When you think about it, cars just haven’t keep up with the rest of the world in terms of huge shifts in technological innovation. For example, if you went back to the world of a century ago, it would bear very little practical resemblance to today’s world in technological terms in most areas of life and perhaps most particularly the household and all its electrical appliances – except for the car.

The fact is that the car is essentially the same as it was 100 years ago – in its basic form. It’s powered by petrol via an internal combustion engine and it’s a metal box, of sorts, with four wheels.

You see what I mean? So cars have a lot of catching up to do. It’s well over a century since Thomas Edison and others truly captured the power of electricity and made it really practicable. But the car has truly lagged.

Perhaps that’s finally changing though? At long last, electric cars are really making genuine inroads into the market. It’s trifling at the moment, yes. But it’s well on its way. And believe me, it will accelerate like crazy from here. Already, there are lots of all-electric cars to choose from and there are even electric supercharged and super-fast sports cars.

And at the recent Tokyo Motor how, Honda unveiled its own latest eco cars including the incredible and groundbreaking Micro-Commuter car, which looks a little like a modern vacuum cleaner on four hidden wheels – and which has a range of less than 40 miles.

But rather like Edison’s electric light innovations from the 1880s – or like the true dawning of the Internet age en-masse over 100 years later during the last few years of the 20^th century, you just know that electric cars are coming. But how, when and where? – and which will be the winners and loses is much trickier.

Nevertheless, your kids will regard them as normal – and instead of refueling, they’ll be recharging as their norm.