Top 10 best electric sports cars 2023

Open gallery Close News by James Disdale 12 mins read 17 February 2023 Share

There’s no escaping the march toward electrification, and if any sector serves to highlight the permanent shift towards all things battery-powered, it’s the sports car class.

Traditionally the preserve of petrol-soaked, adrenaline-pumping machines, this rarefied corner of the market has seen ever-increasing numbers of contendors that favour lithium ion over super unleaded.

Not only is this new source of power delivering the sort of power and performance that internally combusted alternatives could only dream about, it’s broadening the definition of a what a high performance car can be. That’s why our list runs the gamut from traditional low-slung sportsters through to curvaceous coupés, continent-crushing GTs and even (whisper it) the odd SUV. There are cars from established players of a driver’s car art, as well as those from makers more normally associated with humbler offerings. If nothing else, the EV revolution has helped level the playing field. Yet while these machines look disparate on paper and in the metal, they all share a similar goal of keeping the driver amused.

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This is also one of the most fast-moving market sectors, with new additions arriving all the time; which means some of the cars you see here you can drive out of a showroom today, while others are little more than a line in an order book. There are even one or two that are a little further away than that – near production-ready examples exist, but supply chain problems or protracted development means we will have to wait a little longer before we can spend that cash that’s fast burning a hole in our wallet.

Nevertheless, for now, these are our favourite all-electric driver’s cars.

Top 10 best electric sports cars

1. Porsche Taycan

Porsche has hit the EV market with exactly the sort of impact you would hope that an industry powerhouse of its stature might make, even if it wasn’t with the sort of car you would expect it make that statement with.

Instead of being a true sports car in the traditional sense, the Taycan is a four-door fast grand tourer that’s slightly smaller than the existing Panamera but is certainly not the lesser car of the two. The Taycan possesses fine body control, rare balance, superbly calibrated operating controls and palpable steering precision. That it rides extremely well on its air suspension only adds to its appeal and was a key factor in our decision to award the Taycan the full five stars after an exhaustive road test.

In fact, were it possible to drive blindfolded and with noise-cancelling headphones on, you would still know instantly that the Taycan was a Porsche. From the steering weight and feel, through to the unnering agility and expensively calibrated damping, the Taycan marks itself out as a true son of Zuffenhausen.

There are now several models in the range, although the best elements of the package are evident even in the 532bhp 4S, which despite its lower-level status is still supercar-grade accelerative. The top-ranking Turbo S musters 751bhp, costs almost £140,000 and is surely one of the quickest real-world cars on the planet, especially when you factor in its 2.6sec 0-60mph time. There are also Sport Turismo and Cross Turismo versions, which add estate and off-road flavours respectively to the Taycan recipe.

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However, our money (quite a large chunk of it in fairness) would go on the 590bhp GTS, which combines more than enough poke with suspension settings designed to delight keen drivers. It will also travel the best part of 300 miles on a charge, which means more time driving.

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2. Audi RS E-tron GT

The first electric car to wear Audi’s RS initials is, deep down, the Taycan in a different suit. It uses the same powerful electric motors (one per axle) and the same three-chamber air suspension and, of course, the underlying architecture is shared. As such, the battery pack is also carried over, meaning a WLTP range of up to 285 miles with the potential for 350kW ultra-rapid charging.

What this all means is that, firstly, the RS E-tron GT is enormously quick. In fact, the flagship version develops 612lb ft and 637bhp and will accelerate to 62mph in comfortably less than 3.5sec. Better still, it handles well, albeit not with quite the same level of panache and engagement as its Porsche cousin, particularly in terms of steering. Yet it’s not far off, and the trade-off is a more relaxed gait than the Taycan when you’re mooching, which considering the refinement benefits of an EV makes the Audi an equally appealing proposition.

3. Lotus Evija

All the recent Lotus headlines have been about the Emira, the British brand’s Porsche 718 Cayman-chasing sports car. Yet this machine is also being heralded as the firm’s last to feature a petrol engine, with future models favouring ultra-rapid charging over unleaded. The first hint of what we can expect has already been given by the Evija, an electric hypercar being produced in a limited run of 130.

The bald statistics are somewhat mind-numbing. Lotus itself was recently surprised to find that the car’s four motors together deliver 2011bhp, rather than the 1973bhp it had previously quoted. That acts against 1680kg, which is relatively light in EV terms, so performance will feel like freefall, we imagine. Actual performance figures are thin on the ground, but Lotus expects a sub two seconds time for the 0-62mph sprint and a top speed the naughty side of 200mph. Oh, and there’s also talk of an attempt on the Nürburgring EV lap record, which given the Evija’s low(ish) weight and incredible power should be a foregone conclusion.