I am sat in the passenger seat of a Land Rover Defender 90 as it pulls off the roundabout onto central London’s Lambeth Bridge. Rather than the gutsy roar you might expect from the engine of this 1980s classic, the manoeuvre is accompanied by the low-key hum of a battery. This is because I’m being driven in a car that’s been converted into an electric vehicle (EV) by London Electric Cars (see ‘Converting ICE cars to EV’).

As we cruise over the Thames, Matthew Quitter, the firm’s founder, points out the improved performance this conversion provides: “We wouldn’t have been able to pull away from that roundabout anywhere near as fast [before an EV battery was fitted].” Switching out the petrol engine and replacing it with a Nissan Leaf battery involves some complex engineering, with quite a bit of trial and error involved.

Still, it’s an impressive job, and the firm has introduced some nice touches. For instance, the original fuel gauge has been kept, but...