A sports car does not provide the quickest way through a city. Just ask the Porsche or Ferrari owner, helplessly stuck at a T-junction waiting for a courteous flash of lights and a gap to filter into, as the hands of their Tag Heuer tick excruciatingly toward the time of their very important meeting.
Nope, the quickest way through a city—on four wheels, at least—is smaller. And much more charming. Think of the all-time great city cars—Cinquecento, Mini, Mk1 Twingo—and they’ve all got two things in common: dinky dimensions and doe eyes.
Honda has been wise to follow the recipe with its new electric car, the irksomely lower case e. That’s the only annoyance that gets within the same area code of one of these, however. It triumphed in our EV comparison test despite trailing its rivals on nearly every line of the spec sheet. A sense of humor is harder to quantify, but it’s substantially more valuable in this corner of the car world.