Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris reveal favourite electric cars at TopGear.com Electric Awards
Top Gear presenters Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris have revealed their favourite electric cars of the year at the virtual TopGear.com Electric Awards, with a plant-infused motor going head-to-head with a plethora of top electric vehicles, including a tron-style glow-in-the-dark wrapped Lotus Evija.
This year’s first virtual TopGear.com ceremony for electric cars, which premiered on https://www.youtube.com/topgear at 7pm 27th April (and is available to view now), unveiled the greatest electric cars in the world right now.
Freddie’s top pick was the Odyssey 21 electric buggy, star of the Extreme E racing series and designed specifically with sustainability top of mind. Its bodywork is made of tightly woven plant fibres rather than carbon fibre so it can be recycled, and a dandelion extract has been used in its tyres to create a more sustainable product than rubber.
However, despite Freddie lavishing the Odyssey 21 with praise, Paddy went for the not-too-flashy Porsche Taycan and Chris Harris voted for the not-so-subtle Lamborghini Sián.
The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo was the overall winner, but the Lotus Evija £2.4m hypercar with its custom made matte black and reflective strips wrap specially designed by the Top Gear team, and applied by Lotus, won the vote for the ‘One to watch’ in 2021.
Commenting on his top choice the Porsche Taycan, Paddy said: “It looks good doesn’t it, not too futuristic, not too showy, doesn’t have any daft wheels on it that say ‘ooooo look at me, I’m an electric car’… just right. Plus, I thoroughly enjoyed trolling R8 drivers in it all day long.”
“I’m not going to lie, I was sceptical,” said Freddie discussing his choice the Odyssey 21 which he drove in the recent series of Top Gear. “I’d not driven too many electric cars and I’d heard the bodywork was made of plant fibre, and the tyres were made of dandelions. But then I’d also heard the battery was made by Williams F1, it’d do 0–60mph in 4.5 seconds on anything and had 550bhp... so I didn’t complain. Hands down, this was my favourite few days of driving ever. I didn’t expect it, it’s just so fast.”
Chris Harris added: “My electric car of the year is, with a wry look over my shoulder, the Lamborghini Sián – not a hybrid in the conventional sense, it uses a supercapacitor and electric motor to effectively chamfer off harsh gearchanges and add a torque boost at low revs. But the driving experience is sensational – a big V12, all the noise, all the theatre I want from a supercar and a reminder of what a difficult job engineers have to make pure electric cars deliver the same energy and emotion.”
14 awards were given out on the night, voted for by the TopGear team who have thousands of hours of driving under their belts.
Full list of award winners
- Lotus Evija - One to watch:
- Mercedes EQS - Best Interior
- Extreme E, Spark Odyssey 21 - Freddie’s pick
- Hyundai Ioniq 5 - Best Design
- Polestar 2 – Best all-rounder
- Renault 5 Concept - Best Concept
- Porsche Taycan - Paddy’s pick
- Audi E-tron GT - Best GT
- Lunaz Bentley – Best Retro EV
- Peugeot E-2008 - Best crossover
- Lamborghini Sian - Chris’ pick
- Ford Mustang Mach-E – Best Family SUV
- Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo - Best Estate
- Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo – Overall winner, Best Electric car 2021
You can watch the TopGear.com Awards here https://www.youtube.com/topgear and pick up the May issue of Top Gear Magazine with its glow-in-the-dark front cover now.
BBC Studios, a global content company with British creativity at its heart, is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC Group. Formed in April 2018 by the merger of BBC Worldwide and BBC Studios, it spans content financing, development, production, sales, branded services and ancillaries. BBC Studios’ award-winning British programmes are internationally recognised across a broad range of genres and specialisms. It has offices in 22 markets globally, including six production bases in the UK and production bases and partnerships in a further nine countries around the world. The company, which makes 2500 hours of content a year, is a champion for British creativity around the world and a committed partner for the UK’s independent sector. BBC Studios has revenue of £1.4bn, and returns around £200m to the BBC Group annually, complementing the BBC’s licence fee and enhancing programmes for UK audiences.