Compare the best electric family cars

The Government removed the £1,500 plug-in car grant for EVs in June 2022, though an extension was put in place until March 2023 for orders that had already been placed due to delays in supplying new cars.

Other than that, company car drivers will be able to make use of super-low Benefit-in-Kind tax rates for electric cars, while EVs are exempt from road tax until 2025.

This depends entirely on how much the electricity you're filling it up with is. Some smart home energy tariffs offer discounted electricity overnight, charging around 7 pence per kiloWatt hour, while public charging can cost around 75p/kWh. Once you know the price of electricity, working out how much it costs to charge an EV comes down to knowing how large its battery pack is. A car with a 100kWh battery will cost £75 to charge from full to empty at 75p/kWh, or £7 at 7p/kWh. Naturally, costs over time vary wildly depending on the model and the type of driving you do, but if you have an EV-friendly tariff you can expect to pay £5 for around 250-300 miles of range.

Again, this entirely depends on the speed of the charger you are using, and the speed at which an EV can take a charge. A home 'wallbox' charger will typically deliver electricity at seven kiloWatts, taking 14.2 hours to charge a 100kWh battery pack. Find a 100kW rapid public charger and it will theoretically take just an hour to charge the same battery - though note that EVs tend to slow down their rate of charge as they near full, while charging can also be slower when the ambient temperature is very high or low. A good rule of thumb for fast chargers is that they will typically top up your car from 10-80% in around half an hour.

Any car can be a family car depending on the size and needs of your family, but the MG4, which starts at around £27,000, is a strong contender for this honour. The Citroen e-C3 is even cheaper, but it will be too small for most families.

The Kia EV9 is the best compromise of space, cost and range. However, it's still far from cheap, so the Kia EV6 and MG4 EV are more affordable alternatives.

Unless you want to go for a vast seven-seater like the Kia EV9, the Kia EV6, Skoda Enyaq and BMW i5 are all spacious options for big families.

You should apply the same principles for making this decision as you would for a new or used petrol or diesel car, considering issues like depreciation, service history and specification - although if you're buying an older second-hand EV, it is worth asking whether the battery has suffered any degradation - even if this has proven to be far less serious a problem than was once feared.