IF ever a car suited being all-electric, it’s Kia’s funky Soul.

In its conventional-powered form it’s always been a quirky car, although the latest generation has gone a tiny bit more mainstream looks-wise, and it works well as an EV.

There are differences in the looks, notably the lightweight alloys and the grille, and you get a not-especially-attractive ‘eco cloth’ interior, but otherwise the Soul EV keeps the fun feel of the conventional model.

It’s ideal for around town, with electric power giving the Soul EV plenty of zip thanks to instant torque.

You can preserve battery power in two ways – by employing eco mode, which dulls performance somewhat, and by engaging the regenerative braking, which acts like engine braking and puts juice back in to the batteries.

But it’s most fun with these turned off and is a satisfying, lively drive, much like other EVs on the market.

Inside, you get a neat eight-inch touchscreen sat nav system, which adds all of the info you need for piloting an electric car.

That includes the range, which can also be handily displayed on a map, showing you how far you’ll be able to get before your juice runs out, and charging point locations.

The theoretical range is 132 miles, but in the real world you can probably round that down to 80-100 miles, depending on which modes you’ve got engaged, your driving style and type of journey.

But the Soul is very much a city car and that means that anybody driving less than 100 miles a day – which is probably most of us – will be fine to charge it at home overnight.

If you are going further, the on-board computer can help you find rapid-charging points, where in about half an hour you can get the Soul EV back to 80 per cent charged.

Spec also includes a reversing camera, dual-zone air con – which has a neat ‘driver-only’ function to reduce power consumption – heated front seats and steering wheel and DAB radio.

It’s road tax free, of course.

But the rub comes in the price. The EV is £24,995, whereas the conventional model ranges from £12,800 to £19,550.

That makes it a bit of a luxury at the moment, one for the early adopters. You’ll have to do your sums to decide whether it works for you.

But that doesn’t take anything away from what is another positive step for electric cars.

Find out more at westovergroup.co.uk/kia