Current fleet
Tales from the battery-powered vehicles in the EV Fleet World car park
Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor
List Price
BiK
3.5mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
It’s funny how it’s easy to become obsessed by tiny things in cars. A rattle here, an annoying rough edge of a plastic moulding there.
For me in the Polestar 2, I’ve developed a rather unhealthy relationship with the efficiency readout. I’m afraid it won’t ever not bug me that it’s in kWh/100mls rather than the more traditional mls/kWh, but it also means getting your head round the fact that a lower number is better.
Rather like the European metric figures for ICE vehicles, it’s a measure of consumption not efficiency, whereas with mpg and mls/kWh, you want the figure to be as high as possible. Like queuing, apologising and unhealthy tinned meat products, it’s just another thing that we do better than our friends across the Channel.
But as the ambient temperature has improved, so I’ve seen my consumption on the dash readout dropping. Admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not much, but I’ve started to notice every time it drops a decimal point. So, first I was happy when it dropped into the 20s at 29.9kWh/100mls as stated previously and now I’m already at 29.6. Every little helps, as they say.
Also falling into the ‘I need to get a life’ category is something else I noticed after the long-awaited visit to the car wash. I tend to leave the regenerative braking set to maximum, making one-pedal driving possible for the majority of the time. The result that I don’t have to rely on the friction brakes as much as a normal ICE car means a noticeable lack of brake dust.
When I look around at many other cars over the winter, their front wheels are coated black, but not those on the Polestar – another benefit of running an EV, I suppose.
Nat Barnes
BMW I20 iX xDrive45 M Sport LCI
List Price
BiK
3.0-3.4mpkWh
Efficiency
321-367
miles (Range)
280-330
miles (On fleet)
Car apps really come into their own when it comes to electric vehicles. The ability to control the charging from your mobile phone is particularly inviting, especially given the prolonged wet weather that the winter brought us. The ‘My BMW’ app can do much more than that, but I suspect that charging is what most owners of BMW EVs will make most use of.
Inevitably, a battery with good range has a large capacity, so charging it on a 7.4kW domestic charger is going to take some time with a 94.8kW/h battery. In fact the maths is easy, it would take 94.8/7.4 hours – 12.8 hours, assuming constant charge rate, for a complete re-charge. Charging for 13 hours straight means it is impossible to take advantage of off-peak electricity rates for a full charge. Practically, it will be a bit less than that, unless you really have run the car to a standstill.
Where possible, if I’m not using the car intensively, I will charge for six to seven hours on two nights. Also, if I’m not using the car intensively, I will follow the recommendation and only charge to 80% capacity to relieve battery stress. This can all be set up easily using the app. On a cold dark night, being able to do that while sat in a warm room rather than a cold car is very helpful.
At the same time, you can make sure that the car is de-frosted and warm at the time you want to leave. No scraping ice off windows and climbing into a chilly car. Arguably the real value of that is that warming the car while it is plugged in to charge is not going to take a bite out of your battery capacity and hence range. That is much more of a necessity than a luxury in my view and it all helps to make driving EVs a pleasurable experience.
John Kendall
Audi Q6 S line e-tron Performance
List Price
BiK
2.7mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
DE-FLEET REPORT
After six months on the fleet, it’s time to say farewell to our Audi Q6 e-tron, a car that has impressed in the main and disappointed in parts.
We’ll do the disappointment first – cold weather really hits battery performance in this big electric Audi. From the height of the summer when its efficiency of 3.0 miles per kWh was giving a real-world range of 290 miles, the current figure of 2.7 miles/kWh spells a useable range of not much over 200 miles now. This is adding at least one more full overnight charge per week and sees the Q6 fall well below its claimed 355-mile range.
Secondly, there appear to be some gremlins nestling in the electronics behind the infotainment displays because we saw numerous warning signs illuminate throughout the car’s stay with us, all of which disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Mostly these were ‘systems not available’ type warnings, interspersed with a more serious ‘suspension fault’. While it soon because clear these were just glitches, it did impact on confidence in the car.
However, there is much to praise about the Q6 – understated external styling, excellent ride comfort, plenty of interior space, all-round ease of use and, dare I say on a £70k SUV, value for money thanks to a long list of standard equipment which includes 20-inch alloys and a heated steering wheel as well as a huge digital infotainment screen.
Our test car did come with a few optional extras – firstly the Performance powertrain (£3,500) which boosts efficiency from 3.0 to 3.3 miles per kWh and, in theory, boosts claimed range from 300 to 355 miles.
We also added metallic blue paint at £725 and a panoramic sunroof, which is £1,525 well spent because it draws in some much-needed light into the overwhelmingly black cabin.
When a car departs from the driveway for the final time, I always ask myself ‘will I miss it?’. The answer this time around is a resounding yes – my children like the in-built technology and room in the back, my wife loves the security and comfort she feels when behind the wheel and I appreciate a comfortable and fairly quick family SUV which packs a lot into its pricetag.
Julian Kirk
Volvo EX30 Cross Country Twin Motor Performance AWD Ultra
List Price
BiK
3.2mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
Since we’re midway through our stint with the adventure-ready Volvo EX30 Cross Country, it’s the perfect moment to see how it stacks up against the standard model.
It’s clear this rugged variant holds several advantages over the core version. The softer suspension is a highlight, offering a more pliant, comfortable ride that absorbs road imperfections far better, while the increased ride height provides a more commanding view.
The staggering 428hp of power and 3.7-second 0-62mph sprint are impressive, but rarely useable on our congested roads; I had to venture out late one evening just to properly engage Performance mode.
The 20-mile electric range deficit compared to the Single Motor Extended Range we tested before is slight but noticeable, occasionally necessitating a charging stop on long-haul trips.
To mitigate this, I’ve embraced the adaptive cruise control. Usually a sceptic of such tech, I’ve found that maintaining a steady pace on recent stints on the A303 and M25 has significantly improved efficiency – stretching my range enough to make it back without stopping.
I’ve also started sticking the Volvo in Range mode; it’s early days yet to check out its benefits but it does noticeably blunt performance so I’m hopeful it will squeeze out extra miles. Currently I’m getting around 200-220 per full charge.
One potentially transformative feature to up our electric range is the customisable steering wheel button, which can be assigned to different functions. I’ve been using it for speed limit warnings, but by mapping it to the one-pedal drive function, I can bypass the frustrating sub-menus usually required to toggle it on the move.
My only minor gripe remains the display: as with fellow long-term tester Nat Barnes in his Polestar 2, I’d much prefer a ‘miles per kWh’ readout over the current ‘kWh/100 miles’ format. This would make it so much easier to judge my efficiency at a glance without having to calculate it myself.
In that vein of thought, I’ve also realised that I’ve become far more relaxed about long-distance electric driving. There’s a lot to be said for pre-planning charging requirements – and the Volvo is handy at popping up with charging suggestions when you’re getting low on electrons – but armed with Zapmap and Google, charging on the fly is a lot easier than it used to be.
Natalie Middleton
Kia EV4 GT-Line
List Price
BiK
3.8mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
I’m a fan of contrasting, or light interior colour schemes, and I’m happy that many more car manufacturers are experimenting with lighter colours.
They can often break up dour, dark interiors (often associated with ‘sporty’ variants), and can give the whole car a more pleasant ambience. This is also the case with our Kia EV4 test car, in the mid-specification GT Line grade.
There’s a light steering wheel centre and a matching inner fake-leather panel on the upper side of the wheel. This coordinates with matching door arm rests and centre arm rest storage cover. And the whole mid-panel of the dashboard from east to west is finished in the same colour material.
It makes the EV4 more likeable and somewhere you feel happy spending time on the road.
But part of that dashboard panel contains buttons for various controls (home, map, search, media and favourites), and I’ve discovered that on very bright days when sunlight is streaming into the cabin, it renders the backlighting on these buttons invisible. Unless you’ve memorised which ones are which, a bit of trial and error is involved to get into the set-up to switch off the various intrusive warnings.
Apart from these momentary aberrations, the EV4 has been putting in sterling service, having covered 2,000 miles since its arrival with us. Thankfully, despite covering that distance in around six weeks, its 300-plus miles of range in these cooler conditions have meant that the majority of charging has been done at home on my cheap overnight tariff.
Simon Harris
Cupra Leon e-Hybrid V3
List Price
BiK
4.2mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
DE-FLEET REPORT
Sadly, the time has come for the Leon e-Hybrid to head back to Cupra HQ, after 5,500 trouble-free (until, quite literally, the night before collection) miles, leaving me wondering whether it was ironic, a coincidence or just bad luck. Or maybe all three.
It feels ironic though, as this situation has happened to me at least once before whereby the car had performed faultlessly for nine months and then started misbehaving the day before collection.
In this case, it could be argued that – a bit like my previous report referencing the Leon’s key fob batteries running out of charge – I had been warned. On more than once occasion, the car’s display provided a message saying that the 12V battery, rather than the car’s 19.7kWh battery, was running low on power. I thought that maybe I’d been running the car with the lights/radio/phone charging etc on a little too much, and figured that it might be a glitch, given that it was only sporadic in letting me know.
However, at midnight the night before collection, I was aware of a car alarm going off outside where I live, and assumed it was an annoying neighbour. Unfortunately, the lights on the Leon were flashing whilst it was on charge.
To cut a rather long story slightly shorter, I couldn’t get the alarm to stop for about half an hour, and was only able to gain access to the Cupra via the unlocked rear passenger doors (the fronts were staying firmly locked on both sides). This resulted in a lot of contortionist movements into the front seats, in the pitch black, trying to follow the phonecall instructions of the incredibly helpful lady at Cupra Roadside assistance, whom I was on the phone to for about 20 minutes.
The charge cable was locked into the car – no problem, we thought, Cupra roadside assistance had a plan for that… open the bonnet and manually release the cable. Frustratingly, opening the bonnet relied upon the passenger door being open, as the mechanical release pivots in such a way as to make this impossible otherwise. And none of the other potential ‘fixes’ that were run through to get the car ‘reset’ achieved the requisite fixing. Checkmate.
On the plus side, the alarm had stopped annoying my neighbours at this point, and even though I wasn’t able to secure and lock the car, I was able to put things such as charging cables etc somewhere for safe-keeping until morning.
Which is when Cupra roadside assistance turned up at 8am, to diagnose that there was actually a fault with the 12V battery and it needed replacing. I’m slightly annoyed that I forgot to ask how my rescuer was able to eventually open the front passenger door to open the bonnet, but a charge of the battery and a subsequent charge of the car seemed to do the trick. I was advised not to charge the car before collection that morning, as this might trigger a similar effect where the battery’s low power was potentially creating a conflict with the smart charging app etc.
Did this experience diminish six otherwise cracking months with the Leon? Not at all, in truth. Having swapped from our previous Cupra Tavascan into the Leon back in August, it was immediately apparent how much fun the smaller car was to drive.
I mentioned in my previous report that a little extra rear legroom would have been nice, but since our latest FW Fleet newbie – a rather fetching duck-egg blue Seat Arona – is arguably is a little tighter in the back, it’s a case of be careful what you wish for. And we were possibly spoilt in this respect by the Tavascan anyway.
That said, as impressive as the Tavascan is, there’s no getting away from the fact that it is a heavy car, whereas the Leon e-Hybrid, despite being no featherweight itself, definitely felt more nimble and poised on the road. Easier to park too, despite not having a front parking camera (it’s amazing the luxuries company car drivers get used to) and just generally a bit more manageable in urban environments.
And that’s where our Leon spent most of its time, benefiting from almost fully electric motoring with a rare foray back into ICE when the need arose. On the odd occasions where long journeys were required, the Leon took them in its stride, seamlessly switching from ICE to EV where possible, and even though the 1.5-litre petrol engine will sit at 70mph all day, when not coupled with the electric motor, it’s not on a par with a standard BEV in terms of performance.
The Leon’s 6% BiK rate due to a range of over 70 miles on electric alone (which rose to 7% at the start of April 2026), means that a typical 20% taxpayer over the course of our tenure would have been paying £43 per month in tax, which seems good value and compares favourably with a Cupra Leon 1.5 TSI at around £180 per month.
Admittedly, with a nearly £10k premium over the TSi, the e-Hybrid should offer greater appeal, but the reality is that it appears to offer so many benefits and very few drawbacks (until BiK changes in April 2028 at least). BEVs are improving all the time, obviously, but for those fleets and drivers not quite able to justify going fully-electric, the Cupra Leon represents an excellent compromise. Especially due to its genuinely useable 70+ mile range, which even in the depths of winter was still over 50 miles. It’s just a case now of readjusting to life with ICE and our blue Arona, and monitoring rising fuel prices again due to recent global events.
Luke Wikner
