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Electric cars are all very worthy but, by and large, they tend to lack any kind of 'want one' factor. Here's one though, that you might really covet - the Honda e. Because it's very small and doesn't go particularly far on a single charge, it's very much an urban town runabout. But what a cool one to have.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction
00:33 Background
3:17 Driving Experience
11:13 Design & Build
29:24 Market & Model Range
46:14 Cost of Ownership
55:57 Summary

Background

What should a city-based full-electric urban runabout really be if an element of desirability as well as efficiency is called for? Something like the Honda e? We can see why you might think so. The Japanese brand believes that EV makers have been producing boring, pricey products with expensive technology delivering extended range that city folk don't actually really need. Which explains why the Honda e restricts the size of both its battery and the resulting driving range. There are many compensations though, as we're about to see...

Driving Experience

This is a great little city scoot. There are two outputs to choose from (136PS and 154PS) but the base one will be fine for most. With proper independent multi-link rear suspension (of the type most small cars do without), the ride is excellent and there's a super-tight 8.6-metre turning circle kerb-to-kerb. Honda has made the power output quite linear so you don't exhaust the limited battery capacity with neck-snapping acceleration from the get go, but 62mph from rest is still quickly dispatched in 8.3s in the higher output variant (it's 9 seconds for the 136PS model). With 315Nm of pulling power on tap, it should actually feel a bit faster than that.

Like most Evs, this one has a bit of a weight problem: 1,514kgs is a portly total for a car this size, though to be fair, that figure's not too bad by EV standards. Honda's very proud of the way it's been able to achieve a perfect 50:50 weight distribution thanks to the way that the batteries have been mounted as low as possible in the floorplan and as a result, cornering body roll is commendably well controlled. As with a Nissan LEAF, there's also a button for one-pedal driving; with this applied, the regenerative braking effect when you lift off the throttle slows you so much the brake pedal is virtually redundant.

Design and Build

Rarely have we ever tested a car that looks quite so much like a motor show concept. Not everyone will like the look of this Honda e, but there's certainly nothing like it on the road. It's certainly small - just 3.9-metres in length - and quite tall too, the roofline 100mm higher than a rival MINI Electric Hatch. It's a clean sheet design with virtually nothing - visually or in terms of engineering - shared with the brand's only fractionally larger Jazz Hybrid, which is impressive. There's brand DNA here, but the character and style of what a small Honda should be has been re-imagined for the 21st century. And so much about it will be fascinating if you find a different approach to be also an intriguing one.

At the wheel, there's lots of showroom wow factor, though we're not too keen on the incongruous light wood trim. Two 12-inch screens sit at the centre of the dash and it's possible to 'swap' displays between them - so, for instance, you might want to pass the sat nav over to the front passenger to type in an address, say. You can even hook up a games console to the HDMI input port. Or select wallpaper or aquarium screen backgrounds to sooth your mood. The main interior talking point though, will probably be the corner monitors that take the place of exterior door mirrors, a design idea we first saw on a much bigger EV, the Audi e-tron. Here, the concept actually works a little better - the mirror displays are a little better sited. And on the 'Advance' variant, aother little screen takes the place of the rear view mirror, though you can flip it back to a conventional mirror surface if you wish. Predictably, there's not much room in the back and the boot is just 171-litres in size.

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