Say hello to…
…the Honda ENY1, a small, all-electric, crossover that shares much of its looks, but none of its underpinnings, with the similarly sized ZR-V. And before we go any further, Honda insists the car is called E N Y 1 – as separate letters, and not like you’d pronounce ‘anyone’ (but with an ‘e’ instead of an ‘a’).
Despite being a small crossover, its list price (North of £45,000) competes with much larger electric cars such as the Kia EV6 or Tesla Model Y.
Honda offers the ENY1 in two trim levels:
- Elegance
- Advance
Standard equipment on the Elegance includes 15 inch infotainment screen, synthetic leather upholstery, drive modes, dual zone aircon, adaptive cruise control, power-fold door mirrors, heated front seats, powered front seats, front and rear parking sensors, Bluetooth, satnav, wireless Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, wireless charging and 18-inch alloys.
Advance adds multi-view camera system, heated steering wheel, parking pilot, side parking sensors, premium audio system and a panoramic roof.
Is The Honda ENY1 Suitable For My Fleet
While fleet and business usually makes up the vast proportion of electric car sales and the fact that small family crossovers are highly popular company cars, the ENY1 has a few attributes that may put buyers off.
Firstly, for those wanting to cover mileage requiring charging away from home the Honda’s maximum charge speed is only 78kW. To be competitive, a speed of at least 100kW would be needed. The Kia EV6, for instance can charge at up to 233kW.
What’s possibly more worrying, is that not only is charging speed not great, but the ENY1’s efficiency is also behind its competitors.
With a useable battery capacity of 61.9kWh, Honda claims the official range is 258 miles. However in the freezing temperatures of our test the range showed 122 miles when fully charged. In mitigation, this is probably a worst case scenario, but even when the weather warmed up this only increased to 145 miles. The average efficiency figure read 1.9 miles per kWh. This is the worst figure FleetandLeasing.com has seen during a week’s test of an electric car.
Leasing A Honda ENY1
Intelligent Car Leasing is offering the ENY1 in top specification Advance trim for £495 a month on a 3+36 contract with 10,000 miles a year. Honda is keen to point out that it’s aimed for ICE-parity on the ENY1’s pricing and this looks to be the case, with the fractionally larger ZR-V hybrid costing only fractionally more per month.
Gensen Reports predicts a maintenance cost of £29 a month and a Class 1A NIC of £10.
Driving A Honda ENY1
Honda’s ENY1 is a car with two distinct characters. To look at both inside and out it offers a premium feel. The styling is clean and the interior quality both in fit and the materials used is seriously impressive.
The huge 15 inch infotainment screen is easy to read, clear and sharp, is quick to respond to inputs and logically laid out.
Start to drive the car and it’s smooth and very comfortable.
However, when you spend a bit more time in the ENY1 a few flaws start to become apparent – even excluding the previously mentioned lack of efficiency.
In terms of the way the car drives, it has a relatively competitive 0-60mph time of 7.6 seconds, but the ENY1 can far too often spin its wheels in situations where rival cars just wouldn’t – such as accelerating and changing lanes to overtake on the motorway. Exiting junctions cleanly in the cold (but dry) conditions in which we tested the car resulted in too much slip of the front wheels too.
The ENY1 doesn’t offer a one-pedal drive mode, or even a permanently increased brake energy regeneration mode which could possibly have helped the efficiency.
Steering-wheel mounted paddles can be used to increase regen, but this doesn’t stay engaged and by the next deceleration you need to pull them again.
There are also a few annoying issues with the interior design. The front cupholders are too deep to take a regular coffee. Only once do you put a regular takeaway coffee in these because it makes it near impossible to remove the cup later on.
The rear cupholders are smaller, but too close together. If you give both your kids a takeaway drink (hot chocolate, not coffee) then the lids are likely to push against each other and result in spillage if the cups are taken out without great care.
Honda has also given the ENY1’s panoramic roof a double blind system that is difficult to remove and refit and doesn’t have a logical storage place should your kids remove it mid-journey.
These issues are small in isolation, but in the ultra-competitive small SUV market there are so many better alternatives to truly recommend the Honda.
FleetandLeasing.com Verdict On The Honda ENY1
Attractive but not up to rivals’ efficiency or charging capability.
Honda ENY1
- Model: ENY1 Advance
- Power: 204 hp
- Torque: 310Nm
- Max speed: 100mph
- 0-62mph: 7.6 s
- Official range: 256 miles
- Test range: 122 miles*
- CO2 emissions: 0g/km
- BIK tax band 2023/24: 2%
* tested in ambient temperatures below 0degC
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