Hummingbird electric folding bike
Price £4,495, hummingbirdbike.com
Frame carbon
Weight 10.3kg
Range 30km
Recharge 2 hours

After decades of ponderous milk floats, feeble golf buggies and those annoying squeaky-wheeled airport terminal transporters, electric vehicles have slowly transformed themselves into lean, clean driving machines. Now, at last, a similar metamorphosis is happening in the world of electric bikes. Just a few years ago, clambering on to an e-bike gave you the same sinking feeling you’d get from pulling on a pair of lead-lined wellies. They were heavy, unresponsive and ugly – a little like the grizzled veteran front row of my local rugby club. The batteries were as large as lunchboxes and were haphazardly bolted on to the frame almost as an afterthought. You had to recharge them every time you went round the block.

But that has all changed dramatically. The past couple of years has seen a revolution in e-biking that will radically transform cycling as we know it, particularly in urban areas. The underlying technology has been refined, improved and streamlined and e-bikes have become neater, more agile and a lot more fun to ride. Most crucially the rechargeable batteries have become smaller and lighter and can now be secretly integrated into the bike’s frame. These days the only person who will guess you are getting some subtle pedal assistance as you surge away from the lights is you. But while e-biking has been upping its game, folding bikes have been smugly resting on their laurels as if they’d already provided the answer to all our urban cycling questions. Now manufacturers have realised they have to add electric capability to their folding machines if they are to catch this new wave. Earlier this year Brompton brought out its first folding e-bike, and now the Hummingbird has joined the throng.

Hummingbird was already shrouded in the mists of awe thanks to the fact it had created the world’s lightest and, many would say, most covetable folding bike. Made from a single piece of meticulously handcrafted carbon-fibre and tipping the scales at a featherweight 6.9kg, the original Hummingbird is only 100g heavier than the minimum weight allowed for a Tour de France bike.

To gear up the Hummingbird as an e-bike, the firm has once again gone back to the automotive engineers Prodrive, whose workshops help create cars for the likes of Aston Martin, Renault and Subaru’s racing teams. A 250W motor and battery sits in the hub of the rear wheel and adds just 3.4kg to the bike’s total weight. This means the Hummingbird has the highest energy-to-weight ratio of any electric bike on the market.

These bikes face the double challenge of having to remain light and still fold: adding a battery and motor messes with both of those deal breakers. Brompton got round the problem by having a detachable battery, but Hummingbird has managed to remain true to itself. It doesn’t fold quite as compactly as before, but it neatly collapses in three simple moves so you can climb up stairs with it or stash it on the train without any bother.

I’m not exactly sure who has the money to spend £5,000 on a folding bike, but there is always a place for an out-and-out market leader. The Hummingbird is a stunning piece of uncompromised precision engineering. It comes with few extras. There are no integrated lights or even a battery-charge indicator – that works via an app on your smart phone instead, through which you can also remotely immobilise the motor as an extra security measure. Everything has been ruthlessly sacrificed to keep its overall weight down.

The motor will only assist you up to a speed of 15mph – that’s the legal limit. But if you want to pedal faster than that, you can and almost certainly will. The smaller wheels also increase your sense of speed alarmingly. The bike is stiff, light and agile – it almost feels alive beneath your hands. The ride is compulsive. When it comes to your city commute, the Hummingbird will give you wings.

Cool kit

The ‘hydrophobic’ fabric this bike jacket is made of will keep you warm and dry. Le Col Aqua Zero jersey, £135, lecol.cc

Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@MartinLove166