Current fleet
Tales from the battery-powered vehicles in the EV Fleet World car park
Kia EV5
List Price
BIK
3.5mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
FIRST REPORT
Kia is one of a handful of brands with an enviable strike rate for its EVs. I’ve driven most of them, and a couple in the current Kia line-up have won Fleet World Great British Fleet Awards.
Joining the range at the end of 2025 was the EV5 – as an SUV, it uses some of the chunky styling cues of the smaller EV3 and larger EV9.
It’s basically the same size as a Sportage, but a fully electric vehicle. Being electric, it’s a little more spacious than a Sportage, despite having similar external dimensions.
And with the battery pack sitting under the floor, raising the driving position slightly, you certainly feel a cut above most others on the road.
The EV5 uses the larger of the two battery packs available on the EV4 and EV3, with 81.4kWh total capacity. While that’s still substantial for a medium SUV, its extra weight and inferior aerodynamics over its smaller siblings mean it won’t travel quite as far on a full charge.
The official WLTP combined range is 329 miles on the entry-level Air grade and 313 miles for our GT Line S test car – mainly down to the larger 19-inch alloy wheels. Maximum power is 214hp with 295Nm of torque.
Orders opened for the EV5 in September 2025, with the familiar Air, GT Line and GT Line S range structure, but Kia recently announced new AWD variants, plus a Storm grade that sits between the medium and top versions.
Our front-wheel-drive GT Line S is priced at £47,080 on the road, sitting comfortably below the £50,000 ‘expensive car tax’ threshold for VED on electric vehicles.
The range-topper has an opening glass sunroof and sun-blind, heated front and outer rear seats, ventilated front seats (relief from these few weeks of high temperatures!), a Harman Kardon eight-speaker audio system, and the full suite of available ADAS safety features.
We look forward to evaluating its blend of comfort and practicality over the next few months.
Simon Harris
BYD Sealion 7 Excellence
List Price
BIK
3.0mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
When shopping for an EV, you may have come across the term vehicle-to-load (V2L). But what does it mean exactly? Not to be confused with vehicle-to-home (V2H) or vehicle-to-grid (V2G), V2L essentially allows you to use your car like a giant battery pack and power external devices.
You do this via an adapter cable that plugs directly into the car’s charging port. The Sealion 7 can provide up to 3.3kW of AC power – enough for small devices such as mobile phones and laptops, but it’s also capable of powering cooler boxes, power tools and even a fridge. In other words, many camping essentials and power cut must-haves are fair game.
In real-world use, devices such as a phone charger (10W), laptop (65W) or TV (100W) barely scratch the surface of the Sealion 7’s 3,300W continuous output. Even more power-hungry appliances such as a toaster (1,500W), fan heater (2,000W) or kettle (3,000W) remain within the car’s capabilities, although you do need to keep an eye on the combined load if running multiple appliances at once.
During testing, I had a laptop, mobile phone and kettle connected via the same extension lead without issue. It sounds like a gimmick until you’re standing next to an electric SUV making a cup of tea. If you exceed the Sealion 7’s 3.3kW output limit, the vehicle’s protection systems will automatically shut down the V2L supply.
To put the battery’s capacity into perspective, the Sealion 7’s 91.3kWh battery could theoretically power a phone for around 9,000 hours or a TV for around 900 hours. It also stores enough energy to boil hundreds of kettles, one after another. Proof that V2L is far more than a novelty feature.
Richard Bush
Volvo ES90 Single Motor Extended Range RWD Plus
List Price
BIK
3.9mpkWh
Efficiency
miles (Range)
miles (On fleet)
Upgrading from the EX30 crossover to the larger ES90 shows that some of the smaller model’s quirks have been resolved for its bigger brother, although some remain.
One of our main frustrations with the ultra-minimalist EX30 was its complete reliance on a lone central touchscreen for everything, including critical driver data and basic speed controls. Furthermore, because the dashboard features a prominent Harman Kardon soundbar, installing a head-up display wasn’t an option either. Many core everyday functions such as wing mirrors were also a little too inaccessible.
Some of these issues still remain. The ES90 also relies heavily on its touchscreen for everyday tasks such as adjusting the wing mirrors and even opening the glove box, which makes things laborious. Fortunately, there’s a sleek, compact 9-inch screen mounted directly on the steering column behind the wheel – which keeps vital satellite-navigation mapping, current speed and other core driving metrics – along with a head-up display, as otherwise the central screen would be too cluttered. Also handy is the crystal volume control, which gives a genuine sense of high-end luxury and is handy for quick usage.
One niggle for me within the minimalist elegance of the cabin is the driver’s door panel. It features only two window switches and a single toggle button to switch between operating the front and rear glass. This proves a little too much work on a baking hot summer’s day when you just want to drop all the windows while waiting for the air conditioning and ventilated seats to kick in – admittedly these are first-world problems.
The ES90’s driver alerts are far less intrusive than those in the EX30. While the EX30 frequently mistook normal actions such as talking or yawning for fatigue (although a later software update helped), the ES90 offers a much more relaxed and accurate system that bridges the gap between advanced safety technology and everyday driver comfort.
The ES90’s key technology is more reliable, whereas the EX30 frequently failed to let me into the vehicle. That’s only happened a few times with its bigger brother and it soon senses the key.
But I did get caught out when it ran out of power. The ES90 comes with two physical keys – a lightweight key tag and an NFC key card neatly arranged on one keyring – to guarantee vehicle access and enable multi-driver convenience. Drivers can also set up a digital key via the Volvo app. I got a bit of a shock two weeks into our test when my key tag suddenly died. Thankfully, I was able to tap the key card to get inside the Volvo, but investigating the key tag fob once home to replace the battery revealed a surprise that it doesn’t actually open. Instead, the tag has to be charged using the wireless charger inside the Volvo while driving or popping it on a standard home Qi wireless charging pad. It’s a quick, easy habit to get into and the fact that you always have the key card as a handy backup is reassuring. Plus it’s easy to check how much charge you have via the central screen, which has a veritable arsenal of features, functions and information.
Perhaps most notably the ES90 has not been plagued by the battery issues that have beset the EX30 due to overheating risks and lead to a global recall.
Overall, the ES90 is a tech-centric saloon that largely balances high-end luxury with minimalist design, making for a deeply compelling executive EV.
Natalie Middleton
Audi A6 Avant S line e-hybrid quattro S tronic
List Price
BIK
109.1
mpg
CO2
65.1
miles (On fleet)
I was sitting in traffic behind an A6 Avant e-tron the other day, which got me thinking about how the all-electric A6 compares to our plug-in hybrid version.
Unsurprisingly, the electric model is miles ahead when it comes to driver taxation, enjoying much lower BIK percentage bandings.
Our test car is currently in the 10% banding, meaning a BIK bill for a higher rate taxpayer of £214 a month. This will rise to 11%/£235pm next financial year, before rocketing to 18%/£386pm in 2028/29.
Those figures suggest this is the golden time to be in a plug-in hybrid before the taxation rules make them all but pointless. By comparison, the electric regime is enjoying more stability, annual increments of 1 or 2% seeing an e-tron’s monthly bill for the same taxpayer rise from £90pm this financial year to £158pm in 2028/29.
When you see the figures in black and white, it’s very hard to argue against, despite the A6 e-Hybrid being an impressive all-round car.
Another surprise was that the e-tron has around 100 litres more boot space than our car – the plug-in battery pack under the load floor robs the A6 e-Hybrid of some useable space.
The only area where the e-hybrid does score is in range – I can comfortably get around 400 miles from a tank of fuel and a full charge, while the Audi quote for the A6 e-tron (without the uprated battery in the Performance model) is a maximum of 360 miles… so a real-world figure of around 300 miles would be more likely.
