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By Jonathan Crouch

The compact Honda e:Ny1 crossover is the brand's first higher volume EV. Jonathan Crouch drives it.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 48

Honda gets serious about EVs with this e:Ny1, a battery-powered compact crossover for small families. The unassuming looks and modest range and charging figures hide some tech cleverness here - in the cabin and in potential options for charge management. Honda's still a company of innovation. Thank goodness.

Backgroundword count: 166

Things are starting to get serious for car makers in the EV revolution. EV models can no longer be range-topping or fashion-orientated curiosities in their model line-up. Tough new UK government fleet emissions regulations mean that EVs must account for at least 22% of manufacturers sales by 2024 (and 80% by 2030). The 2024 target is one Honda needs to hit quickly. Virtually its whole range is electrified, but only one model - the Honda e - is a full-EV, and that sells in tiny numbers. Time to switch up a gear - with this car, the e:Ny1. It's actually pronounced "e-en-why-one" and it's basically an electric small crossover equivalent to the brand's HR-V full-Hybrid. The two cars are positioned quite differently though and the e:Ny1 sits on its own bespoke 'e:N Architecture F' platform. It's the first of thirty EV models Honda's planning to launch between now and 2030. But is it likely to sell as the brand needs it to?. Let's take a look.

Engines and Tech Specword count: 508

Well quite a rapid take-off from rest - this car's a bit 'old school EV' like that. Which might be something of a problem if the tarmac's damp and you've selected the most urgent of the three provided drive modes - 'Sport'. With that engaged in such conditions, it really is extremely easy to spin the front wheels and, if you're on a bend, find yourself being skipped over to a part of the road you didn't really want to be on. Apply the throttle more evenly or restrict yourself to the other two provided drive settings (''Econ' and 'Normal') and in damp conditions this won't be so much of an issue. But we still think that this e:Ny1's rather abrupt torque delivery would be better managed if Honda specified a grippier set of tyres, rather than the efficiency-orientated Continental UltraContact rubber fitted here. This, after all, is an HR-V-sized crossover with around 50% more power than an HR-V - 201bhp to be exact, with 310Nm of torque and 0-62mph in 7.6s, though of course if you exercise either of those figures to any great extent (or approach the limited 99mph top speed), you'll find the 68.8kWh battery's mileage range dropping like a stone. Which is something you're going to have to manage because there isn't that much of it - at least not by the standards of the EVs that sell at this Honda's quite exalted price point. As you'll hear elsewhere in this film, the quoted 256 mile range figure (which incidentally we've found very difficult to replicate with this test car) is somewhat disappointing in a class where the norm is 270-280 miles, with better models up at 320-340 miles. Of course, if - as will often be the case - this e:Ny1 is only to be used as an extra car for suburban journeys, then range realism won't matter much. For that, your priorities are likely to centre more on ride and refinement. Does this Honda make up ground there? To some extent, yes. All removal of an engine does in quite a few EVs in this class is to more greatly highlight wind and tyre noise; there's little of either here and you really get the benefit of that at higher speeds, where progress is accompanied by the kind of hush you'd expect in a larger, more expensive EV. This hasn't been achieved by accident; the wheels feature built-in resonators to try and cancel out road roar, there's a special damper on the rear axle and 'strategically placed' insulation has been scattered around the cabin. In suburbia though, all this effort's occasionally slightly undermined by a higher-than-usual level of electric motor whine, which sometimes even eclipses the mandatory pedestrian warning noise. Ride quality's a bit of a mixed bag too. On the highway, it's very good, but you might not be so impressed over poorer surfaces at urban speeds, where potholes and speed humps are sometimes more keenly felt than you might ideally like. No adaptive damping system's offered to help counter this.

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