Honda comes over all Apple
Ever wonder how the greatest game-changers make it to showrooms unsullied by committee or compromise? The thrill of a clean-sheet design and an over-achieving mission statement must spur on the cleverest engineers to make groundbreaking cars such as 1959’s Mini, the 1974 VW Golf and the first-generation Ford Focus or Audi TT (both 1998). Can the Honda E hope to join this exclusive club? At first glance, its daring wardrobe, electro smarts and digital talents certainly secure the interview.
And so it proves when introductions are made. It’s a shame some of the stance and conceptual slam-dunk of the Urban EV show car that sired the E were lost in the transition to showroom spec, but this is still one of Honda’s boldest designs for years. It’s dripping with cute detailing like the glass bonnet charging flap: it could convincingly wear the Apple apple. The question is: does it have the talent to match the bravura of its exterior design? If so it’ll be ready to sate the public’s swelling interest in EVs.
The Honda looks petite but it’s actually 45mm longer than the Mini Electric and comfortably the tallest of this trio. Cartoonishly styled and futuristic, it turns heads like no other small car. We find camera pods instead of door mirrors, an NFC (Near Field Communication) smartphone reader on the B-pillar (so you can use your phone to unlock the car) and full LED circular lights front and rear. This car’s tech credentials are front and centre, a point rammed home when you unlock the door and sink into the wool-effect front seats to face the iMax of widescreens. Put it this way: my teenage son was in touchscreen heaven when faced with the full-width digital displays that stretch from door to door, replacing everything from traditional dials to sat-nav and radio comms. If you’re the sort of person who’s driven mad by everything being app-controlled from your smartphone these days, you’re not going to like this interior.
But we do. It all works as intended, and we’ll forgive Honda’s Aquarium button on the homescreen, turning the twin 12-inch screens into a soothing goldfish bowl when parked up. The woke generation lap up this stuff. The screens’ matt surface hides grubby fingerprints well and the logic of the operating system is first-rate – it knocks spots off the Peugeot’s laggy menus and user experience. Something must have leaked into the water at HQ, as Hondas used to be let down by cheap and plasticky interiors – but the E’s is quite a statement, having the heft and quality choices to match any German compact, and the simple wood fascia is beautifully judged. It’s the best-built cabin of this trio by a country mile.
Press the start button (yes, this can be done by phone too) and the screens light up like a Christmas tree and certain pixels grab my
attention: the range reads just 94 miles after an overnight charge on a proper wallbox. Blame the modest 35.5kWh battery, whose capacity is 40 per cent smaller than the Peugeot’s 50kWh. There’s simply less energy stored on board; Honda claims only 125 miles on the WLTP cycle. We never saw the range meter tip into three figures, and this poor endurance is the Honda’s Achilles’ heel. As a result it’s surely going to be confined to second-car status; a fun urban runaround for those living in big cities.
The ocial claims say one thing, but as part of our testing we took all three electric tots on an identical 26-mile journey to see how they fared in real-world driving. It’s no lab test, but we set the climate to 20°C, switched off all ancillaries like seat heaters, selected the most eco driving mode available and stuck to the speed limits. Driven thus, the Honda went from 100 per cent to 79 per cent (but the range dipped just two miles from 94 to 92), which goes to show the vagaries of electricity consumption and the complexity of predicting range. Our prescribed, semi-scientific journey gobbled energy at the rate of a kilowatt hour for 3.5 miles.
So you end up pootling gently everywhere in the Honda, trying not to tap into its instant 232lb ft of torque and instead marvel at how smoothly it drives. It reminds me of my old BMW i3 long-term test car, with a similarly well-damped ride quality, darty steering and an extraordinary 4.3-metre turning circle for taxi-spec manoeuvring around town. It’s comfier than the bumping Mini, more agile than the sensible Peugeot and somehow manages to make you trust the all-digital trio of mirrors right from the off.
Who’d have thunk it? In the E, Honda might just have released its most significant car since the 1989 NSX. ⊲
Like an i3 there’s a well-damped ride quality, darty steering and a remarkable turning circle