Whose life is it anyway?
The electric Honda is full of flair, but it can cramp your style. By Tim Pollard
Anyone who says electric cars are boring and threaten to rip the soul out of motoring should have a go in the Honda E. It’s certainly not dull to look at – outside or in – and the dramatic design is reinforced by a dynamic repertoire that’s beautifully resolved. We love the way the E drives, with a sophistication to the controls, a well judged ride and a joie de vivre that percolates into everything from surprisingly darty handling on a country lane to the extraordinary turning circle.
It feels like a clean-sheet design. Very few cars achieve this – and it perhaps explains why the Honda has more than a passing echo of the bold BMW i3 that came seven years earlier. The premium quality throughout. The modernist cabins and choice of materials. The twang of silent electric thrust, rear-drive handling and the extreme manoeuvrability afforded to the front axle as a consequence of having no driveshafts or combustion engine in the way. While the Honda can’t compete with the Beemer’s carbonfibre construction, its connectivity is a leap forwards. The wall-to-wall electro-displays are extraordinary when you first see them, but you quickly adjust and I’ve been impressed by how natural and undistracting they are. The E sensibly sticks with physical controls for heating, volume and other important regular actions.
Cameras for door mirrors worked well (by day; electro-black is a little unnerving at night), but I left the internal rear-view mirror in manual mode, preferring the physical reflection to yet another video screen. The only time I relented and flicked to digital was when the boot was packed
with recycling – and having a line of sight ‘through’ the goods was handy. I’ve had to collapse the rear seats more often than I’d have liked, since the boot is minuscule. So the Honda E won us over for its dynamics and quality cabin, if not its outright practicality. It’s a desirable – though expensive – small car. But is it a good electric vehicle? We’ve already written extensively about the limited range afforded by its 36kWh battery pack, and you can read the complete long-term test on our website. Suffice to say, town dwellers and those doing regular short hops to the shops are well served by the Honda. Forget the claimed 125-mile range: we never saw more than 100 miles on the meter.
I charged up overnight on our home 7kW wallbox, which would replenish the small battery in five or so hours. I also discovered you can jump-start an EV, when the Honda’s 12v battery died; the dud battery was replaced with no quibbles by Marshall Honda in Peterborough, whose Covid protocols and all-round helpfulness couldn’t be faulted.
Overall mileage of less than 4000 miles in half a year reflects the restricted travel patterns of a post-Covid world and we added a modest £163 to our home electricity bill. But it’s also a reminder that for longer journeys we typically chose my wife’s plug-in hybrid (a VW Passat) over the E owing to that short range. It’s a superlative runaround that does its thing beautifully – just make sure that your life can wrap around its abilities.
@TimPollardCars
Count the cost
Cost new £29,160 Part-exchange £24,860 Cost per mile 4.7p Cost per mile including depreciation £1.27
Forget the claimed range. We never saw more than 100 miles