There was a time when buying a small electric car meant accepting that you were about to spend a lot of money on something that looked like a household appliance. The AION UT would like a word.

Priced from £28,950, the new electric supermini is arriving in the UK with a rather ambitious mission: to make the humble B-segment hatchback feel considerably more expensive than it actually is.

And it’s bringing quite a lot of equipment to the fight.

Designed in Milan, the UT comes with heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a 14.6-inch touchscreen and a 360-degree camera as standard. If that isn’t enough, £1,200 buys the Premium Pack, which adds a panoramic glass roof, powered tailgate, ventilated driver’s seat and wireless phone charging.

In other words, it has the sort of equipment list that used to require buying something substantially larger and substantially more expensive. Then there’s the space.

The UT has 24 storage areas dotted around the cabin and a 440-litre boot. That is a surprisingly serious amount of luggage capacity for a little electric hatchback, suggesting that AION has remembered that cars are occasionally required to carry things rather than simply display a range figure on their dashboard.

Speaking of range, the UT has a 60kWh battery and a claimed 268-mile range. AION reckons that makes it the longest-range standard model in its segment. And it isn’t exactly slow.

The UT will reach 62mph in 7.3 seconds, which is brisk enough to make getting onto a motorway considerably less dramatic than it might be in some of its more lethargic electric rivals.

But AION hasn’t simply pointed the car at Britain and hoped for the best. Its UK team has given the suspension some local attention, with bespoke springs, dampers and bump-stops, plus a revised anti-roll bar.

The idea is to combine the sort of nimble handling you’d expect from a small hatchback with enough compliance to cope with Britain’s finest contribution to motoring: roads that appear to have been designed by someone with a grudge against suspension components.

Every car comes with an eight-year warranty, eight years of servicing, eight years of roadside assistance and MOT coverage until the car reaches eight years old. The package is also tied to the vehicle’s VIN, so future owners get the benefit too.

The AION UT will make its UK public debut at the British Motor Show in Farnborough from 21 to 23 August, with order books opening in September.

At £28,950, it certainly isn’t the cheapest little car on the market. But AION isn’t really trying to be the cheapest.

It wants to convince you that a small electric car can be stylish, quick, spacious, well equipped and, crucially, not feel like you’ve compromised merely because you decided to buy something sensible.