Bjorn Nyland "finally", as he says, gets his hands on a 2020 Honda e and takes it out on the highway to do range tests. As usual, Nyland does his 90 km/hr (56 mph) and 120 km/hr (75 mph) tests to see just how far the Honda e will go.
The Honda e has a short WLTP range rating of 220 km (137 miles). Since it's not coming to the US, the Honda e won't receive an EPA range rating, but we can assume it would be very close to the MINI Cooper SE's 110-mile EPA range rating since the WLTP ratings for these two vehicles are just about the same.
More Honda e news
The Honda e has a 35.5 kWh liquid-cooled battery pack, with the cells being supplied by Panasonic. The Base model has a 100 kW (134 hp) motor and 315 Nm (232 lb-ft) torque. However, Honda also offers an "Advance" trim that bumps the power up to 113 kW (151 hp), while maintaining the same torque output as the Base version.
After setting the vehicle to the proper GPS-rated speed of 90 km/hr, Nyland was able to drive the Honda e 176 km (109 mi) with a remaining state of charge of 6%. After adding the unused 6% battery, he arrived at a total driving range of 198 km (123 miles). The consumption rate was 151 Wh/km (243 Wh/mi).
To put that into perspective, when Kyle Conner and I took the MINI Cooper out on a 56-mph range test (90 km/hr), the MINI was able to go 132 miles, yet it has a smaller battery (32.6 kWh to 35.5 kWh). The MINI was much more efficient while driving at a constant 56 mph, delivering an efficiency rating of 136 Wh/km (220 Wh/mi).
Gallery: 2020 Honda e
Once that was done, Nyland charged back up to 100% and headed back out to the highway, this time to drive at a steady 120 km/hr which is equal to about 75 mph. At the higher speed, the Honda e was only able to go 121 km (75 mi). The consumption rating at the higher speed was 225 Wh/km (362 Wh/mi), which is particularly bad.
However, much like the MINI Cooper SE, the Honda e isn't best suited for long high-speed highway driving. It's designed to be driven in the congested cities of the world, and used in that fashion it appears to be a fun little runabout with lots of cool features.
We'd like to know your thoughts on the Honda e. Does the cute/cool factor cancel out the short-range enough for you to consider getting one if it were available in your market? As always, let us know in the content section below.