Now we can view in a fresh light the suitability of the electric motor as a means of powering a car. To put it bluntly, it's brilliant. I love internal combustion, but in a way I love it for its foibles – the noise, the way it communicates with me through the language of vibration, the challenge of driving around the peaks and troughs of its delivery. By comparison, electric propulsion is serene. It's quiet, seamless and very refined because, as anyone who has ever looked under a Scalextric car will know, there is only one moving part in an electric motor and it merely goes round and round. Reliable, too; there are extractor fans in factories and restaurants whose motors have run uninterrupted for decades.