Electric cars are the future, Jaguar Land Rover’s top engineer has predicted.

Motorists will flock to ultra-green electric vehicles because of the savings they’ll make on petrol, according to Bob Joyce, the man behind Jaguar’s remarkable £700,000 green supercar.

He recently helped unveil the C-X75, a hybrid vehicle with carbon dioxide emissions as low as a Toyota Prius - which is also capable of reaching 100mph in six seconds.

Just 250 models of the vehicle will be built, in partnership with Formula 1 team Williams, selling for £700,000 or more each.

Mr Joyce ,Group Engineering Director of Jaguar Land Rover, spoke about the future of the automotive industry backstage following the car’s glitzy launch event in a London hotel.

He predicted that “plug-in” vehicles, powered by electric engines which are recharged by plugging them into a charging point, would soar in popularity.

Mr Joyce said: “The world will go plug-in. When it does, I think you are going to find the world will move much quicker than people think.”

“Plug-in will do at the bottom end - the city car and the little cars going round the cities.”

The technology may not be so popular in medium-sized and priced cars, because they would not be able to make long journeys without recharging unless they were fitted with expensive batteries and engines, he said.

“But on the bigger vehicles, which already have customers paying for higher technology, bigger engines, you stick motors in them . . . you give them enough power that they can run under sustained electric with enough battery, and it’s a brilliant concept.

“The customer benefits are transformational.”

A vehicle which currently used a V8 diesel engine, such as some Range Rovers, could be designed around a plug-in engine which would actually offer better acceleration, he said.