It’s impossible to drive up to the gates of Edinburgh Castle at this time of year. Nothing to do with emissions in the ‘old town’, it’s just the mass of meandering tourists cause the council to block the road off.

Despite creeping along in self-righteous electric mode in the E-Hybrid Cayenne, I’ve been forced to turn around and park some distance away from the hotel, The Witchery at the Castle, and catch a taxi in.

It took almost seven hours to get here from Cheltenham – having to turn back with a few hundred yards to go was slightly painful!

The Cayenne averaged just under 30mpg along the M5 and M6 – more proof, if you needed it, that hybrids are less efficient than your average diesel on long distance, high speed drives.

I tweaked between driving modes as much as possible – battery power in the traffic jams and then back to V6 petrol power on the high speed stretches. It didn’t make much difference

I do hope car dealers selling hybrids to less knowledgable customers make it clear that this is the case. And until the official mpg test for hybrids is changed accordingly, I shall keep banging on about it…