Charging ahead: how to get the best out of an electric car

Where do you want to go? China or India? I have always found India infinitely more fascinating — for a simple reason. If you ask Sinophiles about China, they always quote statistics; Indophiles tell you stories. It’s fine to know that China has built 24,000 miles of high-speed rail track, or that its GDP is growing at an annualised rate of 8.27 per cent, but it doesn’t make me want to visit. It’s like reading an article about the film industry in the Economist: informative, yes, but it doesn’t make you want to go to the cinema.

The electric car market is trapped in a similar numerical morass. The more you read on the subject, the more you wish you had a degree in electrical engineering. I suppose all technologies are like that in the early days. There’s a house down the road that’s one of the first homes in Britain to be wired for electricity.