What's the most fun everyday EV?

Will 2023 be the year we point at when looking back for the moment of birth of the electric hot hatchback? Or the firing of the starting gun, perhaps?

When you consider what has featured in Autocar’s news section this year, from the Alpine A290 to the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, it does seem the car industry has decided that now is the time to finally go after buyers of affordable performance cars with EVs.

In our reviews section, meanwhile, we’ve already given warm preliminary receptions to the likes of the Abarth 500e and MG 4 XPower. So now it’s time to find out how those cars compare with the most enticing driver’s cars already available at the affordable end of the market for electric cars.

Last year, we ran our inaugural ‘EV Handling Day’ to recognise the most rewarding electric cars already in showrooms at almost any price. This year, however, we’re narrowing our scope a little to focus on affordable zero-emissions fun.

We’ve assembled a field of six EVs – most of them newcomers to the market in the past 12 months and a couple of them older but still interesting. We drove them to the North York Moors for a day’s back-to-back on-road driving and we briefed six of Autocar’s most trusted reviewers to separate the great from the good and to score our cars across five different categories: performance, handling appeal, everyday usability, charm and all-round fun factor.

The stars of this year’s test, then, in addition to the aforementioned Abarth 500e and MG 4 XPower, are the Cupra Born, Honda E, Kia Niro EV and Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric. Read on to find out which one is Autocar’s Best Fun EV.

Sixth place: Honda E

The Honda E didn’t finish last by a huge distance, but it did finish last – which, when you consider the nice words people said about it, is a particular shame.

“I liked it more than I rated it,” said Matt Saunders. If you will excuse me picking some choice quotes, like a movie poster. “Love it...” said Richard Lane. “Lovely...” said Illya Verpraet. Those aren’t words one associates with a loser. As The Shamen sang: Es are good.

You probably already know the problem. It’s the one that means you rarely see an E on the road. “I couldn’t live with the range...” said Saunders. “If only it had usable range,” said Verpraet. “All but unrecommendable,” said, er, me.

The E will take you up to 130 miles officially but usually less in practice. It takes an age to squeeze the last few percent of juice into the battery and it’s a brave soul who takes it down to near nothing, unless they know reliable home charge is waiting.  So on a day out, let’s call it 100 miles. And that’s not nearly enough.

It’s such a pity, because the E, while not designed as a driver’s car per se and certainly not in the same territory as the Abarth 500e in being a hot hatch, is a pleasure to drive. It’s compact, its power goes to the rear wheels (not that it troubles them) and, by dint of not getting very far under its own steam, it’s relatively light in this company: at 1520kg, it’s second lightest, behind only the 500e.

That its front wheels don’t have to worry about power means that the steering is uncorrupted, slick and smooth. And with no front driveshafts, its turning circle is wee. That makes it the most fun in town, if not with the moves of the others on a B-road. “A city slicker through and through,” said Felix Page.

And if you are waiting at a charger, there’s no better car to be in, because of the funkiness of the cabin that includes a three-pin plug and connection for a games console.

Fun, charming, characterful and even a bit silly, it’s incredibly easy to like. Just not so to recommend.

Matt Prior

Fifth place: Kia Niro EV

It's unusual for an electric Kia to enter a group test as one of the obvious underdogs, but there was no getting around the fact that, parked next to the outrageously potent MG and naughty-looking Abarth, the Niro looked more than a little staid and sensible.

For many, the concept of driving fun will be doing as little of it as possible (far better to have arrived at the beach/party/wedding than to still be on the way there), and for this not inconsiderable portion of the car-buying public, the Niro EV is one of the most fun electric cars on the market. It has nearly three times the real-world range of the Abarth and Honda and charges relatively swiftly, so you don’t waste precious time at the decidedly un- fun motorway services – plus it has enough poke to encourage a degree of exuberance when the mood suits.

But it’s rather too bulky and softly cushioned to claim any scalps on the narrow, twisting roads to which we’ve subjected these plug-and-play pocket rockets. At heart, this car has been conceived as a comfortable and practical family hauler, and perhaps it was ambitious to hope for a sharp dynamic edge to cut through that.

The steering is direct and responsive, but rampaging through hairpins is precluded by the grip limits of the skinny Continental EcoContact tyres and a tangible deficit in vertical body control that wouldn’t be obvious anywhere but in the context of this examination.

The traction control is far better tuned than in the first-generation e-Niro, so there’s less scrabbling to contend with on full throttle, but the limitations are still easily uncovered on slippery Tarmac, where it’s not as hard as it should be to get the front wheels spinning for a good few metres.

But pointing to its dynamic shortcomings is to almost do an injustice to the well-roundedness of its driving performance. There’s depth of character here, no doubt, and an impressive balance between refinement and poise that is not necessarily common to the other five cars here. One tester compared the Niro, only half-jokingly, to the likes of the Jaguar S-Type: commendably refined, capable of impressive straight line pace and predictably sure-footed in the corners but still some way short of engaging or gripping.

Felix Page

Fourth place: Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric

Take a look at the sensational wheels and the short body overhangs and notice how this Renault’s dynamic styling makes the other five in our field look just a bit old-hat. Take in the fact that the Mégane’s kerb weight undercuts various other EVs of its size. Your conclusion might reasonably be that it should be well ranked in the new wave of sporty EVs.

The truth of this test is, however, that the Mégane’s talents lie in a different direction. Its supple suspension and excellent mechanical refinement mean it’s more of a long-distance cruiser, where its supple suspension and decent damping deal competently with the UK’s bad roads, and where its impressive lack of wind, road and mechanical noise mean you can converse quietly or listen to the thoroughly decent audio system at any speed.

Mind you, these long-distance capabilities are probably only available if you’ve been  wise enough to choose a version of the Mégane with a built-in, mileage-saving heat pump. Renault made the mistake of launching the car in the UK, in the middle of winter, without this essential gizmo in most versions and as a result took much stick for not being able to deliver anything like the promised 280-mile range.

It’s rectifying the problem now – and this test showed that practical 230-mile open-roads cruising at ground covering speeds is possible in mild summer weather. But driving the Mégane the way that dedicatedly sporting drivers use cars still yields a range below 200 miles, and such a shortfall isn’t very desirable in an EV market also occupied by the Koreans, whose battery technology is of the best and whose claims have always been pretty reliable.

The Mégane still has much to recommend it, mind. The quick steering (2.2 turns lock to lock) does give it a feeling of agility, even if a more appropriate variable steering ratio would have sharpened things up still further at the straight-ahead. The compact body, just 4.2 metres long, coupled with a wheel- at-each-corner design, also builds the feeling of manoeuvrability and the excellent seats hold you well while the car is demonstrating its strong cornering grip.

The performance from this Mégane’s single front-mounted 214bhp motor is good enough to rank it in any list of brisk hatchback performers, although if you deploy its shove to the full, the driven front wheels can easily overpower the traction control in slippery conditions. Others in this group, with rear drive, deploy their power better.

Having said which, the Mégane’s CMF-EV platform is also designed to underpin a dual motor, four-wheel- drive version of this car. Surely such a machine is coming from Renault-owned Alpine. That will be the day the Mégane gets seriously sporty.

Steve Cropley

Third place: MG 4 XPower

Car makers can't resist experimenting with their products, especially when it comes to the most childish of attributes: power. A textbook example of this phenomenon is the first-generation Mercedes-Benz A-Class, into which AMG squeezed a second 1.9-litre four-cylinder engine to create the Mika Häkkinen-endorsed A38. In a similar vein, Volkswagen took Bentley’s W12 (plus a Lamborghini Gallardo back axle) and applied it to the Mk5 Golf, resulting in the preposterous GTI W12-650.

It tends to be hatchback makers who go in for this sort of thing, and of course these wild creations with improbable performance figures are only ever taken to concept stage. Except in the case of the MG 4 EV XPower, which seems to have weaselled its way through to production. Visually, there’s not much to differentiate it from the regular car (a surprisingly sweet-handling but quite mild- mannered C-segment EV), yet the 429bhp XPower will easily out-drag even a PDK-equipped Porsche 911 Carrera. It’s somehow also the cheapest car in this test.

Those facts alone – five doors, ridiculous power, not a lot of money – will have straight away given the XPower a good shot of finishing at the sharp end of this test. And there’s no shame in coming third behind (I’m not giving away the order here, by the way) the Born and the 500e. But the fact that the MG hasn’t walked proceedings means something has gone a bit awry.

That something boils down to a sense of precision and intent. Sucker-punch fast the XPower may be, and it can be gratifyingly slidey on a damp B-road, but it’s just too soft to inspire confidence and the power delivery lacks sophistication.

To charge this little, MG can’t afford to fit the sort of dampers this level of performance (and, at 1800kg, considerable kerb weight) demands. Then you discover that the spring rates are only around 15% greater than those for the regular car, which wouldn’t say boo to a goose.