Honda e First Drives for Northern Group Members
Honda has staged a first drive event for its much anticipated electric city car, the Honda e, inviting Northern Group members along to the driving day.
Despite being pretty far outside the Group’s patch, and close to the 2021 SMMT Test Day, a handful of intrepid members made the trek down to Honda’s base in Berkshire for the event — based at Easthampstead Park Hotel.
While the event was something of an all-purpose Honda driving day — with much of the current range, including the rapid Civic Type R, as well as a classic S800 roadster — the e was the centrepiece, with it being a first chance for many attendees to drive it.
First revealed at the Geneva Motor Show in 2019, the cute EV won admirers across the board. While there’s been some changes to the original concept, the car has more or less survived into production unscathed, and went on sale this summer starting at £26,660.
The e combines a small, 35.5kWh battery pack with a 113kW (151hp) electric motor driving the rear wheels only. While this doesn’t give much range — 125 miles on paper — it keeps the car light and ensures it charges quickly.
It’s clearly not a long-distance hack, but it has all the right ingredients for an electric city car. Our members were more than happy to put that to the test over the course of the day.
We’ll add first drive impressions below as we receive them!
Andy Harris – Honda e Advanced, Yorkshire Times
