Used Honda e Review (2020-2024)

When we took the Honda e for a spin, we were flagged down by two people in a van who excitedly wanted to know what on earth this thing was that had just driven into the fast-food restaurant car park in front of them.

Get used to admiring glances if you buy a Honda e. This pint-sized pleasure cruiser has retro-futuristic styling straight from the concept car stage – its piercing headlights, clean lines and vestigial wing cameras make it really stand out. It doesn’t try to look angry like most modern cars do; instead it’s friendly and, as we found out, approachable.

Part of the reason why the van men didn’t know what the car was is because the Honda e is understandably rare. Everyone begged Honda to bring it to production – it was never originally destined to make it to showrooms – but there are only around 2,000 on UK roads. Not many buyers could stump up £37,000 for a city car with a short range and limited practicality, regardless of how cool it looks.

If that was you, your patience has paid off. Now a used Honda e can be bought for under £15,000, which is much more palatable. Although the same is true of the Volkswagen ID.3 and MG4, both of which are bigger and offer substantially more range. Arguably, neither of those offer the charisma of the Honda.

The Honda’s quoted 131-mile range is on a par with the Mini Electric and Mazda MX-30, but it’s not going to suit many buyers – unless you’ve got another car that can rack up longer journeys. Otherwise, you’ll be spending a lot of time and money at public charge points.

It’s not often a car’s interior feels genuinely new and different, but the Honda e’s coffee table feel is fresh and welcoming. Technophobes need not apply – the e stacks five different screens next to each other, creating a full door-to-door experience. The outer ones are the wing camera displays, which take a little bit of getting used to, and in the middle there’s a digital instrument cluster and not one, but two 12.3-inch infotainment screens.

The main tiled widgets are really easy to use, and there’s a handy switch screen button that brings what’s on the far display closer to your eyeline. It also means your passenger can easily help you with inputting navigation while you’re driving, for example.

There are a couple of really cool easter eggs in the Honda e’s interior, too. Hunt around in the infotainment screens for long enough and you’ll find the aquarium mode that turns the entire screen into a digital fish tank, while there’s both a HDMI input and a three-pin plug socket. So you could genuinely take an Xbox with you on your journeys (it’ll give you something to do while you wait for the car to charge).

All the switchgear feels well built and the wood trim even works quite well. We really like the two-spoke steering wheel.

The vast majority of used Honda e cars are in the higher-spec Advance trim. There’s a huge amount of standard equipment, no doubt to offset the car’s exorbitant price when new, including heated front seats, a 360-degree surround-view camera, keyless entry, auto LED headlights with high-beam assist, self-parking tech, a premium audio system, a heated steering wheel and a whole tranche of safety stuff such as blind-spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control, an intelligent speed limiter and traffic sign recognition.

We’ll make this short – practicality isn’t the Honda e’s strong point. It’s only 3.9 metres long so it’s an absolute doddle to park, but the flipside is that there’s not a huge amount of space. The boot is laughably small at 171 litres – it’s actually three litres more than what you get in a Toyota Aygo but the Honda e’s boot space is oddly shaped with the intrusions from the wheel arches.

Rear-seat space is on par with the Peugeot e-208 and better than the three-door Mini Electric and Fiat 500e. Legroom is okay if you’re of average height, as is headroom – the Honda is taller than most rivals.

Two Isofix points are fitted, although there won’t be lots of room to squeeze in a child seat. And if you need to take extra luggage, you’ll have to leave your rear-seat passengers at home, because the seat back only folds in one piece.

Most Honda es come with a 154hp motor, which enables a 0-62mph time of 8.3 seconds (non-Advance cars get 136hp and a nine-second time). The e feels very nippy – especially around town – and there’s a sport mode that boosts accelerator response on faster roads.

Every e has a relatively small 35.5kWh battery, hence its limited range figure. And 131 miles is the best you can expect on a good day – in winter, on motorways or with all your mates on board, you’ll see fewer miles. Probably 80-100.

Because the battery is small, it doesn’t matter too much that the e can only fast-charge at 50kW. A recharge to 80% takes half an hour, which is competitive with most rivals.

Back to some good news – the e is really fun to drive. It’s rear-wheel drive and has a 50:50 front-to-rear weight distribution, like the best sports cars.

It also has independent suspension all-round, which lends the e a lovely, floaty ride quality around town. At higher speeds, its short wheelbase makes it occasionally a tad fidgety, but the foursquare stance also makes the e feel very stable and confident.

Refinement generally is very good, with almost no noise intrusion from the motor or the wind. So while the e is perfectly suited to the city, it’s good on open roads as well – as long as you’re within arm’s reach of a charger.

Not only is the ride quality good and the balance good, but the steering is good as well. There’s even some feel through the wheel, communicating what’s going on beneath you. On city roads, the light steering is perfectly judged, while the tiny turning circle means that squeezing the e’s tiny backside into tight spaces is easy peasy.