Yesterday whilst the other half was wandering around Grand Designs Live, I spent the time test driving four electric and hybrid cars; a Chevolet Volt (also sold in the UK as the Vauxhall Ampera), a Honda CR-Z hybrid, a Peugeot 508 RXH hybrid, and a Nissan Leaf.

Of the four cars the only one that I considered utterly pointless was the Honda CR-Z hybrid. The petrol engine runs all the time, with the electric power used to give it a bit of an extra push when necessary, so the fuel economy is nothing at all to write home about, and for a car that claimed to be a sports car, it was ugly as sin.

The Peugeot 508 hybrid is electric power only at low speed, with the diesel engine only turning on as you speed up. But I found if you planted your right foot as if you were needing to make a quick getaway from a T junction, the power delivery was anything but smooth. A fast rush of power, then the car would almost appears to stall, before taking off again. Due to the price, the only people I could see buying this would be company car drivers because of the favourable tax treatment.

The Chevrolet Volt was the same as the Peugeot 508 and is electric power only at low speed, bringing the petrol engine on as you speed up, but did it a lot better, with none of the hesitation that you got with the Peugeot. However unlike the Peugeot, there were definite compromises that had been made with the space in the car, with the battery pack forming a small mountain down the middle of the car. And as for the styling of the Volt, good grief, a glaring white plastic dashboard? Again due to the price, the only people I could see buying this would be company car drivers.

The Nissan Leaf was an interesting car, purely electric and therefore a maximum range of around 80ish miles. It was a nice solid car, and drove almost exactly the same as a good automatic. I could actually see this type of car meeting a lot of people's requirements, however £26,000 for a Fiesta / Focus size car?

It also amused me how Nissan felt the need to bend the numbers on their advertising in an attempt to make it seem a good buy. When they compare it to a Focus, they use a mileage of 10,000 miles per year. Are you really going to be doing 10,000 miles in a car with an absolute maximum 80 mile range and a 12 hour charge interval?

It was interesting to hear the difference in the sales pitch between the hybrid manufacturers and the electric only, with the hybrid claiming that their batteries would last longer since they were only charged by the petrol / diesel engine and you couldn't abuse the battery by fast recharging from the mains.

For the electric only cars, I found the whole concept of recharging interesting. The charge point for the Leaf is under a flap in the bonnet, and the charging lead is not locked to the car and can just be pulled out. So if charging at home you need to be able to park the car next to your house so you can run a power lead to the car, and it obviously needs to be secure enough that you can be happy that someone isn't going to unplug it for a laugh. Is that likely in an urban enviroment where these cars would be most likely used.

As for the commercial recharging points, are you ever likely to actually use one? There is no way I would drive beyond the point of no return in the hope of finding a commercial recharging point, and unless you want a fast (and battery damaging) quick burst, then the car would need to be parked for hours next to the charging point. So unlike a normal filling station, the charging point would have to be somewhere within walking distance to your destination.

The conclusion I came to was that the manufacturers seem to have no strategy for who their customer is, and are just trying anything an everything hoping that something will work. However the real killer at the moment is price. Once they solve that then I believe that there will be a massive take up.