The cars you love are personal to you, they may be the worst in the world to somebody else but they mean the world to you. One of my favourite cars for an inexplicable reason is the Honda e.

I love cars but like most people who love cars some vehicles are just special – they might not be to everyone else, but they are special to me – and one of those ‘special’ cars is the Honda e. It isn’t the most powerful car, it doesn’t have the longest range, nor does it have a mind-bendingly quick 0-62 time, but I love it and when I was offered the chance to spend time with one I leapt (metaphorically) at the chance to do so.

As I approached the car it was incredibly exciting, seeing all 3894mm of it (bigger than most people think) in real life. Every curve, every large black panel, every neat detail that makes the e so special. Personally, I like the design, it’s very clean and looks futuristic while also retro however the person I was with thought it was too boxy – make up your own mind.

The doors were then opened by the person from Honda (pop out handles front and rear – very well concealed at the rear, many think it’s a three door) and I instantly saw that with the front seat set to a reasonable point (average height) and that the rear looked very cramped. The fabric they are covered in (soft but hard wearing according to the brochure) below is very nice and I like the brown seatbelts.

I then got into the front of the car and was very impressed. The floor is not completely flat (like some EVs) and does have a small hump, below the ports – HDMI (not many cars have that!), three-pin (UK only), and two USBs that are in a accessible but not blatantly obvious place.

Now, onto the centrepiece of the e, the six screens, two of which are 12.3 inch touchscreens. The design makes them appear to have five all linked (black plastic) which has a nice effect and when you start the car two display the same design which increases the integration. The screens (from my brief test) were responsive and did what you wanted quickly. The e also has physical buttons for key parts of interface navigation and separate physical climate controls (hooray). Also, it has some nice tricks like displaying an aquarium on the screen (I had to have a go, it was also easy to get to).

Another near e thing is the cameras. I was in the e Advance which has the ‘Centre Camera Mirror System’ that seems to include the standard camera wing mirrors and rear-view mirror which is how the other three screens are used. It seemed to work well but did look weird and would probably require adapting to.

The interior of the e is said to be like a ‘living room’ (according to the brochure I was given) with comfortable seats (which I agree with) and wooden elements to ‘insulate you from the hustle and bustle of the city’. It’s a nice interior, that’s a fact and I think it will wear well and really does complement the exterior.

Now I love this car, but it’s just not a good buy. It costs £29,950 or around £35,000 as tested with lots of options yet only travels 137 miles on the generous WLTP cycle. It’s a cool car, but it needs more range to solve its fatal flaw. No wonder they haven’t sold many…

Do comment your thoughts below