Honda e

Not that it doesn’t still look good in ‘Modern Steel Metallic’, but I must confess to a frisson of disappointment that Honda’s e didn’t turn up in its Horse Pee Yellow or Blended Kermit grabber-colour couture, one glimpse at which makes me think ‘blowtorched Golf Mk1’ every time. And that’s a Good Thing.

Then again, Honda’s excursions into grabber colour land haven’t necessarily always had the desired effect. I remember the UK launch of the first CR-V in a shouty metallic orange designed to ram home the company’s sales assault on a younger age group.

Fat chance. The first one I subsequently came across was, all too predictably, helmed by precisely the type of stereotypical blue rinse biddy that has single-handedly kept Jazz sales afloat for generations.

What marketing numpty decided that bright colours are the exclusive preserve of the young anyway? Clearly, even if you could paint the old out of a Honda, you can’t prise the elderly from behind the wheel… One wonders, then, how Jazz cats will take to Honda’s take on the pocket EV?

Well, it’s certainly a spunky little thing; from the grille-less piano black concave grille, pop-up in-bonnet mini bonnet charging port, pop-out door handles and camera feed door mirrors to the cockpit-wide panorama of screenage on board, it proudly sports its all-electric credentials on its sleeve. To very good effect.

On board, the cockpit is dominated by a dashboard comprising a full-width shelf capped with nicely underworked wood -a pleasant change from the still over-prevalent oh so shiny almost slimy look of too much cabin timber- and topped with two 12.3-inch LCD infotainment touch screens and a third for the driver’s instrumentation, all housed in a single frame which would run the full-width of the cabin but for small, slightly recessed screens at either end which broadcast the view from the door-mounted, rear-facing cameras.

Happily, the infotainment system is no hardship to use. Both screens are flanked by menu tiles, with enough going on on the passenger side to gratify those accustomed to back-seat-driver status, and both a volume control and Home button mounted in a small panel on the timber shelf are a boon for those habitually driven bonkers by all-screen systems.

All the usual mobile phone connectivity is present and correct, and the screens can be easily swapped over so whoever’s doing the fiddling can do so on the screen nearest them. And if you don’t want anything onscreen at all, diverse wallpaper is available to keep the dashboard looking interesting. You can’t have the aquarium on the move, but the Japanese garden in full autumnal flush is a gorgeous travelling companion.

It took me a while to acclimatise to a camera-driven rear view, and, whilst my eyes did eventually come to terms with the gently wide-angle door camera imagery that claims to halve the rear blind spot, they absolutely hated the camera option of the switchable central rear-view mirror. Having been chastised throughout my childhood for sitting too close to the telly, the screen feels awfully close and its moving image strangely uncomfortable to take in… More to the point, it quickly becomes useless in rain or spray. Mercifully, the standard mirror alternative is fine, albeit a little too darkly tinted.

Courtesy of snug fabric seats and the fully adjustable helm sometimes lacking in the smaller EV, the driving position’s perfectly comfortable. Indeed, thanks to tidy finishing, light materials, an abundance of glass and the absence of a transmission tunnel between the front footwells (P,R,N,D buttons being relegated to a small panel between the front seats), the whole cabin has a refreshingly light, airy and even elegant feel to it.

Under this serendipitous surface lurks Honda’s bespoke, rear-wheel drive electric architecture. 35.5 kWh-worth of lithium-ion batteries mounted in the floorpan are mated here to a single electric motor good for 152 bhp and 232 lb ft of torque. 8.3 seconds is claimed for the 0-62 mph dash, but, as ever with EVs, the Honda steps off the line smartly enough to feel a deal quicker than that in the urban environment.

And that -with front wheels unencumbered by driving responsibilities capable of a taxi-baiting turning circle of just 4.3 metres and a button for one-pedal driving courtesy of properly retardive regenerative braking- is where the Honda e is most at home.

Don’t get me wrong, the Honda is a perfectly decent drive: the steering is precise and nicely weighted, pedal weights are good and the brakes pleasingly smooth and progressive.

Feeling that both BMW’s i3 and Nissan’s Leaf fall somewhat short of the mark in terms of both vibration and driving comfort, Honda benchmarked the e’s suspension geometry and damping against larger cars. Which seems to have worked out rather well. With a MacPherson strut at each corner, the undercarriage does a pretty good job of soaking up most of the worst our bombed-out boulevards can offer, and body control is fine, with very little roll.

The only issue with rural excursions, then, is range. Honda quotes a maximum of 137 miles, but, doubtless hindered by the fact that the e is about as entertaining to drive as any small EV can be, I never saw anything like that figure. Happily, the car is one of that rare breed of EV that will readily recharge fully overnight via the humble three-pin plug. Because, in truth, I did plug it in almost every night…

Eye catching, outrageously likeable and sufficiently different in so many ways, most of them good, the Honda e is also sufficiently pricey that would-be buyers will have to decide for themselves whether the premium positioning and presentation of the car is worthy of quite a hefty price premium.