UK’s Affinity for Compact Automobiles Put to the Test by Electric Vehicles

At 4 p.m. on a rainy Monday in southeast London, we find ourselves attempting to parallel park uphill, a mandatory but unpleasant task for urban drivers. Our electric vehicle, a vibrant red Ora Funky Cat, has already undergone a series of similar challenges today, including transporting furniture, accommodating passengers, and maneuvering around pedestrians. Surprisingly, the Ora EV seems perfectly suited for the city’s roads. Even on the slippery surface of a narrow street, it excels, thanks to its compact size of just over 4 meters (13 feet), making parallel parking a breeze.

Funky Cat is a head-turning electric car whose fun design lives up to its name; the widened front fenders and squats have a hint of Porsche. The Asian-made car, which went on sale last fall, is also roaming the UK electric car market: the models are small and light enough to go a decent distance on a modest battery. Of the 72 electric cars available in the UK, nine have batteries of less than 50 kWh. There are only two electric cars in the US.

Great Britain has a long tradition of popular small cars. Perhaps the best example of this is the iconic Mini Cooper chase scene in the 1969 British classic The Italian Job. However, electrification raises new challenges for compact models, as expensive lithium-ion batteries force automakers towards conflicting strategies. At the other end of the electric car market are large luxury cars with big batteries and high prices (see: BMW i7). The other has smaller, raw EVs like the Funky Cat that aim to thread the needle between affordability, range and size. Carmakers are betting on UK demand for the latter.

As the EV market finds its global foothold, the footprint of the average car will grow. SUVs accounted for 30 per cent of new electric car sales in the UK last year (including electric, petrol and diesel models), according to data collected by the Climate Change Committee and shared by the Society of Motor. Manufacturers and Traders, an industrial group. Even the electric Mini, which is more than a foot wider than its 1960s predecessor, might not catch so easily on the streets of Turin these days.

Nowhere is this automotive phenomenon more evident than in the United States, which is the second largest seller of new electric cars after China (the UK is fourth). The average vehicle sold in the United States last year weighed a whopping 4,329 pounds, while a British car was about 1,000 pounds lighter, according to estimates by the RAC Foundation, a charity that studies the British car market.

Are you in the market for an electric car? Bloomberg Green has just published the electric car ratings for the UK market. You can sort the car by price, range and other critical information – and find out which models are the most efficient.

This difference partly reflects the needs of local consumers. The Ford F-150 is a tight squeeze on British high streets, and both towing and off-roading are rare use cases for English drivers. In London, home to around 13 percent of the UK population, an everyday car can be more of a logistical challenge than a convenience. Most of the residents use the city’s public transport network.

But the UK is not immune to automakers’ push for bigger models. Between 2013 and 2022, new sales of all car types fell in the UK – except for SUVs, which saw a 75 per cent increase in sales, according to the Motor Manufacturers and Traders organisation. In August, tests by consumer group What? identified 161 cars too big for standard parking spaces in the UK, up from 129 in 2018. Even once-popular small cars such as the Fiat Punto and Ford Fiesta have been withdrawn from the market by their manufacturers and replaced by SUVs in recent years , says Ralph Palmer, UK director of electric vehicles and fleet at Transport & Environment, which monitors the car market. “They see that there are big profit margins by selling a massive SUV at a much higher margin but selling less of them,” says Palmer.

This change, especially in electric cars, creates few options for commuters who want to buy only the car they need – a gap that companies like Honda and Kia are now looking to fill with more minimalist machines. Britain’s nine electric cars with a battery capacity of less than 50 kWh include the Smart EQ Fortwo, which looks like a bumper car that jumped a track and can stretch 130 kilometers (80 miles) on a 17 kWh battery.

Oran’s Funky Cat is a bit more durable. Unlike the Fortwo, it seats five and can stretch nearly 200 miles on a charge, enough to drive from London to Leeds, about a third of the length of the island. Still, it’s one of the lightest electric cars in the UK, partly because its battery has a capacity of just 48kWh. For city driving – and for most people’s commute – it’s enough.

When Bloomberg Green accelerates the Funky Cat, it can complete a series of tasks around London on a single charge. Our tallest passenger, at 190 centimeters (6ft 3in), has plenty of legroom, and the boot can fit a moderate Ikea transport. With the back seats down, a desk chair and a bunch of cardboard boxes fit in the back; even then, the car can fit three comfortably. And after a day of hiking, Funky Cat is good for another 100 miles.

The Funky Cat is one of the few Chinese electric cars looking to break into the UK car market. Many of them have been influenced by the strong demand for small cars in Asia. Mini vehicles – which are less than 3.3 meters long, 1.5 meters high and 2 meters wide – make up 40% of Japanese car sales, and China’s best-selling electric car is the $5,000 Wuling Mini EV, which has a top speed of 100 kilometers. (60 miles) per hour. Small cars are also popular in Europe, although less so than before.

But price remains a challenge, says Akshara Chandhok, head of Strategy&, part of consultancy PWC. At £31,995 ($39,000), the Funky Cat is still expensive for an entry-level car. Likewise, the Honda E, the equivalent of a hamster in vehicles, costs £38,000. The electric Mini is priced at £32,550, which is 42% more than its petrol sibling.

“The jury is still out on the acceptance of those types of models,” Chandhok says, “versus people who say, ‘I just like the old [combustion engine] vehicle and I’m going to hold on to it as long as I can.’

While the Funky Cat is fun, it doesn’t feel as luxurious as its price tag might suggest. Satellite navigation struggles with traffic forecasts. The in-car assistant summoned by the command “Hey Ora” is more gimmicky than useful; and Apple Carplay isn’t, although it’s coming soon. Heated seats and a steering wheel are only available on the more expensive version, which went on sale last month and also comes with a sunroof and automatic parking sensors.

Granted, the EV game is still early days. Battery costs will certainly decrease as technology advances, which will lower prices. In the medium term, the model range could increase as the UK’s ZEV mandate requires four out of five cars sold by any brand in the country to be electric by 2030. Next year, 22% of each manufacturer’s cars must be emission-free.

The mandate “should encourage manufacturers to have a wider range of electric cars, which means some are at the lower end of the price scale,” says Edmund King, chairman of the AA, the British car association. “They have to meet those percentages and not everyone can afford a £60,000 car.”

There is already evidence that UK consumers would like more cheaper options. According to a survey published by T&E earlier this year, more than 9% of Britons would go electric if there was a £21,000 small electric car with a range of 250-300km on the market. So far it isn’t.