There’s ample space for four adults and the airy interior feels larger than that of electric rivals including the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the Nissan LEAF. City or town dwellers will love the Ampera as they’ll rarely use the fuel, especially when you consider that most journeys are less than a handful of miles. If you do need to travel more than 50 miles in a day, however, you can rely on the 1.4-litre petrol engine to get you where you want to go.

It takes four hours to fully recharge the Ampera from a household socket. When driving there are two modes to choose from. D (Drive) is selected for normal driving, while, L (Low) is a comfort feature. As soon as the driver lifts off the accelerator pedal, a system kicks in to recuperate energy for charging the battery pack. This is a great combination with the electric motor and the combustion engine working nicely in tandem.

It’s reasonable load-carrier: the boot space will hold 300 litres with the seats in place and 1,005 litres with the seats down. That’s about average for a car of this nature.

Safety

Eight airbags are fitted as standard. This comprises dual-stage driver and front passenger airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, head curtain airbags and front seat-mounted side airbags for neck and pelvis protection. It also has an ISOFIX child seat fixing points. There’s also a pedestrian alert system which is active when you are running on the silent electric mode.

This is vital in busy streets. Essentially, the car makes a noise when running at low speeds so that pedestrians can hear you approaching. Euro NCAP has not crash tested the Ampera but we expect that it should achieve at least four stars.