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A City Car?

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2023 11:59 am
by advance2020
Thinking back to the original launch, and many reviews, the Honda e has always been labelled a City Car, which no doubt is how Honda conceived it. Especially in Japan.

But I'm wondering where most owners spend their time. Their normal, daily use, perhaps commuting to and from work. So let’s share our location (the type not actual) and normal daily route(s). Such as:

City, Town, suburban, Motorway/Dual Carriage run, A or B road

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Or maybe like me:
1. Rural location, B roads or smaller - short round trip typically 15-18 miles to nearest towns for shopping, coffee etc.
2. Longer Day Out 30-40 miles, destinations urban, little if any twin track en route. A & B roads.
3. Rare longer distance trips 60-80 miles with some dual carriageway 20-30% using ACC

If and when we go to Cities like Bath, Bristol, Salisbury or Southampton we usually park up at Park & Ride, or outskirts and bus or walk in.

Re: A City Car?

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2023 12:31 pm
by Mailforkev
I live in suburban Dublin roughly 16 km (10 mi) south of the city centre, so my use case is exactly what the car was aimed at.

The Honda is used for all of our local trips, commuting to my office in the city, and the occasional trip outside of Dublin. Mostly what you'd call A/B roads (N/R roads as they're known here).

I have never gone beyond the range of the car so have never had to use a DC charger, I've always charged it in my driveway. Longest round trip was roughly 160 kms (100 mi) last summer, mostly motorway.

Re: A City Car?

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2023 1:06 pm
by MattHero
Yeah, the term "city car" annoys me when it's used as a lazy label for cars like the e; cities in the main are no place for cars at all.

Most of my driving is extra urban and rural roads; 30mph->National depending, A&B roads. That's kind of the mix that we have here in Thanet and surrounds, but with the weekly trip into the outskirts of Canterbury (what counts for a big city around here). This is 90% of my annual mileage - trips of max 60-70 miles - and as a result never need to charge other than at home.

I do a handful of long trips per year, 2 or 3 down to Hampshire (~300 mile round trip) and maybe one up to the midlands (~400 mile round trip). In those cases I do use rapids and treat the exercise like a car show and gives me a chance to see other models that I otherwise don't find here. And other drivers ask to see the Aquarium, including once at Cobham services, the Police.

Re: A City Car?

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2023 10:01 pm
by hondaeboy
advance2020 wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 11:59 am But I'm wondering where most owners spend their time. Their normal, daily use, perhaps commuting to and from work. So let’s share our location (the type not actual) and normal daily route(s).
I'm actually using it as a regular car. So local, provincial, national, and a little bit internationally.

Before I purchased the e I actually decided to only buy this car if it could function as my main car, not as some half-ass second car. I loved everything about the car, but mentally the range kept bugging me. The car dealer said I shouldn't buy it, if the range didn't feel adequate. But when I got home, I realised that I didn't even know how much range would be adequate.

Luckily Google Maps had been tracking my travels since forever, so I simply started mapping out how many km's I had been actually driving the past 2 years. To my shock and surprise 20% of all days I had driven nothing. 75% of all days were less than 100 kms. And 96% of all days I had driven less than the car's range. The most I had driven on one day was 4 times the range, and that was actually a trip that wasn't planned in the first place. And that was also one that took me 15 hours of straight driving, which I will never be doing ever again with any car.

Re: A City Car?

Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2023 9:26 am
by MattHero
hondaeboy wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 10:01 pm
Luckily Google Maps had been tracking my travels since forever, so I simply started mapping out how many km's I had been actually driving the past 2 years. To my shock and surprise 20% of all days I had driven nothing. 75% of all days were less than 100 kms. And 96% of all days I had driven less than the car's range. The most I had driven on one day was 4 times the range, and that was actually a trip that wasn't planned in the first place. And that was also one that took me 15 hours of straight driving, which I will never be doing ever again with any car.
Ditto actually, I'd done the same calculation before I put the pre-release holding deposit down that on average (also according to Google Maps data) there were 4 days per year where I exceeded 100 miles in mileage. Dragging around a much bigger battery (especially the extra weight) for 360 days without reason seemed dumb. Actually caused me to cancel my pre-order for the P2 and move the deposit to the e.

Re: A City Car?

Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:33 pm
by MaXPainT
Driving mine daily to work. A highway takes me from suburban to a city and back. 23km (14 miles) one way. Charging it at work for free, used to charge it every other day but recently switched to 80% charge limit and charging daily. In more than a year have never driven more than 100km (60 miles) in one day. Have never charged it on a paid charger. I am perfectly happy with the car as it is :)

Re: A City Car?

Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:32 pm
by 5thcivic
It's a perfect second car as long as you don't need adults in the back seat for any length of time. I have the hybrid Jazz for long trips (600 mile range) and the E gets charged in the garage maybe once a month for shopping and town trips etc. Every time you get in it's just fun, so smooth and silent and nippy if you put your foot in.