Amongst a host of prizes voted for at the TopGear.com Electric Awards, there were special moments at the TV show’s main presenters picked out their favourite electric cars of the year.
The Trio of Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris are well established in the Top Gear roles now, with Clarkson, Hammond and the other one a distant memory, so they are well placed to give their opinion on the growing trend for EVs.
It’s likely that the three have been behind the wheel of some of the biggest and best names in motoring over the last 12 months, so any recommendation is certainly genuine when it comes from the Top Gear team.
But only three cars could be selected and they were the Land Rover Defender, the Rivian and the Polestar 1.
It was Bolton born McGuinness who made the Defender his top choice, saying “The first five seconds of being in that electric Defender, when I stabbed my foot right to the floor, is the most fun I’ve had in any car ever on Top Gear, and I’ve driven some epic cars over the years.”
His Lancashire colleague Flintoff went for a bit more of a leftfield pick (or should that be pick-up), selecting the Rivian R1T truck, with the former cricketer impressed with the level of innovation on offer. He said: “It’s a pick-up truck. It’s big. It’s got a load of gadgets. It’s also got 800bhp, goes from 0-60mph in three seconds, has a battery range of 300 miles with the small pack, 400 miles with the big one.”
Finally Chris Harris went for a motor which comes from a specialist EV brand, Volvo’s off-shoot Polestar, which got the nod, with Harris actually buying one himself.
“The Polestar 1 is for me, one of the most interesting cars I’ve driven in the last 10 years”, Harris said.
“I always suspected that a hybrid would be the solution for me on the road, but I’ve never driven a hybrid that was a hybrid.”
At the virtual awards ceremony the VW ID BUZZ took the top prize of the evening.