• Dinky outside, bigger than expected inside
• Enough room for four adults, at a push
• Light and airy feel, but small boot

How much space is there?

The Honda e benefits from an airy, uncluttered cabin for front-seat passengers, with the absence of any humps or lumps in the floor giving ample legroom to both occupants. It’s a slightly different story in the back, however, where the four-seat Honda feels decent enough on rear space but hardly generous.

You will likely be able to squeeze two adults in to the back seats, but it’s best that they’re only there for short journeys. For example, space under the front seats (where passengers’ feet would usually go) is restricted, limiting how far those in the back can extend their legs. It’s fine for children though.

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The car’s tall, boxy body helps with headroom, and the light and airy feel gives an illusion of more space than there actually is. Certainly more so than in the rather cramped MINI Hatch, for instance. That useful flat floor in the front means you can slide over and exit the car from either door – super handy in tight parking spaces.

Boot space and storage

A storage binnacle between the front seats has adjustable dividers to hold your keys, wallets and phones – while a useful door bin with bottle holder and a glovebox holds the rest of your everyday chattels. A solitary cupholder slides out from the central cubby at the foot of the dashboard, via a nice leather strap, and there’s even a three-point plug socket to charge laptops and the like. A nice touch. 

The Honda e’s boot is fairly standard for a city car at 171 litres, but there’s still enough room for a few small suitcases (the kind you’d take on board a plane as hand luggage), or a few small holdalls and rucksacks.

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The loadbay is a sensible square shape and access is good, while the rear seats fold and leave a fairly flat luggage area if you need it. There’s nowhere to store charging cables, however, which means that unless you exclusively use public chargers with tethered connections you’ll always have something sliding around the boot floor.

Is it easy to park?

This is a small car and we have no doubt that even parkophobes will be delighted in how easy it is to tuck the Honda e into the tightest of car parking spaces.

Two further advantages of the e surface when it comes to manoeuvring: firstly, the Advance model has a very good rear camera which makes reversing a cinch. And secondly, the lack of an internal combustion engine under the bonnet means that the e has a terrific turning circle that will embarrass even a London taxi.

Safety

• Honda Sensing range of safety kit available
• Includes full suite of driver assistance tech
• Four-star safety rating from Euro NCAP

Honda calls its range of safety and driver assistance kit Honda Sensing, and it incorporates a large selection of features, but it depends on the model you choose whether you get all the safety features or not.

Unsurprisingly it’s the Honda e Advance that gets the full selection, comprising:

• Collision Mitigation Brake System – autonomous emergency braking
• Adaptive cruise control to maintain your speed on a motorway
• Lane-keep assist (operational at 44mph and above) to nudge you into your lane
• Intelligent Speed Limiter to stick to signposted maximum speeds
• Road Departure Mitigation System – monitors lane boundaries and keeps the car in lane
• Traffic sign recognition to remind drivers of the last warning they drove past
• Auto high-beam to flash and dip your headlights automatically at nighttime

All of the above is familiar from Honda’s other cars, but more features have been added for the e, including:

• Lead Car Departure Notification System – alerts the driver when the car in front moves away
• Collision Mitigation Throttle Control – stops you accelerating quickly if there’s an obstacle in the way (in Drive and Reverse), to avoid a low-speed crash
• Low Speed Brake Function – automatically brakes the car at low speeds if a potential impact is detected

Watch the Euro NCAP crash test video