When it comes to a real practical family EV, it would be hard to beat the Honda EV Plus.
Open Access Article Originally Published:
I guess I am through male menopause. After having had the opportunity to compare the Honda EV
Plus and the GM EV1 in back-to-back test drives, I came away preferring the Honda. It wasn't
because of any technical or styling flaw on the part of the EV1, far from it. Chalk it up
instead to the stolid Germanic genes I inherited, or maybe just my own biological clock winding
down.
Since I live in one of the last places on earth that will ever see production EV's sold or
leased anytime in the foreseeable future, happily I don't have to agonize over the decision of
which car to own. If I lived in California, that would be another story. But if forced to
choose between Honda's admittedly utilitarian toaster-on-wheels and GM's stylishly sculpted
work of electric art, I'd have to go with the toaster.
For starters, the Honda EV Plus is a four passenger vehicle, the EV1 carries only two. The Plus
has a rear hatch and fold-down rear seats for carrying odd things like small pieces of
furniture and the annual Christmas tree. The EV1 is good for two beefy golf club bags and I
don't play golf. The Honda sits higher off the ground (the batteries are located under the
floorboar), more like a mini-mini van, making it easier for me to climb into and out of than
the low-slung EV1. So, call me Mister Practical, but I gotta go with the Plus for now.
Honda began working on the predecessor of the EV Plus back in 1988 with basic research into
electric vehicle engineering beginning with a converted Honda City car. Various vehicles tests
began in 1992 and market research in 1993. The company also conducted US fleet tests for two
years between 1994 and 1996.
By the Spring of 1997, the company was ready to respond to California's tough ZEV mandate
scheduled to take effect January 1, 1998 (The law which requires car companies to sell a
certain percentage of zero emission vehicles each year has been extended five years and will
not take effect now until 2003).
Like GM, Honda only leases the car; you cannot buy one outright. There are a number of
reasons for this, the most important being reliability. The car companies simply don't know
how reliable these cars will be, especially their battery packs. The Honda EV Plus uses nickel
metal hydride batteries which are relatively new technology with little performance history
behind them. While theoretically, they should last the lifetime of the car, no one is certain
that they will and most engineering estimates are a lifetime of 3 to 5 years depending on many
factors.
In a sense, the families leasing the EV1 and the EV Plus are not only "early adapters," they
are also guinea pigs of a sort. They are the car companies' real world test tubes. Leasing
the cars, instead of selling them outright, also absolves the company of the necessity of
maintaining an extensive and expensive inventory of parts. At the end of the three year lease,
the customer simply returns the car to Honda and that's the end of the story. What Honda does
with them, or GM for that matter, probably hasn't been decided yet.
Of course, all the engineering and rigorous testing that goes into the conventional new car
design, went into the Honda EV Plus. The car meets all Federal Motor Vehicle Standards
(FMVSS). Driver and passenger airbags are standard.
As would be expected, the car comes with a long list of comfort and convenience features
including automatic climate control that can pre-heat or pre-cool the car remotely, assuming
the car is plugged into a recharging outlet at the time. Since most IC-engine cars take
several minutes for their heaters and air conditioners to start working effectively, this
feature is a real plus.
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