Top Gear's top nine: eco car false starts

Endorsed by Leo DiCaprio, this stunning low-slung four-door saloon, paired two 160bhp e-motors with a 2.0-litre turbo range-extender. It drove nicely, but was beset by recalls, and folded after many were wrecked by Hurricane Sandy.

Long before stop-start became the norm, VW developed a non-turbo diesel MkIII Golf with a manual ’box and an auto clutch, so the engine could decouple and switch off when cruising or stationary. Good, but it was painfully slow.

Oh, EVs, how far you’ve come. This quadricycle attempted to take advantage of London Congestion Charge exemption. But a 50-mile range, golf-cart performance and appalling safety put paid to this gawky electric runabout.

Six years ago, the most economical car money could buy was the diminutive Smart, compete with an 800cc, 3cyl diesel engine good for a claimed 86mpg and 83g/km CO2. Great on a long run – but who cruises continents in Smarts?

Back in 1996, GM began a lease scheme of this 135bhp electric coupe in LA and Phoenix. The car was well-received but bean-counters, fearful of soaring maintenance costs, repossessed and crushed all but 40.

Oldsmobile’s oil-crisis-led gamble on diesel in the late Seventies had an anaemic 120bhp V8 that shared parts with smallblock petrol V8s. Watery fuel combining with weak components made them less reliable than a Trumpian tweet.

The Clarity was, and is, a good car: quick to refuel, silent to drive, easy to use. But the issue of harvesting, storing and transporting hydrogen in sufficient quantities has kept Honda’s – and everyone else’s – pioneers a cruelly niche interest.

From 1907 to 1939, Detroit Electric built 13,000 electric cars. OK, they only did 20mph, but they were ideal for cities, less smelly than a horse and even Henry Ford owned one. His cheaper Model T and the Great Depression killed off the company.

The all-aluminium, ultra-aero Audi A2 TDI was the first five-door car capable of using under three litres of fuel to travel 100km (94.2mpg). But the sheer expense (£13–16k new in 2000) meant it lost the subcompact war to the Mercedes A-Class.