WhatCar

What Car?: major UK car-buying advice with strong EV coverage

What Car? is one of the UK’s best-known car-buying brands, with a long-running magazine, a major website, and an active YouTube channel. It is not an EV-only outlet; it covers the full car market, including electric cars, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, petrol and diesel models, SUVs, family cars, luxury cars, used cars, group tests, and buying advice. For EV viewers, this makes What Car? useful because electric cars are reviewed in the same practical consumer framework as the other vehicles UK buyers may be considering.

The channel is best suited to mainstream car buyers who want clear, structured, and professionally produced advice before choosing a vehicle. What Car? has been helping buyers make car-purchase decisions for more than 50 years, and its YouTube channel follows that same consumer-first approach. The emphasis is usually not on car culture, performance spectacle, or EV evangelism, but on whether a car is good to buy, good to live with, and good value.

What Car?’s EV coverage is broad and practical. The channel has a dedicated electric-car review section on YouTube, with in-depth video reviews of electric cars on sale today. The wider website also publishes electric-car rankings, EV reviews, advice features, and “best and worst” lists. This makes it a useful source for buyers trying to compare electric hatchbacks, SUVs, company cars, family EVs, and used electric cars in the UK market.

A major strength of What Car? is comparison testing. The publication regularly places cars against their closest rivals and considers the things that matter to ordinary buyers: price, running costs, practicality, comfort, equipment, safety, depreciation, and efficiency. For EVs, this is especially useful because the best choice is not always the car with the longest official range or fastest acceleration. What Car? says its electric-car assessments are part of a comprehensive testing regime covering performance, handling, practicality, and running costs, with special attention to the priorities of EV buyers.

The geek level is accessible to moderate. What Car? covers EV-specific topics such as range, charging speed, efficiency, battery size, running costs, company-car tax, practicality, and ownership costs, but it is not primarily a deep technical EV testing channel. Viewers looking for detailed charging-curve graphs, battery-temperature analysis, thermal-management strategy, winter testing, diagnostics, or 1,000 km challenges will usually need more specialist EV sources. What Car?’s strength is translating EV information into clear buying advice.

The EV stance can be described as pragmatic and mainstream. What Car? treats electric cars as an important and normal part of the current car market, but it does not present every EV as automatically better than petrol, diesel, hybrid, or plug-in hybrid alternatives. Electric cars are judged on whether they make sense for the buyer: purchase price, real-world usability, range, charging, interior quality, comfort, practicality, and long-term ownership costs all matter.

The video format is generally concise, structured, and publication-led. What Car? videos often include reviews, group tests, buying guides, “best cars” features, used-car advice, and comparison videos. EVs appear both in dedicated electric-car reviews and in broader market comparisons. This makes the channel useful for EV-curious viewers who are still shopping across different powertrain types rather than only watching EV-specialist content.

Production quality is professional and consistent. The videos are clear, well edited, and designed to help viewers reach a buying decision quickly. The style is less personality-driven than many independent YouTube channels and less cinematic than the most entertainment-focused car channels, but it is polished, efficient, and easy to follow. The tone fits What Car?’s role as a consumer advice brand.

The wider What Car? platform is important to the channel’s value. The website includes reviews, rankings, buying advice, ownership-cost information, reliability data, Target Price-style buying guidance, and dedicated EV advice. The annual reliability survey is also relevant for EV buyers because it tracks owner-reported dependability of cars up to five years old, including electric models.

The main limitation for EV-focused viewers is that What Car? is not an EV specialist channel. It does not usually provide the depth of range, charging, winter-efficiency, or infrastructure analysis found on channels dedicated entirely to electric vehicles. It is also strongly UK-focused, which is a strength for UK buyers but means that pricing, trims, charging access, incentives, and availability may not apply directly in other markets.

Overall, What Car? is a strong source for mainstream UK EV buying advice. It is especially useful for regular consumers, company-car users, families, and EV-curious buyers who want electric cars explained in a familiar car-shopping framework. It is not the most technical or enthusiast-focused EV channel, but it is one of the more useful general automotive channels for understanding which EVs are sensible, practical, and good value in the UK market.