Steve Cropley: Likeable Honda E can't get home on the range
Cropley adores the Honda E, but its range is too short for him
125 miles is a hair too short, which is a shame because the E is a thrill to drive
In this week's automotive adventures, Steve puts the Honda E through its paces on choppy roads, rages against the machine of corporate advertising and enjoys a relaxing and sunny afternoon at Bicester Motion.
*Monday*
After writing about the new Honda E a couple of weeks ago, I just had to bag one for driving on my favourite bumpy roads, to see if what I said about near-perfect steering and amazingly quiet bump absorption was on the money. After 400 miles, I still think it was. I’ve also had the chance to chuck it about some more and feel how its grip and agility seem at odds with its 1500kg kerb weight. Sadly, though, an E won’t be joining our stable. Out here in the sticks, we need more range than 125 miles. Give us 200 with the same package and performance and our cash would be out already
*Tuesday*
I suppose it’s natural for underpaid inkies like me and my colleagues, used to producing thousands of words a week, to be sceptical of advertising creatives who take weeks to craft a handful of golden syllables. One tale I like along those lines concerned the creation years ago of a recruitment slogan for the Metropolitan Police: the nation’s agency talent battled to think up “Dull it isn’t”.
We’re back in familiar territory with Nissan’s latest slogan. Print ads and commercial radio are parroting: “Together, let’s move beyond.” Every time I hear this ridiculous non-sentence, which has doubtless generated an invoice to buy you and me a Lamborghini, I get annoyed.
*Wednesday*
Took part in a discussion on the implementation of electric vehicles over the next 12-15 years, run by leading Formula E team Envision Virgin to coincide with the season’s restart. The panel consisted of several world climate and London cycling types, plus a National Grid spokesman and me. I feared the worst, having clashed with such folk before, but found the event uplifting.
The Grid bloke was confident and optimistic, saying: “We’ll increase our offshore wind power three or four times over the next 10 years and use the extra clean power for electric cars.”
The climate activists were more plausible than many; they accepted that the government must specify how it will replace the billions raised in oil taxes and that charging infrastructure won’t be fi t for purpose until it’s truly understandable and plentiful. Best of all, everyone seemed happy with the concept of a profitable automotive industry, given that it employs 7% of Europe’s working population. Maybe we’re finally coming together.
*Friday*
Relaxing afternoon at sunny Bicester Motion, the ‘time-warp’ former RAF base being sensitively converted into a new kind of hub for both old car and future technology businesses. Kingpin Dan Geoghegan, who has a well-developed sense of community, sponsored a ‘we’re open again’ outdoor lunch event, standing the station’s growing population to food and beer, the latter from its very own Wriggly Monkey on-site microbrewery. (A wriggly monkey, if you’re wondering, is a transmission gadget for a vintage Frazer-Nash car.) Bicester Motion is almost too perfect a destination for me – 100 miles there and back on nice roads – and I see myself hanging out there a lot in the shining, coronavirus-free future.
*Saturday*
Years ago, an Autocar inmate, Derek Redfern, dreamt up a club racing concept he called Target Time Racing, in which cars of all types – saloons, sports cars, old, new, big, small – competed in races with eligibility based solely on lap times. If your Volkswagen Golf GTI could do a 1min 27sec lap and so could a hot Hillman Imp, he wanted them to race. This was the antidote to the one-make racing that was taking over, he reckoned; sandbaggers would instantly be bumped up to tougher classes. Now comes news that the BARC is launching just such a series of races at its next Donington meeting. And with impressive grace and modesty, the club acknowledged the idea’s inventor. Redfern, as you can imagine, is chuffed.
*And another thing...*
More Honda: I was idly wondering how the little E’s bonnet-mounted charging socket would cope in the rain. Wandered outside to discover it had been bucketing but charging had been entirely unaffected. Decent port in a storm, you might say…
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