Sometimes the dice just roll the right way. I had been scheduled to spend a week kicking the tyres of Kia’s new Niro at the end of August but a mixup with the booking and then the theft of a press fleet car meant that I didn’t actually get my hands on it until the last week of September, which happened to be a week before the UK press launch of the Hyundai Ioniq.

So I decided to tackle them all at once. The Ioniq (that’s “ionic” rather than “ion-eek”) will eventually be available in three guises: pure electric, hybrid—which I’m reviewing here—and a plug-in hybrid due to arrive in Blighty next spring. As it happens, the Ioniq hybrid drivetrain is also found in the Kia Niro (pronounced like the actor rather than the pen), while a plug-in version of the Niro will also appear down the line.