A big V8 may stir the soul, but what about cars to soothe the wallet?

I am a petrolhead. My bloodstream is 99 RON, the sound of a beautiful engine gives me goosebumps and my shoes have the outline of Suzuka on the insole. However, at a time when petrol is £1.30+ a litre, the thought of running a big saloon with fuel economy in the teens doesn't really seem feasible.

I will nail my colours to the wall here, and say that I am a fan of electric cars. Not all of them, though; most look like research projects (even if they're actually not) and ones that you want to own are fantastically expensive. However, consider this; former Kryten and current host of the excellent Car Pool series Robert Llewellyn drove 9,000 miles last year in a Mitsubishi iMev, and spent just £125 in fuel. My basic Focus would cost around £1462 at current pump prices to do the same distance. If electric cars became more popular, would this gap narrow as the Government tried to recoup lost revenue? Almost certainly, but at the moment those running EVs are in the same position as Land Rover owners before supermarkets cottoned onto why 5 gallon drums of vegetable oil were suddenly very popular.

'Ah', I hear you say, 'but what about range? What happens when you're 50 miles from home and run out of juice?'

My daily commute is about 15 miles. If I go to the supermarket on the way home, then it's 18 miles. A trip somewhere nearby at the weekend, and I'm up to 120 miles a week. The Tesla Roadster has a range of 220 miles, and the forthcoming Tesla saloon will do 300 miles between charges. If you're stopping somewhere for the night that has mains electricity, then you can go a long way on a single charge. OK, so romping off down to the south of France or the Highlands might be out of the question unless you fancy stopping a few times on the way, but how often do you actually do this kind of journey?

A lot, if you're a car journo.

If you're reading Drive Cult, then I'll assume you've read car magazines which have features that go something like this: "We drive the new [exciting car] to [interesting place] then compare it with [other exciting cars, while driving them hard and getting them sideways]." That's not exactly feasible if you've got to stop for 8 hours every 300 miles. Driving hard on track or B-road, and you'll be down to even less than that.

Arguably, Tesla have both helped and hindered the EV market through their approach. Making new technology sexy (and charging a premium for it) will help get it off the ground and provide funding to keep the product developments coming. The Elise-derived Roadster is a cracking drive by all accounts, but when driven briskly its already limited range shrinks even more, confirming those range worries in the mind of the driver. Kept in town and driven more sedately, it's argurably the most real-world, desirable EV on sale, but a low-slung sports car with limited luggage space is hardly the mose usable vehicle. The forthcoming Tesla saloon, with a price of £56,000 (give or take some toys), should make an interesting alternative to those with 5-Series or E-Classes since it will do the school run, go to the shops, go to work and probably only need a charge once a week. You may never save enough to cover the premium you pay at the dealership, but it'd certainly be an interesting experience for the brave.

What about high-current recharging points, emergency charging van fleets run by breakdown companies, or the high cost of battery packs? Time and market forces will take care of this. 10 years ago the original iPod was 5 or 10GB of hard disk storage because flash memory was too expensive. These first-generation devices cost $399 and $499 respectively. Now, a decade later, a 16GB iPod Nano with a touch-sensitive colour screen will set you back $179. As technology advances, either capacity increases, or cost drops. If half a million electric cars suddenly hit the road, you can be certain some innovative solutions to the problems of EV ownership would emerge, and someone will find a way to make money from it...

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