There’s choice a plenty when it comes to electric family cars… so we got the lot together for the mother of all knockout finals. Recently we used Tesla’s newly arrived Model Y as the rallying flag, and gathered to it everything that could potentially be seen as a rival. They span a price range of £35–65 grand, or about £400 a month to £1,000 and include– deep breath – the Kia EV6, Jaguar I-pace, Audi Q4 E-Tron, BMW iX3, Polestar 2, Volvo XC40 Recharge, Skoda Enyaq IV, Ford Mustang Mach-E GT, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and VW ID.4. So which EV should you buy? Well, let Top Gear Magazine’s Ollie Marriage help you whittle them down.
Here it is the new tesla model y and in right hand drive guys at last so we thought we’d arrange a little reception committee yeah that ought to do it so if you’re in the market for a new family electric car which one should you choose come with me relax we will come back and have a proper look at the model y but i’m giving that a buy straight into round two
Because we’ve got a lot of cars to get through down here so let’s nail through them quite quickly first of all we have the vw id4 the skoda enyak and the audi q4 e-tron now these are all pretty much exactly the same car underneath same battery same motors even broadly similar proportions and looks so the volkswagen is quite complicated to operate the audi is pretty
Expensive for the base price of that 44 grand thereabouts you can have a nice enyak with all the bits on it plus the big long range battery for 327 miles of range and the 201 horsepower motor so have that moving on here we have the two korean cars the kia ev6 and the hyundai ioniq 5. now like the volkswagen group cars these are basically the same car underneath
As well but look how different they look you have the kia that looks like some squinty-eyed spaceship and the hyundai is basically an origami austin allegro now the kia drives better the hyundai has the brighter lighter area interior it’s completely swings and roundabouts between these two they’re both very good cars we’re going to give it to the hyundai and
Send the kia home next stop a pair of swedes the polestar 2 and the volvo xc40 quite easy to sort this one out pole style’s really cool the volvo looks like your aunt would drive it moving on next in line we have the ford mustang mac e now when we’ve done these electric car group tests before that has always done very well so it’s going straight through to round
Two last two cars now we have the bmw ix3 and the jaguar i-pace both good cars from premium brand manufacturers with corresponding prices however i think if you’re in the market for an electric family car you probably want something that looks a little bit more exciting than this so the bmw i think is too conventional so that’s out last one not conventional the
Jaguar i-pace this is still a terrific looking car even though it’s been on sale for about five years now but would you want to put your kids in it with sweets and sticky fingers no you wouldn’t right let’s see where that leaves us here we are then our final five nice bit of diversity here isn’t there but also a bit of a price range between the skoda at about
35 grand base and the tesla at about 55 grand but before we talk about that we’re going to talk about these two at the front because that is a hatchback yeah that one looks more like a crossovery saloon but literally that one is twice the size of that one look at the size and proportions of the honda compared with the pole star and that does have its drawbacks
For the pole star it’s a bit tighter inside it’s a bit more claustrophobic if it’s just you in it it’s lovely it’s beautiful quality inside you feel like a latter day saab driver it’s just a great bit of design but we are wanting to talk practicality and although that’s got a hatchback and all the rest of it it’s probably a little bit small to be a good family
Car moving on though to the hyundai now it’s a really good car a very nice piece of design do not be tempted to have it with the most powerful engine you get over 300 horsepower for a naught 60 time of around five seconds the problem is the rest of the chassis cannot keep up with the power it’s delivering the ride’s pretty clumsy the steering is super light and
Takes a lot of management you have to concentrate quite hard to keep this thing going in a straight line so don’t have it like that have it with a base engine and just enjoy the sort of sense of being in it and just driving more gently in it it’s a cracking looking machine after all but only in this color if you have it in black you lose all the detail of it and
It just looks a bit like a big black box inside though this is really quite special it’s really nice in here although they have managed to put the steering wheel on upside down anyway look you’ve got masses of space look there’s a big box here that slides forwards and backwards you’ve got this lovely design even though the screen’s a little bit far away it just
Feels cool and fresh and different in here and it’s reasonably good for passengers you’ve got plenty of room for four people in here but ask yourself this is the boot big enough to go away on holiday inn no it’s not i’m afraid this one goes out as well right where to start with these three then i think we’ll start with the mustang actually because it takes a
Bit of explaining because the car you see here is the new mackie gt the 480 horsepower version but not to 60 in 3.7 seconds but it’s not the most family friendly is it with all that performance and also it’s 66 000 pounds which is a lot of money however they do these from a fraction over 40 thousand pounds and then ford’s model range is very simple you can have
Rear wheel drive or four wheel drive and you can choose between two different sizes of batteries and if you have it with the rear wheel drive single motor and the big battery this has a range of 379 miles which is easily the best here now of course that’s ford’s claimed figure but in reality it means you should be able to get 300 miles out of one of these incidentally
The claimed range is for the other two the tesla is 331 miles the enyak is 327. anyway come on because this is quite a cool car it’s very good to drive that’s what is the mustang standout feature and i know that doesn’t seem relevant for a family car but it does mean that the driver is going to enjoy themselves look at these funny little door handles good driving
Position in there decent seats quite a driver-centric cabin big central screen and all the rest of it but it is driver focus because coming back a bit further the rear is much more claustrophobic you have to watch your head when you get in and out and once you’re in there’s not that much legroom and pity the poor person who has to sit in the middle and as you can
Tell from this dipping roofline at the back the boot carry on electric motors do your thing is decent but you might well struggle trying to get all your holiday kit in you might look cool when you get there but if you’ve got to leave half your beach kit behind that’s not a deal is it incidentally though four do make up for that by having a front boot as well under
The front of the forge you can get 81 litres of beach clobber and look it doesn’t matter if it’s wet because there’s a drain hole for it all to run away now ford isn’t alone in having a front boot a frank this tesla’s got one as well which i’ll now show you but this takes a second because you have to go and get the screen fired up and press a button standby there
We go and this one’s even bigger than the fords there’s a room for about 117 litres of stuff in here so it’s a useful extra space for cables mostly let’s say that when tesla first showed the model why i was fairly skeptical about it because it’s a gawky looking thing and it seems to have the extra volume where you don’t want it all the height and extra volume in
The car is above the front seats not above the tailgate where you’d imagine you’d want it but they’ve done that for quite a clever reason the front seats are actually mounted quite high and in the back they’re quite low now that’s unfashionable most cars have what you call stadium seating where the rear bench is mounted above the front but here they’ve mounted it
Lower and let me get in i’ll show you what that means is you can sit in and you can stretch your legs fit them right under the front seat so you’ve got plentiful space however what you haven’t got in british tesla model wise which you do have an american is the option of having seven seats tesla at the moment say they don’t know when those are gonna come or even
If they’re going to come but who’d want to sit in the back of one of these anyway because i tell you what you’d be you’d have your head right on the glass in the boot but look at the size of the boot it’s giant this is a deceptively well packaged car and it’s not alone in that while we’re talking about practicality let’s have a look inside the skoda now i know
You’re saying boots very very boring but hey you’ve got a family this stuff matters and look it’s big this is probably the most estate car like here and look you’ve got lots of clever space this is what skoda does better than either volkswagen or audi they carve into the sides they give you neat little touches like these little hooks but you can see where they
Have saved money if you look at the quality of the carpet and the plastics are a bit scratchy and look you have to close your own boot whatever next quite like that actually now the enyak is built on a new all-electric volkswagen group platform but despite that it does not have a boot under the bonnet but come on this is a cracking car not only does it drive well
Spacious inside but it is brilliant value i think it’s the cheapest car in the whole test you can pick one of these up for 35 000 quid about 437 pounds a month it’s brilliant value and a really really competent car both the other two are considerably more expensive the ford as we’ve said already starts over forty thousand pounds the cheapest tesla model y is fifty
Five thousand pounds but all of these are brilliant cars which one’s best choose the one that works for you you
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What’s The Best EV To Buy Right Now? Tesla Model Y vs ALL the rivals | Top Gear By Top Gear
