Just weeks into 2019, news headlines are already full of nasty mud-slinging. Even the weather goes dark and dreary at times. You’d be forgiven for having a fairly murky outlook on life right now.
Enter Honda’s little ray of sunshine, the smiley-faced Urban EV. Easily the coolest small electric car, a proper production car has been confirmed off the back of the concept that won everyone over in 2017.
The car on the photos here, naturally, isn’t it. This is a design sketch of a further prototype we’ll see at the Geneva motor show in March, but one clearly influenced by the cute little Urban EV.
“The debut is a further demonstration of Honda’s ‘Electric Vision,’ a commitment that two-thirds of European sales will feature electrified technology by 2025,” says Honda. “A mass-production version of the car will be on sale later in the year.”
Proper, in-depth technical details of what form this one will take are scant—we know it’ll be all-electric, and Honda promises it will “focus on functionality and purpose,” suggesting a simple, slick approach to design. Perhaps the interior will be closer to the concept’s (pictured above) than we dared hope.
It will also be based on a new, scalable platform that will underpin other electric Hondas. Maybe sporty ones.
“I’d like to make a supercar,” Honda’s design boss Makoto Iwaki told us last year. “It’s not impossible for us to create a super sports-car variant in this design. All you have to do is look back to the past to ’60s race cars—they had a similar, approachable, beautiful shape, so it’s not impossible.”
For now, we’re excited enough that the Urban EV is being made real. Do you share our mirth?
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
