What first name would you like to appear in the review?
Adam
What is the make and model of your EV?
Honda e Advance
What year was your EV registered?
2020
How long have you owned your EV?
0 – 1 year
What is the mileage on your EV?
5,000 – 10,000 miles
How many EVs have you owned?
This is my first
What is the average mileage range you achieve from your EV when fully charged?
100
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Why did you choose this car?
My daily commute was about to change, I needed to drive to central London and back everyday from Kent (80 miles) and with the increasing prices of petrol at the moment, I knew this wasn’t viable in a manual petrol car. I wanted to go automatic because of the traffic I would be facing daily. I started to look at hybrids but they are still quite expensive as they still need petrol! So I looked at electric cars, my budget was about £26,000, so cars like Tesla were out of my price range. I considered all my options, like the Zoe, e-208, Corsa-e, BMW i3, Nissan LEAF and Honda e.
Positives – List 3 or more reasons why you love this car.
- I love the quirky design of the Honda e, it’s a classic retro design that has been modernised
- It’s also a fantastic size for city driving: its very agile and is great for small parking spaces and nipping in and out of traffic
- It also has a tiny turning circle, which means you can literally turn around in any street!
Negatives – List 3 or more things that you really don’t like about this car.
- The cameras – these are a love-hate relationship, they’re fantastic in the day but at night they really struggle. The worse scenarios are when it’s wet at night, all you can see is headlight glare and fuzzy noise. It is also tough to judge depth in a camera, especially, however when you indicate; some lines come up to tell you how far away you are from another car.
- Another thing I hate about the car is its infotainment system, it has so much potential but it hasn’t been implemented well at all; it’s buggy and lacks so many features. Good luck if you want to find out where your energy has been going or if you want to see how quickly your car is charging, as it gives you none of this information, whereas other EVs do.
- Right, I know this is a city car but its range isn’t the best, I do an 80-mile commute in this car to central London and back to Kent; about 60 of this is on the motorway and the rest is stuck in traffic. In the summer I could use the air-con just fine but in the winter I have to do this commute with the heating totally off. The heater on this car is SO badly inefficient; sometimes, it can knock 20 miles off your range, which is a lot for a 100-mile range car. I have to wear a thick coat and use the heated seats and steering wheel, which don’t consume anywhere near as much energy as the central heater.
- The Honda e app is horrible, too; you will hear many owners complain about its lack of functionality and features. To sum it up, you have to pay a subscription fee for different components. You can remotely start climate control to a vague temperature; it doesn’t let you set a temperature; it has three modes, cooler, normal and warmer! You can see where your car is located and you can also lock and unlock it. There is also a feature called a digital key where you can use your phone as the key to driving the car but this has had so many bad reviews; it just doesn’t work reliably, and it costs about £80 a year!
Rate your EV out of 5
Surprise us! Tell us something surprising about this car?
Despite its small size, it’s incredibly fast! For some reason, Honda slapped a 113kW motor in it, which produces 158 bhp and 315 Nm of torque. If driving at its max speed of 90mph you will fully deplete the battery in just 30 mins! If Honda put a much smaller motor in it, then it would have given it a much bigger range.
What car are you interested in next and why?
Tesla Model 2 is supposed to be the affordable Tesla that is under 30k. When this is out I think it will be very popular in Europe. I also like the design of the Hyundai IONIQ 5, it has a very quirky design like the Honda e. The VW ID. LIFE or ID.2 is also something I will closely follow, its mock design is very similar to the Honda e but it will have a better range and more features.
What home charging unit do you use? Would you recommend it to others and why?
I have an EO Mini Pro 2, and no, I don’t recommend it at all. Yes, it’s very small but I’ve had so many problems with it when the clocks changed. I had it scheduled to charge between 00:30 to 04:30 but somehow it decided to change to 12:30 to 16:30. The problem was the time zone had changed itself but the app was being so buggy I couldn’t change it back. I then reset the device and it wouldn’t connect to the wi-fi for days; EO support didn’t care and I kept waking up to an uncharged car!
Fortunately, a few days later, it decided it was going to connect to the wi-fi and I was able to change the time zone to the correct one and all was sorted for now. The EO Mini runs off a raspberry pi, which is relatively unsecured and too unreliable for something as important as a car charger.
Rate your home charging unit out of 5
What home electricity supplier & tariff do you use? Would you recommend it to others and why?
Octopus Go – 5p a kW off-peak electricity.
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What public charging networks do you use? Would you recommend them to others and why?
bp pulse dominates my area, they are just OK, they aren’t the best but they definitely aren’t the worse. The worse is Source London as they charge disgusting prices of 80p a kWh and the best is probably Instavolt and Pod Point.
Who do you insure your EV with? Would you recommend them to others and why?
AXA – they’re the only insurers that would insure me. Because of my age I was previously on a black box policy with my insurer but when I got an electric car they said their black box policy doesn’t include EVs. So I had to go elsewhere. All the black box policies that would insure me had a penalty for driving in peak hours, which I always do, so I had to go for a insurer that didn’t have a black box and pay a disgusting price for it, which Is AXA.
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