Honda's cutesy Urban EV garnered plenty of positive response when it was unveiled to us. Calling it the E Prototype at this year's Geneva Motor Show, the company has decided to commission its production.
Following the overwhelming response to the clean and simple electric city car, Honda's design boss Makoto Iwaki has promised on retaining the car's concept design for production. “We'd like to keep the design simple and approachable for the production car,” Iwaki-san told TopGear.com. “But some elements of the initial design must go for legislative reasons.”
While the overall design would be the same as the concept, a few elements such as the wraparound interior screens could be ditched for cost reasons. Also, expect a more conventional cabin with five-seats as well as a set of wing mirrors and normal doors.
Reiterating what it might look like, the urban EV will stand shorter than the Jazz. Honda has derived retro-inspired design cues from a time when cars had actual visibility and didn't bamboozle with complex lines. While there have been little details about the powertrain, we are hedging our bets that it will be a simple front-wheel drive with a small capacity and smaller range. But considering that Nissan's Leaf returns a mileage of 281km, Honda could aim at surpassing the same.
The Urban EV is based on an all-new platform that is expected to be seen on a majority of Honda's future cars. If you may remember, a few months after the Urban EV, came the Sports EV. Unfortunately, Iwaki-san confirmed to us that there are currently no plans to take that into production, as it was very much a concept.
“I'd like to make a supercar,” Iwaki-san said. “It's not impossible for us to create a super sports car variant in this design. All you have to do is look back to the past to 60s racecars, they had a similar, approachable, beautiful shape - so it's not impossible.”
