ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

Jeep's first pure-electric model is critical to its fortunes, but is it any good? Richard Lane takes one on an extreme real-world test, to a charging point high in the sky

- Richard Lane

Way up there, hidden in the clouds, is a toll gate. Playing a straight numbers game, we should be gliding up to the barrier well before sunset and enjoying a märzen in the hotel bar shortly after. But in reality? Hmm.

As any EV owner knows, converting the remaining driving range promised by the car's computer into mileage you'll actually put under the wheels is more art than science. Upfront EV owners will also tell you that the second of those figures is almost always the inferior one.

Halfway into our journey, what I'm struggling to forecast is the magnitude of the discrepancy, and on this occasion it really does matter. If less than 20 miles, we're fine; if more, not fine. As for why we don't just take our next chance for a cheeky top-up, for reasons we'll come to, that'd be cheating and is therefore totally verboten.

LET'S REWIND TO this morning. We've arrived at Ceccato Automobili, a Jeep dealer on Verona's chaotic outskirts. Outside, in the baking sun, Giugiaro-era Pandas go toe to toe with chuntering articulated lorries for available road space and the reason for Italy's love of small cars - second only to Japan's - is plain for all to see.

Photographer Max Edleston and I are here to collect an Avenger, one of the first to leave the factory in Tychy, Poland. Its blinding 'Sun' yellow panels and tongue-in-cheek macho-ness immediately set it apart from blander cars in the workshop. It's a handsome thing, it must be said, with the kind of proportions that make it feel not so far removed from those fearless Pandas, at least in spirit. Equally, there's something of the Lada Niva about it. Then again, these days those are regarded as being pretty cool cars. Still plugged in via its body-coloured charge cable, the most important bit is that the 54kWh battery is brimmed, the digital dash showing 249 miles.