Q How do you switch to electric in a hybrid car?

Switching to electric driving mode in a hybrid car can depend on the model. It’s typically automatic, though. Providing the car’s battery is fully charged – or has enough charge – your journey will start in pure electric mode.

When the battery capacity is close to running out – and hybrid cars have much smaller batteries than all-electric models – the vehicle will switch to being powered by the petrol or diesel engine, so the driver never has to worry about ‘running out of charge’.

With some hybrid car models, you may also be able to switch between pure electric mode and engine manually.