You will likely be charging at home regularly, perhaps every day, which is still vastly cheaper than filling up with petrol or diesel. Although do you really want to be fiddling around with cables in the dark or in the rain?

A word of warning on charging: prospective owners will certainly need to install a proper fast charger at their home, because a three-pin domestic plug simply won’t do. I finally charged the e-tron overnight at home, thinking a full 12 hours would be plenty, only to find the battery was just 60 per cent full.

Had I needed to travel more than 100 miles the following day, I would have been stuck.

Given that in March 2022 the Government is getting rid of grant assistance for owners to install chargers at home via the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles’ Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, that’s another £1,000 on top of the vehicle price that you will need to cough up.

On the plus side, everything else about the e-tron Sportback passes with flying colours. The performance is staggering, particularly for a large SUV. Acceleration is like a roller coaster: full snap-you-back-into-the-headrest force at the tap of the pedal.

The e-tron also has off-road ability. You can raise the suspension to tackle rough terrain, or wade through water up to 1½ft deep. This tough Audi will happily take on sand, snow and mud. It means rural drivers, like me, can have confidence whatever the setting. You just have to make sure you’ve remembered to charge the car for long enough first.

Polestar 2, £53,800

This Volvo-owned brand delivers cool Scandinavian minimalism along with towering performance and a long range. It starts at £39,900 with top models around £50,000

I really, really wanted to fall in love with the Polestar. I have a young family and we care about the environment and try to do as many lifestyle swaps as we can. When we had to replace our Audi two years ago, we looked into the possibility of an electric model, but ultimately ruled it out on price and concerns about battery life. But our heads are turned whenever we see one.

So we were all – the five-year-old included – very excited when the Polestar arrived for a week’s trial. With its sleek exterior and chic Scandi interior, including the panoramic roof we all love in our current Volvo V90, it looked familiar but excitingly more modern. The neighbours, too, were keen to have a look: electric vehicles still have a buzz about them. There were lots of questions, such as how far can it go on a full charge, how easy is it to charge and how much does it cost… Well, 292 miles according to the manufacturer; easy apparently – both from a normal socket in your house and also on-street chargers (not that there are any of those on our street, or in many rural towns and villages yet), and quite a lot: £53,800 with options as tested, to be exact.