Well, I have been racking up the miles again, this time making the haul all the way to... Cirencester, UK home of the Mitsubishi Motor Company. As a journalist and something of a devotee of the marque, I make the trip regularly. My most recent expedition, however, threw up someone and something entirely new to me. Cat Perrin is as effervescent as a magnum of Bollinger. Her ebullience has sen her promoted to the task of, erm, fronting up the all-new, all-electric Mitsubishi i MiEV (Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle) in the UK.

Cat’s duties include getting examples of the car to projects run by the Technology Strategy Board set up as part of the government’s recently announced ultra low carbon Vehicle Demonstration projects.

i MiEV has taken part in West Midland’s Coventry and Birmingham Low Emission Demonstrations - stand by for another acronym: CABLED (geddit?)

Police and medical forces are also giving this little machine a try. Soon there will be 50 of them about the place; by 2011 you will be able to buy one.

A more onerous side to Cat’s considerable brief is to deal with sometimes skeptical and deeply unpleasant motoring hacks - then send them on their way in the car.

During the course of our chat, I learned the Cat’s father was a milkman. Predictably I couldn’t resist the connection twixt the floats of her childhood memories and the position she holds now.

The first thing you will note when driving the i MiEV is the almost eerie silence within. It is even quieter form the outside. Apart form that, the car drives pretty much like a small automatic.

No oily bits means limited wear and tear, so minimal service needed. You pay no VED and insurance premiums will be teeny. A full charge of the battery via a 13 AMP three-pin plug (’just like on my hair straighteners’, says Cat) takes six hours and costs just 96 pence.

Theoretically that will give you 100 miles, rather more than most daily commutes. Your ’fuel’ bill for, say, 10,000 miles will be the equivalent to two fill-ups of petrol or diesel. You may also fast charge up to 80 per cent in half and hour.

There is a way to go, obviously. A charge-up infrastructure is something else that Mitsubishi and others are working on.

Don’t get me all bunny-huggy wrong, though. I love petrol and miss the leaded stuff. But... I think I may have driven the future.