► We list our best small electric cars
► Fun, stylish, and a decent driving range
► City cars, family cars and SUVs covered
It’s never been tougher to pick the best electric cars. Small EVs (electric vehicles) have been popping up left, right, and centre, and this category is now studded with gems. Better yet, choosing a small EV makes a weaving through gaps in traffic a hoot with instant electric torque, while a hushed drivetrain takes the headache out of the commute. Since this species of EV inhabits the city, you’ll be surrounded by charging points, a tonic for range anxiety, and the smaller batteries onboard mean shorter and cheaper charging. Plus, they run more efficiently at lower speeds and are exempt from ultra-low emissions zones.
Seems pretty clear that small EVs are just the ticket for city slicking. The challenge now is standing out in a crowded small EV market. Luckily, we’ve thoroughly tested every car on the list below to give you a roundup of the very best small electric cars. From affordable to premium, hatchback to SUV, there’s a perfect match to be found. Curious about how we test their mettle? Head over to the how we test page.
The best small electric cars at a glance:
- Best all-round small electric car: Renault 5 – find out more
- Best small electric car if you want the most space: Hyundai Inster- find out more
- Best small electric car for driving fun: Mini Cooper Electric – find out more
- Best small electric car for funky styling: Fiat Grande Panda – find out more
We appreciate that not everyone’s lifestyle will suit a small EV. Families, for example, will probably be better served by one of our best electric SUVs, as most of the cars here offer limited space for people and baggage. Maybe you need to do big miles, in which case the longest range electric cars crack 400 miles or more between charges. Or for a small EV with that extra bit of spark, we’ve got a list of the best electric hot hatches.
Keep scrolling for our pick of the best small electric cars on sale right now.
Best small electric cars to buy in 2025
Renault 5 E-Tech
Best small electric car all-rounder – it’s brilliant!
Pros: A style icon, great interior, attractively low pricing
Cons: Limited real-world range, tight on rear-seat space
Perhaps the most important car to arrive in the UK in 2025 is the Renault 5. The French firm has done a remarkable job in reviving an icon, and we reckon it will sell like the proverbial warmed baked goods on a cold day. It looks absolutely terrific and turns heads in a way supercars 10 times the price can’t manage.
It’s everything you’d want from a small car – right-sized for the city, nippy and great fun to drive and has a fantastic interior with a top-class infotainment system with in-built features such as Google Maps and Google Assistant. There’s a choice of 40kWh or 52kWh batteries, offering WLTP driving range of 194 and 255 miles respectively. Most impressive about the new Renault 5 is its price, as starting from £21,495, it’s one of the cheapest new EVs you can buy, and is also very good value to finance as well.
To find out more, read our full Renault 5 E-Tech review
Fiat Grande Panda
Best small electric car for no-holds-barred design and practicality and pricing
Pros: Stylish yet practical, bursting with details, comfortable around town, cheaper than all rivals
Cons: Not as roomy in the back as we were hoping, some driving range concerns
Hot on the heals of the new Renault 5 is the 2025 Fiat Grande Panda. First in a whole new family of Panda models, it too trades on design heritage. But rather than simply replicating a previous model in EV-guise, here the design team have really been let off the leash. There are clear hallmarks of the 1980 original – including some useful practicality features inside, such as the dashboard shelf – but otherwise this is wild and pure Italian modernism in automotive form.
Just look at those crazy shapes around the cabin, the transparent yellow Perspex, the blue (sustainably sourced) plastics, the exterior detailing. It even has a captive charging cable hiding behind the front grille. Based on the same budget platform as the Citroen e-C3, it’s not super-sharp to drive. And we do have some reservations about the claimed efficiency – we got nowhere near 199 miles WLTP during the initial launch. But with a starting price of just £21,035, it’s a genuine bargain that feels like the right product at the right price.
For a more in-depth look read our Fiat Grande Panda review
BYD Dolphin Surf
Best small electric car for…
Pros: Great value, good range, nice handling
Cons: Spongy brakes, slow unless top-spec
The best BYD also happens to be the smallest, the Dolphin Surf. The one we’d choose is the mid-spec Boost with the 43.2Wh battery and 87bhp motor. While it’s not speedy, hitting 0-62mph in a dull 12.1 seconds, crucially it offers up to 200 miles of range. At £21,950, it comes with plenty of tech as standard plus electric front seats, automatic wipers, folding mirrors, a 10.1-inch rotating infotainment screen and vegan leather.
What really stands out is how well-made it feels. It doesn’t feel cheap like it’s price tag would have you believe, pipping many of its rivals, like the Panda, for quality. There’s plenty of storage for life’s flotsam with big cubbies, roomy door bins, and enough space for two for rear passengers. Around town, it handles nicely, with assuring weight in the steering, and treads lightly over our cratered tarmac. Small wonder why it’s one of China’s best-selling EVs.
To find out more, read our full BYD Dolphin Surf Review
Citroen e-C3
Best small electric car for comfort
Pros: Great value, spacious rear seats, very comfortable
Cons: Roly-poly handling, awkward-shaped boot
Few small electric cars are able to tick as many boxes as the new Citroen e-C3. It’s a compact EV that still offers plenty of scope for longer trips, with its claimed 199-mile range and speedy 100kW rapid charging speeds. Rear-seat space is also comparable with many cars from the class above.
Priced from £20,595, the e-C3 undercuts many of its electric supermini rivals by several thousand pounds, yet still comes with a smart and modern interior with plenty of on-board equipment and tech. The e-C3’s soft and comfortable ride is ideal for Britain’s potholed roads, though just be mindful that it does result in quite roly-poly handling if you’re driving more enthusiastically.
For a more in-depth look read our Citroen e-C3 review
Hyundai Inster
Best small electric car if you want something as spacious as possible
Pros: Incredibly spacious for its size, funky design, decent range
Cons: Only four seats, crashy ride
If you want maximum interior space in the smallest package possible, we strongly recommend the Hyundai Inster. It’s one of the best packaged new cars on sale, with clever individual rear seats that slide forwards and backwards, and a boot space up to 351 litres. The front and rear floors are both flat, too, which helps the cabin feel even more spacious. It’s quite incredible how much space Hyundai has crammed into a small car.
It only has four seats, but cramming five people into any car of this size will always prove a challenge. The design might not be to everyone’s taste, but we think it looks great and is genuinely different to anything else on sale. Prices start from an attractive £23,505, and there’s the choice of a 42kWh or 49kWh battery, bringing claimed ranges of 203 and 229 miles respectively.
For a more in-depth look read our Hyundai Inster review
MINI Cooper Electric
Best small electric car for driving fun
Pros: Great fun to drive, good price, much-improved range
Cons: Still not very practical, doesn’t feel as premium as previous car
The Mini Electric proved quite the hit when it launched in 2020, with style-loving city dwellers snapping it up in big numbers. But there was always one main issue, its range and price. Mini has managed to address this issue with its new Cooper Electric, which is not only cheaper (now starting from £26,905) but brings a much longer range – up to 249 miles in the case of the top-spec Cooper SE.
Like its predecessor, this Mini is still enormous fun to drive, and possibly the best (small) electric hot hatch yet, with fun handling, strong performance and the light and lively feel this firm’s hatches are renowned for.
For a more in-depth look read our Mini Cooper Electric review
Fiat 500 Electric
Best small electric car for style and image
Pros: Stylish, good to drive, nicely put together
Cons: Cramped, short range with cheaper model
The Fiat 500 Electric shares its retro-chic styling vibe with the old internal combustion engine (ICE) car, but it’s completely different under the skin. The small petrol engines have been banished, replaced by a battery pack and an electric motor driving the front wheels. The standard version comes in a cheaper 24kWh / 94bhp combo capable of a claimed 118 miles of driving range, or as a more powerful 42kWh / 116bhp variant with a claimed 199-mile range.
The 500e is cool to look at, decent to drive and perfectly suited to tight city streets with its dinky size and excellent turning circle. There’s plenty of tech crammed into such a small package, though with prices starting from £25,035 for the smaller battery and £28,035 for the larger battery, it’s quite expensive by small EV standards these days.
For a more in-depth look read our Fiat 500 Electric review
Renault 4
Best small electric car for retro charm with practicality
Pros: Practical, neat interior, retro looks
Cons: Cramped foot space in the back, ride is a tad firm
The Renault 4 inherits almost all of the good genes of the Renault 5, and adds a dose of practicality. Perhaps it’s not as handsome as its sibling, being taller and a little softer around the edges, but compensates with a big 420 litre boot, and space for rear passengers (though their feet might argue otherwise). That extra usefulness comes at a £4,200 premium over the 5, but it is the more helpful everyday companion.
The 4 keeps it simple with just one powertrain on offer. A 52kWh battery and a 148bhp motor for a zippy 0-62mph time of 8.2 seconds and a claimed range of 247 miles. Handling is neat and balanced, with body control that keeps things tidy through the bends, though makes no pretence of being sporty. Inside, it shares the same top-tier infotainment from the 5, with Google Maps and Assistant, but with a cabin that feels smarter and more mature. It might not turn heads like the 5, but it’s the pragmatists pick of the Renaults.
To find out more, read our full Renault 4 review
As the Avenger falls from the Stellantis tree, it gets the same 154bhp electric motor and 51kWh battery as both the Corsa Electric and e-208, allowing for fairly sedate performance and a claimed range of up to 248 miles. While the Avenger is a great small EV, it’s not the perfect package. Rear-seat space is no more generous than plenty of superminis, and the interior quality feels quite cheap in places. Jeep has also just slashed prices by £5,000 – meaning the Avenger now starts from £29,999.
For a more in-depth look read our Jeep Avenger review
Small Electric Car Buyer’s Guide and FAQs
The pros and cons of small electric cars
Small electric cars have three main benefits. They’re easy to park and manoeuvre in tight city streets, they’re amongst the cheapest electric cars on sale, and they allow free passage into emissions-controlled areas. As an added benefit, they’re much quieter than small petrol cars, which should make your commute more relaxing.
Bear in mind that you’ll need to make a couple of sacrifices with a small electric car, though. Because of their size, most only have dinky battery packs with limited maximum driving ranges. This isn’t such a problem if you’re just pottering around town, averaging around 30 miles a day, but it’ll seriously impede your mobility if you regularly need to drive long distances.
Then there’s the issue of price. Small EVs are cheap where electric cars are concerned, but they’re still more expensive than their petrol-powered counterparts. Consider the Peugeot 208. The cheapest petrol automatic model is around £4,000 cheaper than the most basic electric model, though the gap continues to narrow.
Charging is fraught with problems, too. If you can only charge your small electric car at a public charger, you could end up paying more in electricity than you would in petrol.
The only reliable method of reducing your running costs with an EV is if you have an off-street parking space on which you can install your own charging point. And that’s a financial difficulty for the average motorist living in the middle of a crowded city like London or Manchester.
Are small electric cars reliable?
While EV technology is relatively new, there are fewer moving parts involved, and electric vehicles are generally reliable. However, like all electronic devices, things can go wrong, and batteries do hold gradually less charge over time, reducing the distance it will travel. Our experience – and the data – suggests this is very much a problem for many years in the future, though, so if you’re buying new or nearly new, reliability shouldn’t be a major concern.
What is the smallest electric car?
All of the cars in our list are the same size as conventional superminis or city cars, so compact and city-friendly but not something you’d consider genuinely tiny. For that, you need to look further afield at the quadricycle sector. Historically, this includes EVs such as the G-Wiz and Renault Twizy, while the current market is served by the Citroen Ami.
Are small electric cars good for city journeys and short trips?
This is exactly what they’re good for. The torquey response of electric motors make them excellent for nipping about in city traffic, where the stop-start driving experience will help keep the battery pack topped up, too. Typically, small EVs have small batteries, so they also have shorter driving ranges, making them better suited to short trips by default.
That’s not to say you can’t do longer journeys in them, most have more than adequate performance for that. You’ll just need to plan to stop to charge more frequently than in bigger, longer-range EVs.
How we tested
As with every review on CAR, each of the models has been driven extensively by our exceptionally experienced team of leading motoring journalists and specialist writers. Take a look at how we test to find out more.
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