I’ve just moved house and country over the Christmas period (thus the long silence), and find myself faced with a new commuting challenge: how to travel the 12 or so miles from West to Central London every day as efficiently as possible? That is, how to get to and from work in the least time possible, and as cheaply as possible, and how to get around London from meeting to meeting as quickly as possible, whilst generating a minimum of CO2 emissions?

I’ve moved from Paris, where the public transport system is (barring strikes), efficient and very cheap to use. I’m happy to say that I have moved to an area that is very well served by various forms of public transport, and I have lots of options for getting to work - British Rail + tube, tube only, bus + British Rail + tube - but my costs have shot up. Living around the same distance from central Paris, my monthly travel cost me - wait for it - 40 Euros! My new and shiny Oyster card costs me - wait for it - £109 a month (that’s 146 Euros on today’s exchange rate)! This punishing cost, combined with the fact that I have in only 2 weeks experienced closed tube stations and at least 40% late trains, has encouraged me to consider other options.

When I lived in London 4 years ago, I had a much-loved Vespa. It was very reliable, very cheap to run, and I could guarantee the time it took to make pretty much any journey in London, regardless of traffic. From an emissions point of view I can’t justify getting another Vespa, and I don’t want to wait until Piaggio brings out its first hybrid some time towards the end of this year. Instead, I’ve been researching what for me has to be the next big thing in urban transport - electric motorbikes.

Like electric cars, the concept of the electric motorbike has been around for a long time. For some reason - petrol lobby perhaps… just possibly… - they have never really got off the ground, and even today there are very few makes and models to choose from. Most of those that you can find are pretty pricey considering their typical performance - 6 or more hours of charging gives a maximum of 40 miles travel at around 25 miles an hour, and all this for the same price or more than a petrol scooter. There are also questions about reliability, and longevity. One player stands out from the rest, however: the Vectrix.

How’s this for performance: 0-50 mph in 6.8 seconds; top speed of 62 mph; up to 68 miles on a single charge of 3 hours (2 hours gives you 80%)? What’s more, it’s a good-looking machine, with excellent build quality: Brembo disc brakes and Marzocchi forks (for those who know about these things), lightweight aluminium frame to compensate for battery weight, and a proprietary and very clever regenerative braking system. And they reckon the battery will do 10 years if you travel 5,000 miles a year.

OK, so it’s expensive: £6,900 or thereabouts, but here’s a quick calculation: if my travel card stayed the same price (which it won’t), I will spend that much on travel in 5.2 years. We have to add the cost of recharging, which is around 20p a time, or a teeny £73 a year if you charge once a day, and of course there’s insurance, but no road tax, no congestion charge, and very little maintenance. And then there’s the convenience bit, the number of times you don’t have to take a taxi or be late for a meeting. To me, from a townie’s point of view, the Vectrix looks like a pretty good investment, and certainly better than an electric car which can’t get through the terrible London traffic.

It’s not perfect yet. You can’t travel long distances at speed, and it’s a lot to pay, but the Vectrix is state of the art in the world of electric scooters today. I’m going to try to test drive one, and I hope to write about that really soon, but, unless I’m really disappointed by the test drive, I think I’m going to buy one as soon as I can.