BEST ELECTRIC CAR CUPRA BORN

A brass tacks focus is starting to appear in the electric car market - and it's welcome because it has arguably been missing from the sector for the past decade.

It has been easier for car makers to play in niches and around the fringes of the car market with their debutant EVS so far - electric sports saloons, hypercars, large SUVs, fashion crossovers, designer superminis and 'streamliner' saloons - than to aim right at the market's core.

Selling an electric car to someone who habitually runs a three- or four-car garage, and has both a specific use in mind for it and plenty of back-up for when it doesn't suit their particular needs on any given day of the year, is the easier thing to do when you think about it. It's much harder to sell one instead to someone who must depend on a single car to do every type of journey and has a clearly defined budget to spend. But if the industry is to hit the EV market share required to avoid hefty fines over the next few years, it's these harder sales they must find a route to and ultimately crack. They have no option left but to reach for this bigger, riper, higher-hanging fruit.