Honda’s Electric Supermini Confirmed As ‘Honda E’
Honda has confirmed that its new electric supermini will simply be called ‘e’. At its Geneva 2019 launch it had been called the ‘e prototype’.
In a world of unnecessary punctuation and weird capitalisation, the single lower case letter will add to motoring hacks’ woes when it comes to writing attractive prose, but it was chosen because it distils the car’s reason for being and reflects its minimalist but head-turning design.
The dinky rear-wheel drive EV goes on sale later this year, complete with full-width digital dashboard, cameras in place of door mirrors and a driving range of around 125 miles. Honda even calls the rear-driven e ‘sporty,’ which piques our interest.
With a single-speed transmission the e will be easy as pie to drive around town, aided by the replacement of a traditional gear lever with a series of buttons for drive, neutral, park and reverse. The handbrake is electrically actuated, naturally.
Other points of interest around the simple but effective design are flush door handles (a nightmare in sub-zero temperatures because they freeze shut), smart device charging ports and steering wheel-mounted menu controls.
The e’s price has not yet been confirmed but Honda claims to have taken almost 6500 UK-based expressions of interest through its website. Honda has previously confirmed the e’s price will fall between the Renault Zoe and the BMW i3, so we predict a cost upwards of £24,000.
Comments
Hmmm…weird, no one popped in with the “E” memes yet. Anyway thats a nice EV.
propably because its been dead for a while already
Wouldn’t it be lovely if they could pre-warm the door handles like you can do with the interior heating? Little quirks that make a big difference
Yes, it should be essential. The other thing is the camera lenses, which will inevitably mist over at times but can’t be heated. I don’t know for sure that Honda doesn’t have systems in place to manage these things, but nothing has been mentioned.
This > Model 3 on so many levels
This interior is
and will always be the coziest looking interior ever
I want to live in it
Has it got Vtec though?
No it has Etec
This is how EV’s should look, I love the blend of retro and futuristic styling
Agreed
Better not be any god damn E memes in the comments
Well uhhhh
Wasn’t the Model three going to be the E but ford said no?
They wanted to name it the Tesla Model E, not just the Tesla E. Plus, I believe that copyright issues are only in certain regions: as an example, for some time in the 1960s, the Mustang was called the T-5, but only in Germany because a company already had the copyright over the name Mustang in Germany.
Honda E? Really? E? … Okay but I was expecting something more exciting.
Hey don’t lose hope, you never know, maybe Honda might bring back the Element as an Electric Car
This is the only electric vehicle i would consider buying