First EV/hybrid

In France recently I hired the first hybrid or EV I have ever driven - a Clio E tech hybrid. I did the usual dorky stuff like not realise it was ready to pull away when first "starting" it and so on, but mainly I really liked it, much to my (our!) surprise. I had a clio in Tenerife in the autumn and found the steering, ride and handling surprisingly good, but that one had no guts. This one pulled really well - the instant torque of electric is a very pleasant feeling, and the gear setting (it was an auto) that makes it try and use electric as much as possible, and uses regen braking, was quite nice to use for a car nerd. The merging of the traditional engine and the electric was also very seamless, and it was more powerful than I expected as well. Plus it seemed to use practically no fuel.

This slight holiday romance was spoiled somewhat when I got back and looked it up - with a 1.6 litre petrol 4 on top of the motor, no wonder it feels quicker than the usual modern tiny engined thing, and also it did not much more than 50mpg - Tina's heavy V6 diesel Audi does the same. And is a lot quicker. However, as a first feel of what electric is like, I liked it - and enjoyed the nerdy aspects of seeing how much regen braking I could do, and the battery charge. It felt like it could do with a bigger battery, and plug-in charge capability, but whoever set it up had the driver in mind which was nice to see.