Best electric cars 2025
It’s still tempting to think of electric cars as just one big class of their own. Like, there are SUVs, coupes, saloons, hatchbacks and… electric cars. They still somehow feel new and unusual and distinct from a "normal" car.
But in August 2025, one in four new cars sold was a fully electric car. And right now there are 148 different EV models on sale in the UK (and probably a few more by the time you’re reading this). They’re no longer ‘specialist’ and the choice is vast.
So here are the best electric cars you can buy in the UK today. We’ve included a mix of sizes, styles and prices, so there should be something here for you.
Best electric cars |
Renault 5
- Looks fantastic inside and out and has a big range for a small EV. It's also fun to drive
- It’s small and can get expensive if you start adding in options
Not since the 2001 MINI has a company reinvented a classic car and got it so spot on. Renault has pulled the original Renault 5 into the electric age with a small car that looks totally modern, while paying tasteful homage to the original. It backs the looks up with brilliant fundamentals, too. Great battery range (up to 250 miles), excellent interior quality, easy-to-use infotainment and genuine fun to drive.
It’s not very practical and like a MINI, you can quickly make it expensive by moving up the range and adding a few options. Still, this is probably the best small electric car you can buy today. 2025’s European Car of the Year, no less.
Hyundai Inster
- Most flexible interior of any small car plus genuinely spacious with an intuitive and high-quality cabin
- Odd looks aren't for everyone and the base model doesn’t have the fancy rear seats
Pound-for-pound, the Hyundai Inster is probably the best electric car on sale today. Extremely clever packaging makes it one of the most flexible small cars on sale, but it also has that rarest of qualities: personality. The modular seating can be folded completely flat, making the interior a ‘bed’. The split rear bench slides forward and backwards, the boot is decent and it has vehicle-to-load tech so you can plug your air fryer into it. It’s vexing that the clever rear seats aren’t available in the base model, though.
Two drivetrain choices mean the cheapest one has lower range, but there’s not that much between them really. The ‘short range’ version has a claimed 203 miles and the long one 230 miles. Either way, it’s a great small car that’s lovely to drive and to live with.
Audi A6 e-tron
- Stunning high-quality interior and a massive battery range with exceptional long-distance comfort
- Expensive new and not very dynamic to drive while the rear space could be better
One of the most refined hatchbacks ever made, the Audi A6 e-tron is a lovely combination of luxury car refinement and family practicality. And it doesn’t matter whether you get the Sportback or the Avant. The latter (an estate) has a bigger boot and slightly more rear headroom, but even the Sportback has more cargo space and flexibility than you’ll probably ever need.
Both battery options offer huge range (a claimed 346 from the one with the ‘small’ battery), charging is rapid, the ride quality is floaty and the electric motor means it’s quieter than Emily Blunt in that film about aliens with superhearing. The cabin doesn’t feel as special as a Mercedes-Benz EQE though.
MG4
- Impressively good value and distinctive styling plus a seven-year warranty
- Cabin quality isn’t the best and longer range versions aren’t cheap
The MG4 feels strangely familiar for a car released just three years ago. It’s probably because you see so many of them around. It’s quite difficult to fault. Stylish, spacious and most of all, well-priced, it undercuts a lot EVs that are far less practical - the Vauxhall Corsa Electric, Peugeot E-208 and MINI Cooper Electric all cost significantly more than the MG4.
The interior quality isn’t the best on the market - that’s clearly where savings have been made - and you’ll have to pay £37k for one with a range exceeding 300 miles, but choose wisely and it’s hard to ignore. The MG4 XPower version is insane with a 0-62mph time of 3.8 seconds. The chassis can’t really cope, but that’s part of the charm.
Kia EV3
- Looks brilliant inside and out with an excellent cabin quality. Good battery range
- Not as interesting to drive as it is to look at
The 2025 World Car of the Year and UK Car of the Year, if you read our review of the Kia EV3 you’ll see 5/5 scores for every category. It looks unlike anything else - have you ever seen a mid-level, mid-sized, mid-market SUV that looks so… well, not mid? The interior is outstanding, brilliant ergonomically, intuitive to use and with touches like fabric trim cleverly masking the fact that it’s a £35k car and not a £55k one.
The 270-mile range of the base ‘Air’ model should be enough for most and it’s well-equipped to. Which is good, because the Kia EV3 does start to look expensive further up the range.
Tesla Model Y
- Very practical with tech that is generally intuitive and fun. Performance model is insanely quick
- Interior quality miles behind German stuff
The Tesla Model Y is the result of Tesla basically making an SUV out of the Tesla Model 3, it’s best-selling car. In doing so, Tesla solved the Tesla 3’s main problem: boot space. It was the laziest piece of car design ever, essentially a Tesla Model 3 stretched upwards by 20% in Photoshop. But that didn’t matter, because it added a hatchback, an 854-litre cargo space (compared to 460 litres in the Kia EV3, for context) plus the tall, SUV-ish driving position that people seem to love these days.
Add to that the usual Tesla advantages, mainly super cheap lease deals and access to the UK’s best public rapid charging facility - the Supercharger Network - and it’s easy to see why there are so many Tesla Model Ys kicking about.
Citroen e-C3 Aircross
- Striking styling and space for five despite being small plus lots of equipment as standard
- Clunky infotainment and battery range isn’t the best
There’s a strong argument for the Citroen e-C3 Aircross being the best value electric car in the UK. It’s not the cheapest - that’s the Dacia Spring, although that’s got all the sophistication of that time Boris Johnson was pushed down a zip wire with a Union Jack in each hand. But for less than £22,000 (after the Electric Car Grant), the Citroen e-C3 Aircross offers proper space for five (despite a small footprint) and a genuinely comfy driving experience.
Battery range isn’t the best (188 miles claimed in the Standard Range 44kWh battery version, which means about 150 miles on average), the square steering wheel is a bit odd and the infotainment takes some getting used to. But it is really well equipped as standard, so you don’t need to spend any more than a base car.
MG Cyberster
- The first (and so far only) proper sportscar that’s electric. Very quick and cheap to run
- Not as fun to drive as it could have been while it's quite expensive new
There are plenty of high-performance EVs around, but there’s nothing quite like the MG Cyberster - a proper two-seat, impractical, rear-wheel drive sportscar with a soft top. And which also happens to be battery powered. The scissor doors are the sort of unnecessary theatre that you want from a £60k-odd convertible, too.
That’s the good stuff - and it’s enough to make the Cyberster easy to recommend. But to be honest, it could be a bit better to drive - it’s about half a tonne heavier than a Porsche 718 Boxster, which doesn’t help dynamically. And while cabin quality is good, the dashboard layout is quite confusing.
BMW iX
- Stunning interior while iDrive is still the best infotainment system. Practical because it’s huge
- Very expensive new and not your typical BMW driving dynamics
Unveiled in 2020 as The Best EV BMW Could Possibly Do (and only BMW’s second full EV following the brilliant BMW i3), the BMW iX still feels every bit as special in 2025. Facelifted recently, its best feature is an interior that’s supposed to evoke a high-end apartment. We’re not sure if it actually does, but regardless, it’s one of the best car cabins ever made. Its quilted leather, crystal switchgear and ‘floating’ panoramic screens with boujee backlighting are all pretty special.
Underneath all that, though, it’s basically a very easy electric car to live with. Its interior is vast and both battery options offer proper long-distance: the 95kWh model has a 374-mile claimed range, and the 109kWh 435 miles. It’s very expensive though, going well into six figures for the most powerful M70 model.
Porsche Macan
- The best handling of any electric SUV plus the futuristic interior still feels very ‘Porsche’
- Rear space isn’t the best and options cost a fortune
The SUV is overwhelmingly the most common shape for an electric car and if you want the one that’s the most fun to drive, you’ve found it. You’d expect nothing less from Porsche, right? Every Porsche Macan Electric is quick - even the ‘basic’ rear-wheel drive version - but the Porsche Macan Turbo model is blistering, getting to 62mph in 3.3 seconds.
Space is a bit tight in the back and generally, if it’s luxury and comfort you’re after, you’re better off with a BMW iX or a Volvo EX90. But the Porsche Macan Electric does feel very refined generally and it’s actually quite well equipped as standard. It’s easy to go mad with the options (it’s more than £700 to have a Porsche badge stitched into the headrests), but you don’t really have to.
How much does it cost to charge an electric car?
The cost to charge an EV varies significantly depending on where you charge, and even what time you do it. By far the most expensive way is using rapid public changing, where the unit cost can be anything from 40p per kWh to 90p.
Conversely, charging at home can start from as little as 8p per kWh using an off-peak tariff. So to give a simple example, that means that a 50kWh battery could cost anywhere from £4 (50 x 8p) to £45 (50 x 90p) to charge.
How long does it take to charge an electric car?
Again, looking at a battery that holds 50kWh of charge, it would take roughly 24 hours to fill up using a domestic there-pin socket. We don’t recommend doing this. A dedicated home wallbox, which charges at 7 kW speed, is the best way to charge your EV at home.
Using a wall box, a 50kWh battery will take around 7 hours. Fast public AC chargers, which run at 11–22 kW, need two- to five hours, while a rapid DC chargers (50 kW and above, and the most expensive) could take as little as 20 minutes.
It’s never quite that simple, of course - factors like temperature and battery management software, which slows down charge at the 80% mark to protect the cells, affect speed. But generally speaking, the best balance of cost-effectiveness and decent charging speed is to use a home wall box.
How far can an electric car go on a single charge?
Battery range is determined mainly by the size of the battery, in the same way that strapping a hugel fuel tank to a petrol car would make it go further. However, like a fuel car, some electric cars are more efficient than others.
So battery range is also determined by factors like the car’s weight, your driving style, the speed you’re doing, and temperature; a warm battery will give you more miles than a cold one. Broadly though, an EV should be capable of about 3 miles per kWh, meaning that a 50kWh battery will get you around 150 miles of range in a mix of urban and motorway driving.
