- Honda’s new electric city car for Europe looks like a kei car with bulging fenders.
- It’s likely a widebody version of an actual kei car, which will be sold with a narrower track in Japan.
- Honda sent a camouflaged prototype up the hill at Goodwood this past weekend.
After the utter market failure that was the Honda e, the Japanese automaker is trying again with another small electric vehicle that appears to be very similar. The new electric city runabout from Honda just went up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where its unusual body shape was more obvious than in the initial teaser image.
The camouflaged prototype left little to the imagination. It looks like a Japanese-market kei car, but with bulging wheel arches that seem to accommodate a wider track width.
This makes it look like Honda has taken a kei car and turned it into some sort of little racing car, and it looks pretty darn good. It looks a lot less over-designed and fussy than the e, whose downfall was an unfortunate combination of a high price, low range and strange handling.
While the prototype was running at Goodwood, Honda quietly revealed the EV’s name, which explains why it looks like a kei car. It’s because it very likely is one. It will be called the N-One e:, which is probably based around the third-generation N-One kei car.
Japan will probably get a narrow-body version, while the one coming to Europe and other places outside Japan will get the blistered arches and wider track. This wouldn’t be the first time a Japanese automaker has done this. The Suzuki Jimny was also available with different axles that gave it a narrower track in Japan, while in Europe, it only came in wide form.
Honda also revealed part of the vehicle’s face in a teaser released in Japan. Interestingly, the vehicle in the cropped teaser image doesn’t appear to have the flared wheel arches, which could confirm the theory that Japan will get one that meets kei car regulations, while other markets, where this isn’t a requirement, will get it with the wider body.
The N-One e: name hasn’t officially been confirmed for Europe, and the vehicle is still known as the Honda Super EV, at least in concept form. It will be revealed in production form later this year and will likely debut at a major motor show.
In Japan, the electric N-One will have the arduous task of dethroning the country’s best-selling EV, the Nissan Sakura, another kei EV. And it will not only have to face off against homegrown electric kei rivals, but also the first-ever foreign kei car, which China’s BYD is currently developing.