Honda steals the show
ThE tokyo motor Show — on this week — is well known for its promotion of the weird and wacky, as well as for pointing the way to real cars soon to be seen on Britain’s roads.
one of the stars is honda’s sporty two-seater coupe, which I tip to put a spark into the electric car market. the Sports EV (electric vehicle) certainly seems to have got tongues wagging.
Slightly retro, but with a contemporary twist, it’s the coupe version of the honda urban EV with a 150-mile range. It’s due to be built from 2019 and is expected to cost in the region of £26,000.
It bears a passing resemblance to the toyota 2000Gt, which starred in the 1967 Bond film you only Live twice, set in Japan. the production version was a coupe, but because 007 Sean Connery was so tall, they cut the roof off to make it a cabriolet. of the Sports EV, honda chief executive takahiro hachigo said: ‘this is a new proposal designed to show the joy of driving an electric car.’
mAZDA had perhaps the most elegant car at the show, the elongated ‘Vision Coupe’. But the mazda you can expect to see soonest in showrooms is codenamed Kai, which points the way to the next generation mazda 3.
FAnCy losing weight while behind the wheel? Japanese car seat- maker tS tech has developed a seat that supposedly burns off calories. As the vehicle moves, the seat surface shifts from side to side to exercise the pelvis and surrounding muscles. It claims drivers can burn up to 100 calories in half an hour. SIX out of ten of the most reliable car makes sold in Britain are Japanese, says a report by consumer magazine What Car?. three in ten motorists with cars of up to three years old suffered their vehicle at least over the one previous fault with 12 months. Lexus is the least likely make to break down, with owners reporting 92.1 per cent reliability in the study of more than 14,000 vehicles. then came
mitsubishi (90.8 per cent) and
toyota (89.6 per cent). the worst-performing make is Jeep, with fewer than half (42.1 per cent) of vehicles proving reliable, ahead of Land Rover (50.6 per cent) and electric car firm tesla (52.4 per cent).