Now look, I desperately and deeply wanted to cheat with this nomination, because my best car overall for the year had electric motors and was, in fact, the greatest car in the history of the known universe – the Ferrari F80. But no, strictly it’s not an electric car, it’s a monster munch of a hypercar. Sigh.
My winner, then, comes from the other end of the scale, but before we get to that one I should mention some others that came close – firstly, the huge and hugely unexpectedly good Zeekr 009 posh people mover, which just has no right to be as much fun to drive as it is, even if it does look like a Storm Trooper who tried to shave without taking his helmet off.
I’d give a qualified mention to another Zeekr, the 7X, which I only drove in weird conditions – on a race track and around an off-road course, neither of which felt like its happy place. And yet it still gave off a surprising air of competence and not-shitness. Back in 2024, I would have thought I’d never be saying that about any Chinese EVs, so that shows you how fast the world is moving.
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My winner, though, is the small and not overly thrilling yet practically perfect as an example of my theory that, for many of us, an EV still makes the perfect second car.
Yes, I laughed heartily at Hyundai’s suggestion that Inster has “SUV styling”, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some style. Indeed, it is undeniably cute and strangely appealing, in a bounding puppy kind of way. Or maybe a robotic dog.
It is tiny (3.2m long, 1.6m wide and 1.57m tall) and can only ever sit four humans rather than five because it’s so narrow, but it has a presence to it that’s forward looking, futuristic and fun. And you can have a slightly tougher looking one, with lots of black plastic, chunky bumpers and an optional roof basket, called the Inster Cross (which just makes me think you could drop Inster and call it the Very).
Speaking of names, the use of “Inster” did make me think I was going to hate it from the get-go because it’s a term that makes me think of the hated influencers and their evil, brainless, let’s rid the world of literacy ways.
But then I spent a day zipping around in it and couldn’t stop smiling, even if I wasn’t going much faster than I would be on an E-bike. The Inster makes do with a relatively small battery (42kWh in the Standard or 49kWh in the Extended Range) and offers a theoretical range of between 327km and 360km, with “outputs” of 71kW in the Standard or 84kW in the Extended Range, but in either case you’re getting 147Nm of torque, which is just enough to make it feel punchy around town and nigh-on not bad on the highway.
It is a shame the Inster isn’t about $10K cheaper, because then Hyundai might sell a few more and I’d see them and smile at the memory of driving one, but at $39,000 for the Standard model, $42,500 for the Extended Range and $45K for the Inster Cross, I can honestly say I haven’t seen a single one on the road since the launch some months ago.
Fools. All of you.
Biggest EV surprise of 2025: Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology
Speaking of things I was sure I was going to hate, I sure was surprised to even slightly enjoy the BYD Shark 6 giant ute, but again, it’s not a full EV, so let’s move on to the weirdest thing I drove all year, the Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology, or the G Wagen EV, if you prefer.
I don’t like big SUVs, this one made no sense to me at all and the numbers around it were simply silly – $249,900, a 116kWh battery, 432kW and, believe it or not, 1164Nm of torque.
Driving it turned my innards into the kind of jelly they’d become if you force fed me pilchards. Truly, I thought I was going to vomit, many times, and indeed even watching the videos I made of me doing so makes me slightly ill. There’s just too much torque pushing too much weight in a way that’s to silly.
And yet, it did make me laugh, and the more I pushed it, the more it amused me. Most of all, of course, when I was shown how to do a G-Turn, and sat there spinning around on the spot in a swirl of dust, while screaming the obvious question: “WHY?”
The EV I’m most looking forward to in 2026: Mazda 6e
Why, yes, that’s a good question here, too, but I can only tell you that I got to sit in a Mazda 6e when it was unveiled late in 2025 and it really did look, and feel, like something different, something pleasant and something far more Japanese than all the other EVs currently swarming the market.
Price will be vital, of course, and Mazda has confirmed it will be “under $55,000” when it goes on sale here in 2026, but we believe it will be closer to $50K, which will make it very attractive indeed.
As does the fact that it’s a sedan, and thus related to the excellent Mazda 6, if only in design terms because underneath it’s closely related to the Deepal L07, and the Deepal S07 SUV, the latter of which is also sold in Australia.
Still, I remain excited, perhaps partly because I learned to drive in a Mazda 626 many years ago and have had a soft spot for the brand ever since.
