The Nissan Leaf has become the first electric car to be crowned European Car of the Year. The intriguing plug-in Leaf scored 257 points, beating the Alfa Romeo Giulietta (248) and Vauxhall Meriva (244).

The remaining finalists were the Ford C-MAX and Grand C-MAX (224), the Citroen C3 and DS3 (175), the Volvo S60 and V60 (145) and the Dacia Duster (132). The Leaf marks Nissan’s second victory in the competition, having taken the gong in 1993 with the Micra supermini.