My love-hate relationship with electric cars has been documented in this paper on previous occasions. So it was with a slightly apprehensive feeling that I took the Volkswagen e-Golf for a week.

On paper, electric cars look like a good idea, but so far my experience has been that it rarely translates into a good idea in practice. Not unless you’re willing to spend wads of cash.

The eGolf was, it turns out, a nice surprise. Yes, it has similar issues to other electric vehicles in terms of range and charging, but getting behind the wheel feels more like driving a regular car than an electric one. The battery indicator that has caused me so much anxiety in other cars is simply a fuel gauge – a nice, familiar, reassuring fuel gauge – and the car itself, while creepily silent as electric cars tend to be, feels solid. The version I had also had an emergency three-pin charger in the boot, so if you end up stuck out of range of an ESB charger, you can plug into a regular power supply (with permission) and get a slow charge that might get you to the nearest official charging station.

One issue is the Irish charging infrastructure isn’t quite set up for the eGolf’s fast-charge capability, so you are limited to either your home charge point, or the regular charging network around the country. For now. volkswagen.ie