@expressmotoring It’s a cute E but it’ll cost you

THE Honda E that you and I can buy is not quite as cute or stylish as the concept car that’s been shown at motor shows for the last couple of years. That’s how it tends to go with concept cars: they don’t have to conform exactly to regulations or to cost considerations, so they tend to be more extreme than the car that turns up in showrooms.

But never mind because the Honda E is still the most visually appealing electric car that I’ve so far driven in these early days of the electric revolution.

First of all the Honda E is very compact at a parking space friendly 3.9m long.

That makes it the ideal vehicle for city use.As does another feature of the car.

Because it is short there is not a huge amount of room for batteries, so Honda has fitted the E with a 35.5kWh battery which, to put that into perspective for those still on the EV learning curve, is pretty small.The Nissan Leaf e+ is fitted with a 62kWh battery and has a range of 239 miles; the Honda’s range is a maximum of 137 miles if it’s fitted with 16in wheels or 125 miles if it has 17in wheels.

What size wheels will you be having? I thought so.The little Honda comes in two versions, the standard car which has a 134bhp electric motor and the Honda E Advance which comes with a 151bhp motor.

Both have the same range and both can be charged at up to 100kW using a DC fast charger that will take the batteries from zero to 80 per cent charge in 30 minutes.

The more common 50kW rapid chargers will recharge the car’s batteries in 31 minutes.

We tested the Honda E Advance inValencia which happened to be experiencing the worst storms in decades.

Driving the Honda on teeming wet roads with the windscreen wipers permanently on and the air-conditioning stopping the windows from steaming up had a