Outside of a house, a car is the most expensive purchase most of us will ever make. All the more reason to get sound advice when deciding which vehicle should be one’s next. Yet while we are told with monotonous regularity, by both the UK government and the media, that the future of motoring is electric, drivers are buying neither this idea nor the vehicles themselves.

The sales figures bear this out. Little more than a decade before they become the only option in new-car showrooms – with a ban on petrol and diesel cars set to come into effect in 2035 – electric vehicles (EVs) make up just under 16 per cent of the global market. In the UK, the figure stands only slightly higher, at 18 per cent. That the figure is even that high is down to fleet buyers, encouraged by a variety of government incentives, from EV grants to tax reductions. Private motorists, who represent 45 per cent of the market and get no concessions, bought just 24 per cent of the new EVs registered in the first half of 2023. The message could hardly be clearer: unless heavily discounted, few are prepared to buy EVs instead of petrol cars.