Best electric 4x4 cars in the UK

Four-wheel-drive cars are generally able to put their power down more effectively on road than two-wheel-drive cars. This often improves acceleration times and can aid cornering in the wet, while also bringing benefits if you even need to venture onto a wet, grassy field, for example. Do bear in mind that a car's braking performance isn't improved by a 4x4 system, while what tyres a car has (EG all-weather, winter, mud+snow) often has more of an effect on its ability to drive in slippery conditions than whether it has four-wheel driver.

How long is a piece of string? The amount you will pay to charge any electric car, be it two or four-wheel-drive, depends on how much electricity you are putting into it, and how much that electricity costs. Home charging tends to be cheaper than public charging, so taking an electric car with a 100 kiloWatt hour battery pack, charging this from full to empty at a public charger that costs £0.75 per kWh will cost £75, whereas doing it at home if you pay £0.35 per kWh of electricity will cost £35. Do note charging from 0-100% is almost unheard of, as most people keep their batteries between 20-90% to both stop them running out of charge, and to preserve battery health. Also note that four-wheel-drive electric cars tend to have slightly lower ranges than two-wheel-drive models, as the batteries have to power two motors (one on each axle), and this uses more energy than just turning a single motor. Our guide on how much it costs to charge an electric car has more information.

We're coming back to the length of a piece of string here: it depends how fast the charger is, and how quick a charge the car can accept. Electric 4x4s are, all other things being equal, no faster or slower to charge than any other type of EV. If you have a charger that can deliver electricity at 100kW, and the car can accept that rate of charge, it will theoretically take one hour to go from 0-100%. Do note, though, that EVs tend to slow down the rate of charging as their battery packs near full, while 100kW chargers will not always deliver that speed. For more information, check out our guide on how long it takes to charge an electric car.

Electric 4x4s are still a pretty niche class of car, but given the list above, it's hard not to be swayed by the competencies and appeal offered by the Skoda Enyaq, which is more affordable than many electric cars with four-wheel drive.