Alfa, Alpine, Cupra, Mini, MG or... Mika - who makes the most fun EV?

Read on, then, to discover the most entertaining way to spend sensible money on a new electric car in 2025. 

5th – MG 4

This is a classic tale of a fine car damned by high expectations. I say this of it, from the depths of last place in this test, because I feel a touch hurt for the MG 4.

Why? Well, it’s really rather good. If you were looking for a well-priced electric family car with a decent range, useful practicality and a long warranty, this would be on your shortlist.

And you would hop in it at the dealership, drive it up the road and think ‘Hang on… I’m enjoying myself! The steering is nice, the nose turns in sweetly. I can even feel a fizz of rear-wheel-drive playfulness in faster corners. Joy of joys; my sensible, affordable family car is fun!’

This, dear reader, is precisely what I thought when I first drove the MG 4. It’s still what I think, and it’s what the Autocar road testers thought, as you may have seen from the healthy four-star ‘ride and handling’ and overall rating that it was awarded.

And it’s why we included the MG in this test, knowing that it was a great choice for someone who wanted a sensible electric car but also valued a bit of zing thrown into the performance and handling mix.

Yet even in its excellent Extended Range guise, the MG 4 came fifth. Not because it isn’t fun within the context of the electric hatchback classes, but because it isn’t fun within the context of fun electric cars – those models that have ‘being fun’ much closer to the top of their to-do list. Flamboyance, style, driver involvement, that intangible sense of naughtiness and rebelliousness… You know. All of that.

That’s why I also ranked the MG 4 last (awkward…) despite it being a car that I’d recommend for lots of reasons. But this isn’t a family EV test, is it? It’s a fun EV test.

And the MG 4 is a family EV that is, incidentally, quite good fun. It’s not a fun EV that you can, incidentally, also fit your family in. Crucial difference there, but one that scuppers the MG’s chances in a field of more extrovert, enthusiast-targeted offerings.

4th – Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica

The Alfa Romeo Junior Elettrica Veloce’s spec sheet makes for a promising read. Here is a compact hot hatch with 278bhp and a proper mechanical limited-slip differential to make sure as much of that power can reach the road.

The front brake discs are a healthy 380mm in diameter and they’re gripped by four-piston calipers. And you get to sit in some comfortably figure-hugging Sabelt bucket seats. On hardware alone, the Alfa should walk this competition.

But as you can tell by reading about this car so early into this feature, it doesn’t. The trouble is that Alfa hadn’t finished the job.

There’s no doubt that the Junior Veloce is more than quick enough, and in the cold, greasy conditions of our test, it clearly found the best traction out of tight corners.

Put your foot down out of a hairpin in the other front-wheel-drive cars and, despite their best traction control trickery, they would want to power understeer, while the Alfa’s diff did its best to hug the apex.

It’s an uneven performer, however. The Alfa is very surface-sensitive and would get more deflected than others over bumps. Its steering has neither the Mini’s alacrity nor the polish you will find in the Alpine and the rear-drive cars.

Mostly, though, the Alfa suffers from having to share with its Stellantis brothers and sisters. Whereas the Mini and Alpine’s cabins feel bespoke and upmarket, the Alfa can’t hide its Jeep Avenger door cards, hard plastic dash and long-arm, short-leg driving position.

And while the best electric driver’s cars are exploring new frontiers of how traction and stability control can enhance the experience, the Alfa is saddled with the same restrictive and non-switchable system as all its platform-mates.

The differential has the ability to pull the car out of a corner very effectively with a bit of wheelspin, and the chassis clearly wants to rotate on a trailing ‘throttle’, but the computer says ‘no’ as soon as you’re starting to have too much fun.

The people who will appreciate the benefits of this hardware will surely be frustrated by the Alfa’s limitations.

Never mind that it’s expensive, the Alfa feels at odds with itself. There’s fun to be had here, but don’t get carried away.

3rd – Mini Cooper SE

There’s no shame in coming third, especially given the level of competition here. And with such a heritage of accessible handling prowess, a short wheelbase, a low centre of gravity and a healthy 215bhp, it’s no surprise the Mini Cooper SE made the podium.

It even came dressed for the occasion, with its John Cooper Works styling kit.

At 1680kg, it’s the third-lightest car here too, and it feels as such to drive: the Mini is all on-its-toes, especially next to the larger, heavier MG. The steering is sharp, reactive and quite well weighted, it tucks in to corners keenly and grips with a tenacity that encourages you to lean on it.

What’s more, the minimal body roll means it’s well suited to tight, technical roads: the Mini handles like a car you drive because you choose to, not because you have to.

Of the selectable drive modes, two are important here: Core and Go Kart. Each changes the throttle and steering mapping, along with the stability control regime.

Go Kart weights up the steering and makes for more immediate, energetic cornering behaviour, while Core – the default setting – makes the handling more intuitive.

The Cooper SE has got this whole happy-go-lucky excitable puppy vibe that explains why every judge rated it highly both for charm and overall fun factor.

No matter which setting you choose, however, the ride isn’t perfect. It can fidget around on surfaces that aren’t glass-smooth, and while it’s far from harsh or unpleasant, most judges felt the quality of Mini’s damping could be better.

The levels of performance on offer are just about competitive with the group. Its 0-62mph time of 6.7sec makes the Mini 0.3sec slower than the Alpine and 0.7sec behind the Alfa; the fastest car in the group – the Born VZ – is more than a second quicker.

Having said that, the Cooper SE’s relatively low kerb weight and equally low driving position make it seem faster than the on-paper figures suggest.

Under power, however, the (slightly overworked) traction control attempts to keep the scrabbling tyres in check. As you build speed, meanwhile, torque steer briefly ensues and the steering becomes a little wayward – particularly if you’re heading uphill. Generally, the Alpine and Cupra deploy their power better, which, among a couple of judges, dents the Mini’s score for performance and handling appeal.

If you’re not trying to flummox it around corners, however, the Mini remains planted and assured as it should, and the brakes are strong but not overly grabby. The pedal could be more progressive, however, especially in the company of the Alpine, but with maximum regen switched on, you don’t have to use them all of the time.

In isolation, the Mini’s usable range is good enough, and it didn’t deplete as quickly as we might have expected during a bout of winter road testing: 247 miles is more like 190 miles in everyday driving. But the Mini’s maximum charging speed of 95kW is the slowest here. 

This, combined with a small boot and the fact that it’s a strict four-seater, meant most judges marked the Mini down for everyday usability.

Those issues aside, however, it’s easy to see the appeal of a Mini and understand why owners are so drawn to the cars.

When you’re not trying too hard, it’s a keen-handling performer that possesses enough depth of character and charm to beat every car here, even those that finished above it. It’s almost there, but not quite.

2nd – Cupra Born VZ

I was pondering the Cupra Born VZ while gazing at it in our car park near the melancholically scenic and gnarly ‘Broken Road’ – once the A625 to Chapel-en-le-Frith, until Mam Tor shrugged it off and it became a hiking-only route instead.

The thing is, one of the big criticisms of the VZ is that it looks much like every other Cupra Born. Sure, you can get some bespoke colours, and it’s badged-up. But even so, how will people know you’ve bought the one with all the power and handling upgrades?

The one with 322bhp, the ‘good’ motor from the VW ID 7, the upgraded suspension hardware and adaptive dampers… I mean, the VZ (which stands for ‘Veloz’, or ‘fast’, in Spanish) is proper.

It is to the Born what the GTI is to the Golf, and when you’re behind the wheel and in the right mode, it gives you all the feels to make sure you don’t forget it. But where are the design cues to set it apart? It’s like buying a GTI that looks the same as any old Golf.

But then… Isn’t that something we used to value in performance cars? The ‘Q-car’ appeal? This led me to Google ‘best Q-cars’, upon which I found a 2017 Autocar article ranking the top 10. Andrew Frankel placed the ‘E28’ BMW M5 as king of the Q-cars.

Forgive me for quoting him, here: “To me… its visual ordinariness lies at the heart of its appeal.”

As usual, Frankel summed things up perfectly. The parallels between the legendary ’80s M5 (which, by the way, had usefully less power than the VZ overall, yet it predictably managed a 200bhp-per-tonne rating better than the Cupra’s 167bhp per tonne) end there, but the sentiment applies just as well: why do even the mundane cars of today have to come adorned with sports chintz and frippery to spare? Sheep in wolves’ clothing, if you ask me…

So, personally, I like the Cupra for its clever trick of looking both understated and modestly aggressive and purposeful. It strikes a nice balance of being desirable without being shouty, while the sense of occasion you get from behind the wheel is just what you want.

The Sabelt seats hug you reassuringly, the slim steering wheel feels delicate and lets feedback buzz your fingertips and the rear-wheel-drive layout lets you turn and balance the car on the throttle. The Cupra is a proper laugh out on the Peak District’s winding roads, yet it’s also unintimidating and versatile.

The adaptive dampers let you play with the softness levels of the suspension independently, or I favour the pre-determined, full-fat Cupra mode for when the going gets fun, and Normal for, well, the normal stuff.

Would I like the screen to be a bit less convoluted? Absolutely. Is this the most expensive car here? Yes – unfortunately, this breadth of ability and usability doesn’t come cheap.

And when we were asked to score these cars on charm, well, that’s such a subjective thing, but I found the Cupra lacking on that one. It’s so capable. So appealing. But is it charming? Not really. Not in my book, anyway.

Maybe we’re back to the styling again, which I like, but it is very modern and striking rather than having any retro-nostalgia or classic beauty.

The Cupra feels like it’s designed to do its job, and while it does it seriously well, I’m not sure it’s evocative or emotional. I would be entirely understanding if you claimed otherwise, but such is the way of trying to rate something as intangible and personal as ‘charm’.

I like a granary loaf, you like a crusty white. I think the Mini and Alpine are charming, but the Cupra? Not so much. Different tastes apply, and therein lies the real joy of cars and those who love them.

But if we return to more objective measures, the VZ is hard to beat. For a long-way-home car that you can actually get your kids in and which has a useful touring range, a decent boot and a settled ride, this is the best car here.

Sure, the most fun car here won, as it should do, and bravo to this year’s champ. But as an overall fun car to live with? You’re looking at the best. Clever stuff, Cupra. And thank you for giving us a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Makes a refreshing change.

1st – Alpine A290

Shock, horror, who’d have thunk it? The bookies’ favourite romps to the top of our final order, overcoming the weight of expectation and delivering a decisive and authoritative victory and a new benchmark for driver reward. Right?

Well, no, funnily enough. At least not quite. Success for the Alpine A290 didn’t come so easily over a day’s close scrutiny on proper UK roads – although it came sure enough.

It wasn’t a walkover, and the car needed every facet of its appeal as a device for driver entertainment, a retro-cool object of desire and a daily-usable proposition to seal the deal. But the Alpine A290 is indeed Autocar’s Best Fun EV for 2025.

There was some dissent and disagreement about the car’s outright dynamic superiority, but in the end, the numbers just about added up in the Alpine’s favour.

Only two jurors out of four gave more points to the A290 than to any rival; the other two preferred the Mini Cooper SE, and one of those was by no small margin.

But in the end it was completeness and consistency – or, rather, the want of it in other places – that gave the Alpine the win.

The judges scored the cars out of 10 across five categories – performance, handling appeal, everyday usability, charm, and all-round fun factor – and while its rivals recorded fours, fives and sixes in places, only in a couple of isolated cases did the A290 score less than seven for anything.

This, then, may be the ideal size, price, weight and performance level for a dynamic-handling, compact electric car in 2025; it’s the bullseye compromise, as near, at any rate, as it may currently be hit. And doesn’t it make perfect sense that those old hot hatchback experts in France best understand how to absolutely nail it?

Besides its Goldilocks positioning, however, what does the A290 have that its competitors lack? Relative to the Mini (which really might as well be a sports car for how usable it is), you could say five doors and a halfway-spacious boot. Relative to the MG and Alfa Romeo, both the cohesive charm of the A290’s design and the variety, richness and material appeal of its cabin really shine (the Alfa Romeo in particular is conspicuously disappointing on both scores).

But compared with all of its gathered opponents, it was the depth and integrity of the A290’s performance engineering that really distinguished it amid the Derbyshire peaks.

Those specially developed and tuned, hydraulically bushed, all-independent axles confer a slightly firm-feeling ride at town speeds.

But that smooths out to become a really sophisticated degree of B-road composure at speed, one that never feels grabby or tetchy and always keeps the car from feeling cumbersome or heavy. There’s a pervasive and ever-present sense of composed fluency about the Alpine, over crests and through fast corners, that makes it feel special to drive when rivals aren’t.

Unlike the Mini, there’s no sense of hyperactivity about the A290 when you really get it moving. It’s a car that inspires loads of confidence and which feels properly sorted, intuitive and on your side, but it’s one that can still mix it with the Mini for outright alertness and agility when the moment comes.

The A290’s compactness is a decisive factor in making it a natural entertainer when changing direction, but a really tactile steering rack and a secure but suggestible sort of front-drive handling balance also play their part.

There’s too much outright grip and composure here to turn the A290 into some kind of 2020s-era, all-electric tribute to the French hot hatchback greats of the 1980s and 1990s.

You have to work quite hard to make it begin to lift-off oversteer, for example, but the A290’s chassis really does know how to come to life on a trailing throttle in any case – and all the more so still when its battery regen toggle has been turned up.

I could live without the cheesy ‘OV’ push-to-pass button on the steering wheel – you don’t need to press it in any case once your right foot has passed the accelerator’s kickdown switch.

And I would have preferred brake regen paddles to a toggle knob, not to mention other routes, perhaps, to trimming and tweaking the power delivery and keeping you engaged in doling out performance by means other than your big toe.

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N shows the difference such efforts can make. But equally, the simplicity, compactness, lightness, purpose and sophistication of the Alpine A290 are all strengths in their own right, and they add up to a car that’s fully worth the hype.

Wildcard - Mika Meon

Who brought a crossbow to this laser-powered gunfight? Before we get overexcited about the future of driver’s cars being saved, let’s take a step back.

The Alpine, the lightest and, as it turns out, best car here, still weighs nearly 1.5 tonnes – for something that counts as supermini. What if you could have an electric driver’s car that weighs less than half that?

The Alpine’s steering, as good as it is, is still influenced by a couple of motors (one for the power steering and one doing the driving) having their say before any feel reaches the driver’s fingertips. What if you could just do away with all that? Why not send the drive to the rear and do away with power steering?

And while SUVs are mercifully absent from this contest, none of our mass-produced saviours can completely banish the ‘covered wagon’ feel of sitting on top of, rather than in, the car. After all, you are still sitting on top of a battery pack. What if you could have a proper driving position?

Well, you can, even if those kinds of old-school driver’s car values come with a few compromises. If nothing else, though, the Mika Meon is a fascinating thought experiment.

The Mika Meon is the brainchild of chassis engineer Robin Hall (who has some fine-handling cars on his CV). It aims to demonstrate both how well an EV can drive when it’s rid of all that weight and how good a beach buggy can be when it’s rid of its Beetle ancestry.

There isn’t the space here to cover all of the technical details, so I refer you to road test editor Matt Saunders’ earlier first drive: in short, don’t be fooled by the beach buggy looks; this is a completely custom-built chassis, with the 20kWh of Nio batteries positioned down the spine forming an integral part of the structure.

A 215bhp motor sits at the back and there are no driver aids – not even ABS – or power steering. It’s an enticing prospect.

Clearly, no one is cross-shopping a Mika with any of our electric hatchbacks. Instead, it’s here in the same capacity as Caterhams at our Britain’s Best Driver’s Car contest: to provide some interesting context and benchmarking.

Now, I can’t deny that I have a few misgivings about the Meon that didn’t bother Saunders when he drove it last summer. Not least is that during the single-digit temperatures of our photoshoot, my numbed fingers were much more of a limiting factor on driving range than the small battery capacity. I also struggled with the positioning of the pedals, the implementation of the brake regen and the absence of a limited-slip diff.

The steering is something to savour, though. At anything above parking speeds, it’s lovely and light but transmits such delicately detailed messages about the loads going through the chassis that you always know exactly where you’re at.

Combine that with the impeccable balance and the nicely pliant ride quality, and it means you can flow this car down a twisty road in a way that’s alien to our group test hatchbacks.

In isolation, the Alpine’s steering is great: it is precise, it lets you know when grip is about to run out, and it’s less affected by torque steer than the Mini. But suddenly it feels rather fuzzy and corrupted, making you take a couple of stabs at a corner rather than scribing a neat line.

Something else modern performance cars can learn from is the sense of speed you get in the Mika. There’s arguably a bit too much of it as your right ear is rapidly freeze-dried, but it’s reassuring that you can attack a road with gusto, look down at the speedo thinking you might be going a bit too quickly and realise you’re actually nowhere near the speed limit.

There’s joy in driving a slow car fast, which is why I prefer our five hatchbacks over the 800bhp super-SUVs that manufacturers seem keen on pushing. But even these cars have enough performance and isolation to make them go unreasonably quickly without having to try too hard, and their makers would be wise to keep everyday fun at the top of the agenda.