Anyone affiliated to a certain political party will understand exactly where the electric car is right now. It's been around since the year dot but largely ignored until recently, and it's now a bit of a champion thanks to well timed publicity and a generally weary attitude toward the two main powers.

Petrol and diesel will remain in charge for some time yet, but they're getting tiresome because everything has become so expensive, so the new kid on the block suddenly looks refreshing and different. The Nissan Leaf is probably Nick Clegg's next company car.

We headed to the Centre for Life in Newcastle to drive Nissan's latest offering. The experience was brief, the car was a prototype and the surprises were few. Really, the only striking thing about the Leaf is the amount of room it has - it's certainly a match for the Focus and Co in terms of cabin and boot space.

Otherwise, the car starts, goes and stops in the same surreal, silent manner that all electric cars do. It has that familiarly instant response from the throttle, which comes from maximum torque at effectively zero rpm. However, we didn't encounter a single pothole on the short test track that formed the boundary of Nissan's benevolence, as this one-off pre-production model is a test mule, so a ride and handling appraisal is for later.

The battery pack takes eight hours to charge at a household socket, but only half an hour to gather 80 percent at a 'fast charging' point. A ten-minute charge is apparently enough for 30 miles.

It has a 100-mile range, will hit 85mph and, crucially, could cost around £23,000 after the Government's £5,000 Green Incentive has been subtracted. Cheap, compared to the smaller, flimsier Mitsubishi i-MiEV.

It will also be built in Sunderland within a new £420m factory, although the first cars that hit the market early next year (2011) will be produced in Japan.

This Newcastle event was the last leg of a tour that had taken the car the length of the country, and allowed not only the press and politicians access to the future, but suitably intrigued members of the public, too.

And all the talk from Mr and Mrs Hatchback Buyer is about cost, followed closely by range, which is fair enough. Crucially, everyone that emerges from the prototype seems impressed.

According to Nissan, the Leaf will have a 200-mile range from an identical battery pack within 'a few years'. We're also told that the car will be no more expensive to buy than an internal combustion equivalent.

When shrewd supermarkets and electricity companies start erecting charging points, as Nissan claims they will, we'll be laughing all the way to our eco-euphoria. Boris Johnson has 25,000 of them planned for London by 2015, and other cities will follow suit. If that's not enough to cure 'range anxiety', then we need to think of something else, quick.