The cute face of
Honda’s great
electric gamble
Ambitiously priced, cramped and with a less
than impressive range, Honda’s banking on
you falling in love with its electric city carA
t the 2017 Frankfurt motor show Honda revealed
the Urban EV concept, a retro-modern electric
city car so painfully cool the world immediately
opened its chequebook and begged the company
to build a production version.
What the world didn’t know was that Honda had already
been working on that production car for some time. Here’s our
first look at it. The world might be slightly disappointed to note
that the design has evolved from the original concept – there
are more doors, far smaller wheels, and less elegant proportions- but it’s still a new electric car brimming with visual appeal.
Now renamed the Honda e Prototype, it’s technically a
preview vehicle rather than the final production model, but it’s
described as 98 per cent representative of the car that’ll be on
sale in selected European markets (including the UK) and Japan
by the year’s end. The final name is yet to be decided but expect
it to include an ‘e’ in there somewhere.
Project leader Kohei Hitomi tells CAR: ‘The concept car was
developed to exaggerate certain elements of the production car
and check we were on the right path. The positive reception
made us feel more confident of the direction.’
‘The concept gave us confidence,’ confirms designer Ken
Sahara. ‘We didn’t intend a retro feel from the beginning, just
a very pure design, but we soon realised that our ideal had a lot
in common with retro themes. Cars in the ’60s and ’70s, with
their circular headlights and so on, were simpler, and there is a
connection between those cars and ours.’
Billed as a funky, desirable urban commuter, it’ll have a
WLTP-rated range in excess of 125 miles (some way short of the
R110 Renault Zoe’s 186 miles, or the new Peugeot e-208’s 230).
It’s built on a bespoke platform, with a single electric motor
driving the rear wheels. The underfloor batteries are supplied
by Panasonic, and are already used in the US-market Accord
hybrid. Honda won’t be drawn on performance figures but says
power will be ‘comparable with other B-segment EVs’ – the
Renault Zoe, for example, offers 87bhp to 105bhp depending on
spec. Estimated kerbweight is 1.5 tonnes, also similar to the Zoe.
That doesn’t mean Honda’s EV will offer affordable elec-
tric transport for the masses, however. Pricing won’t be ⊲
New car
debriefAPRIL 2019 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 9