How far can your motor travel on just £1? That’s a new metric which has been put together to compare the performance of petrol, hybrid and electric cars.

The ‘miles per pound’ figure has been devised by Parkers to demonstrate just how much further electric cars can travel and how economical they are in comparison to petrol.

The MPP has been devised to clear up any confusion over the difference between ‘miles per kWh’ and ‘miles per gallon’ and give a clear indication as to which car can go further on a pound.

In devising the metric, the analysis has found that the Kia e-Niro First Edition can deliver the best MPP on the market with 33.1mpp, matched by the Renault Zoe and closely followed by the Tesla Model 3, Volkswagen e-Golf and the BMW i3.

While it’s obvious that electric can go a lot further, you might have thought that hybrids would provide the next best economy, but actually the Honda Civic Saloon which is a petrol can provide 10.8mpp, as can the Ford Focus 1.5 EcoBlue, which are both much better than the best hybrid, the Toyota Yaris which provides an MPP of 10.1.

Keith Adams, editor of Parkers, said: “We created miles per pound as a way of demystifying the running costs of electric vehicles (EVs) because above and beyond their range, and how long they take to charge, there is little uniformity in how carmakers express just how much energy these cars use.

“As interest in EVs becomes more widespread, there remains a lot of confusion around running costs but the MPP figure generates a figure that is relatable to anyone.

"In a nutshell, it tells you how much it costs to drive any EV after plugging it up at home and topping it up on domestic electricity.

“In addition, miles per pound should help drivers who know how many miles they cover in a year to work out up-front fuelling costs, and possibly choose a more expensive electric car over its petrol counterpart.

“Taking fuelling costs into account, monthly costs for internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and electric vehicles (EVs) are much closer than the gap in list price might suggest.

"On something like a Volkswagen Golf, going electric will save you around £70 per 1,000 miles.

“And interest is rising. People are searching before they buy. Traffic to our Electric Cars section has grown by 80 per cent since the beginning of 2019, and it’s continuing to accelerate strongly.”

Sell or part ex your car today