- Honda has a new micromobility venture called Fastport.
- It will rent out delivery vehicles in what’s known as Fleet-as-a-Service.
- The venture’s first vehicle is the eQuad, a microvan that can drive on bike lanes.
This is Honda eQuad. Or rather, the Fastport eQuad, but I’ll get back to that in a second. Despite it looking nothing like a conventional quad, except for the fact that it has four wheels, it still has a lot going for it, and it’s pretty clever, too.
Designed to be driven on bike lanes, the eQuad’s main purpose is to make last-mile deliveries. Think big, congested cities where the only vehicles moving are usually those on two wheels. It’s powered by Honda’s Mobile Power Pack batteries, which can be swapped in seconds and recharged at hubs, so downtime due to recharging is a non-issue.
Photo by: Honda
Under the skin, the electric delivery quad has brains capable of seamless over-the-air software updates, with the underlying platform offering all the relevant information to the supervisors at the headquarters, who can keep an eye on the pending deliveries from afar.
Built by the same factory in Ohio that made the Acura NSX, the Honda eQuad will be available in two versions. The small one is 133.9 inches (3.4 meters) long and 39.4 in (1 m) wide, and can carry up to 320 pounds (145 kilograms) of stuff in the back. Meanwhile, the large version will be 144 in (3.65 m) long and 48 in (2.1 m) wide, with a maximum payload of 650 lbs (295 kg). Both have a top speed of 12 miles per hour (20 kilometers per hour), and the maximum range while fully loaded is 23 miles for the large version. (The estimated range for the small variant is not yet available.)
The funky-looking delivery EV has regenerative braking and automatic parking brakes for increased efficiency and safety. There’s also a clear canopy with UV coating and a ceramic tint option, as well as a ventilation fan and a full-frontal enclosure.
The eQuad is the first vehicle from Fastport, Honda’s new micromobility venture. With it, the Japanese company wants to rent out entire fleets of delivery vehicles, so operators can lower operating costs and keep a close eye on what the vehicles are doing in real time, thanks to an advanced software-defined platform.
More Fastport delivery vehicles are in the works, but until that happens, we’ll first have to get used to the eQuad. It will go into production later this year, with the first deliveries expected to begin in the United States and Europe in late 2025. Mass production is set for the summer of next year.
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Source: Honda