I drove Honda’s new EV… it’s too expensive, has limited range compared to rivals – and it’s naff name doesn’t help

THIS is the catchily-named Honda e:Ny1.

An electric car that’s so crucial to Honda that it perhaps needed to be called something much less confusing to help it sell.

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The new Honda e:Ny1 offers the full gamut of hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric[/caption]

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The e:Ny1 has got the family firmly in mind[/caption]

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Rear passengers get a bonus in the leg and headroom department[/caption]

Why? Well, because our bumbling Government has decreed that 22 per cent of new cars sold by each manufacturer must be pure electric by the end of 2024.

And, right now, Honda only has one, the Honda e, and that’s expensive and won’t go further than 130 miles. As cute as it is.

Putting the ludicrous name aside, e:Ny1 lines up alongside CR-V and ZR-V to offer the full gamut of hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric options.

Which is great because choice is what we want, even if the Government doesn’t think we deserve it.

Bearing an uncanny similarity to the HR-V, which now seems to be increasingly close to its sell-by date on these shores, e:Ny1 has got the family firmly in mind.

So much so that Honda’s engineers have gone to great lengths to tackle motion sickness – something electric cars, owing to their disturbingly quick and linear acceleration, are good at provoking.

What it does is copy a petrol car’s more progressive acceleration curve to be more similar to what people know and expect.

And that’s a first. Well played, Honda.

Rear passengers get further bonuses in the leg and headroom department, as well as four cup holders, two USB-C charging ports, and extra-padded seats.

But those in the back seats won’t be paying the price for this rather expensive EV which starts at £45k.

And it’s not short of sensibly-minded and more sensibly-priced competition either.

Stylistically speaking it’s no disrupter, but the hidden rear door handles, new Honda logo and white H badge (something that all future all-electric Hondas will wear) and a rotating front flap that reveals a centrally placed charging port are neat features.

It’s available in two trim specifications.

Entry-level Elegance features heated pleather seats, 18in alloys and wireless charging.

For another £2,190, Advance packs a glass roof, automated parking, powered tailgate and multi-view cameras.

What every e:Ny1 gets is a whopping Tesla-esque vertical touchscreen that dominates an otherwise disappointingly drab dashboard.

Neat features

My biggest gripe here is it’s permanently split into three horizontal sections (navigation/camera, apps/settings and climate control) which makes what could have been a beautiful clean installation more of a cluttered PC desktop.

That aside, it is responsive and intuitive to use with fewer sub-menus to navigate to find things, leaving only three physical buttons on the entire fascia.

There’s just one option when it comes to power and battery though and that’s a front-wheel-drive motor which develops 203hp.

The 68.8kWh battery can rapid charge in 45 minutes to deliver an official range of 256 miles.

Those aren’t dramatic figures given they are all beatable by direct rivals including the Toyota bZ4x, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Skoda Enyaq to name three.

Honda, for such a tech-rich firm, is by its own admission late to the EV party, but at least it’s now accepted the invitation.

And while e:Ny1 is definitely not bad, it’s just not as good as it could have been to immediately sway more than 22 per cent of faithful Honda buyers over to the EV side.

The naff name won’t help.