across Snowdonia. Here are some of the finest driving roads you could wish for. I had a great time, but I also managed to drive very economically – 5.1 miles per kilowatt hour. That’s pretty impressive for an electric car. Especially as my average speed for the entire trip was 39mph. Given that there was very little dual carriageway and no motorway at all, I consider that quite remarkable. I doubt I could safely achieve more in an ICE. In Snowdonia, you just can’t drive much quicker than that.

Certainly, EVs are a lot more pleasant to refuel. No smelly diesel or petrol here – just over there.

I’m sure that I’m now driving my ICE’d cars more economically too. Owning a 2CV has been really useful, because you learn a lot about momentum conservation. Finding the racing line (even if you stay your side of the central white line), judging your speed well so you don’t end up scrubbing too much away as you turn and trying to anticipate road and traffic conditions to avoid harsh braking. I HATE harsh braking! Yet lots of people do it. Smooth braking is a lot more comfortable, and also more economical.

Frankly, I’m a bit astounded by how much I love driving electric vehicles. I love the clean, smooth power delivery and the way you can often use different modes to boost the engine brake sensation – ie activate the regenerative braking without you even having to touch the brake pedal. It means you can easily control your pace with just one pedal. That’s very satisfying.

Electric makes so much sense for so much of my driving too. Sure, it would have made the trip to France a bit difficult – the charging infrastructure is barely keeping up with demand and some areas are still worryingly free of chargers – but for the vast majority of my time at the wheel, I’m driving distances between four and 25 miles. No trauma for even the worst EVs. I could even manage that in a G-Wiz – albeit very slowly.

Congestion at charge points already becoming an issue.

But alas, the youngest EVs worth having are still only five years old. I’m starting to see Nissan LEAFs below £8000, and the Renault ZOE for as little as £6500 (albeit with a monthly battery lease to pay on top). Still way out of range for me given that my current ‘moderns’ cost £300 and £375 each. It’s a frustrating business waiting for depreciation to kick in, and waiting to see if EVs develop any ageing issues now they’re getting on a bit. There are interesting times ahead, and an EV will definitely be joining my fleet. I just can’t say when.

Another of my electric vehicle (EV) experiments is over, so I thought I’d tell you all you need to know about the realities of using an EV everyday.

The electric era is now firmly with us. Would you choose an EV?

I’ll start with the positives. There is no power delivery system quite like an electric motor. That instant shove-in-the-back when you need it, and the irresistibly smooth power delivery when you’d rather take things a little more easily. Electric cars are so easy and effortless to drive that it’s easy to wonder why people still bother with those fuel-munching motors still found in most cars.

Sure, some modern cars are wonderful and quiet on the move, but you still won’t find many family cars that offer quite as much refinement. Diesels sound especially horrid these days, and are fast attracting a reputation for pumping out some really nasty pollutants.

That means they’re weighed down with loads of anti-emission kit, and stuff like dual mass flywheels to try and make them smoother. There’s an awful lot waiting to go wrong on a modern diesel. I really would rather go electric. Petrol engines have fewer issues, but they tend to lack bottom end torque, which means they’re not always relaxing to drive. Ford’s remarkable Ecoboost engines (also found in Peugeots and Citroens these days) go against the grain, but will they prove reliable in the long-term? 124bhp per litre is pretty strong stuff.

I think I’d rather still go electric, as the fundamentals are so simple. There are so few moving parts.

I’m not sure whether to claim environmental reasons as a good reason to go EV. Certainly, if you do a lot of city driving, you’re moving the vehicle emissions away from the city centre by choosing EV – as the power is generated elsewhere. That’s good. Some of that power comes from renewable sources too. My gut feel is that electric is, overall, better for the environment, especially when you take into consideration the impact of drilling for oil, fracking and then also having to mine stuff like platinum for the exhaust catalytic converter. Mind you, the lithium used in EV batteries isn’t exactly pleasant stuff either. Suffice it to say that I don’t think the environmental message stands up on its own.

Far fewer moving parts in this Nissan e-NV200 Combi, and no dirty engine oil!

Range is still an issue too. While I discovered last week that it’s pretty easy to travel 300 miles in one day in an electric vehicle, I did spend pretty much the whole time anxiously keeping an eye on predicted range vs predicted mileage to destination. You just can’t turn off, and while that does great things for economy – because you tend to do your utmost to keep power use as low as possible – it’s not necessarily how most of us are accustomed to driving. There’s still that “fuel light on, running on dregs” feeling, and longer journeys need serious planning, though both of these concerns will be reduced as the charging infrastructure is improved.

There’s another easy solution to this. Don’t use an EV for long journeys! Many households have more than one car, or you could consider hiring a car for a long-distance trip. I spent two days of e-Golf custodianship using it how it should be used. I nipped to the shops in it. I visited local friends. I drove a short distance so we could have a walk by the sea. I didn’t charge the car for two days, because it wasn’t necessary. This is where the magic of electric really shines. For those short, local trips, it’s absolutely ideal. Especially when travelling a few miles from one village to another. The sort of journeys where combustion engines are barely warming up, and so are woefully inefficient – this study found that cold engines consume 13.5% more fuel when cold. That’s more emissions for less movement.

I must concede that a great amount of my driving is less than 30 miles a day. For a week, the e-Golf entirely replaced my own vehicles, and no hardship was created because of this. Yes, I work from home, but the same would have been true even if I had needed to commute up to 50 miles a day (which is the most I’ve ever wanted to).

But let’s look at benefits again, because combustion cars still require servicing. So do EVs, but there’s much less to do! No filters, no filthy engine oil to dispose of, no clutch to wear out, no exhaust to rot away. EVs even tend to be kinder to their brakes, so pads need replacing less often (due to regeneration effect where the motor generates electricity, thereby slowing the vehicle). That also means that your front wheels won’t get so dirty through pad wear build up!

Battery life is still the elephant in the room, and yes, that’s still a bit unknown in the long term. A taxi company in Cornwall has a Nissan LEAF with over 100,000 miles on the clock, and the battery is still pretty much fine – despite or perhaps because of being rapid charged several times a day. The success of that car seems to have even surprised Nissan, who previously were a bit wary of recommending frequent rapid charging.

I’m pretty convinced that for an awful lot of people, electric power now makes a lot of sense. It still depends on your access to electricity (a fast charger at home/work or access to the rapid charger network) but with prices for really very decent electric cars dropping as little as £6000-7000 now, the EV solution looks ever more appealing.