Tokyo Motor Show 4 - Honda EV Concepts Fully Charged

For a long time, we haven't really been ahead of the game in terms of electrification or hybrids really. Toyota have taken a bit of a jump on them. But, here at the Tokyo Motor Show, they've actually stolen the show with this and over there, something called the Sport EV. So two concept cars here. This is the Urban EV. We have seen this before, about a month or so ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show and actually, it was the most interesting, fantastic car at the Frankfurt Motor Show, which is a big coup given that Frankfurt's in Germany and the German manufacturers normally sweep the board. But this little, simple, beautiful little concept, electric city car, took everyone's imagination and not even people who are particularly interested in electric cars because the thing is, they've got the proportions of it just right. If you come around here, it's the side profile, which I think is the best bit. This C pillar, as they call it, the roof pillar, it's like a hockey stick shape and it reminds people of two things. It either reminds people of the first generation Honda Civic at the front or it reminds people of the Mark 1 Volkswagen Golf. It kind of reminds me of the Civic more at the front. But really, the idea of this car, which is like 3.89 metres long, it's not a very long car, it's two-door, it's got some beautiful little design touches like this groove that goes along the sides. Instead of having a stripe, it's got a groove and it goes into a plug shape. Completely glass roof. Now, it's got a fancy concept car, things like no door handles. But the idea of this is, yes, it's completely electric. It's on an all-new platform. Honda, off the back of Frankfurt's popularity of this car, have said it will go into production. Weirdly, it's going into production in 2019 in Europe, where we are, but in Japan, it's coming out in 2020. So us Europeans are going to get it first. It's got some fantastic stuff on it. It's got a completely clear Perspex sheet, which behind live the headlights, which are LED. The logo is illuminating like an LED. And you'll see in a minute, there's some LED panels there, which can have scrolling information. You'll be able to configure. When you walk around this car, it just looks so right and desirable. It's just, it's hit the nail on the head with regards to design for me. And the fact that Honda have said they're going to make it largely unchanged. So in other words, presume it'll look like this, but with conventional rear view mirrors, conventional door handles, that kind of stuff. What are the size of the wheels? These are big show car wheels. I'd say they're like 21s. They look absolutely massive on a tiny car like this. You can see here, it's another information screen here telling you the charge status of your battery. And then inside, look inside a lot of Japanese cars, they try and make small cars with large internal space. And to give you that feel of open spaciousness, huge amount of glass house here. And if you look on the dash, you've got this massive panoramic touchscreen and a big slab of wood. It's actually the sort of interior you'd expect to see in a large kind of limousine type car. It's got a sofa type bench seat, which is fantastic. Brown seatbelts with little fold down, fold down like mahogany armrests and stuff. It's a real bizarre kind of lounge room setting. And again in the back, you've got this kind of chaise long looking seat. Now obviously this is a concept car. It's got a square steering wheel like an old Austin Allegro, which I think is cool. Some people won't think it's cool, but I do. But what this says is Honda are actually going to be building electric cars on this platform, this car in 2019 and the car over there, possibly 2020. Come on here. I'm sorry, but this is one of the coolest cars I've seen at a show. And the great thing about it is unlike Honda's cars that are in production right now, which are very fussy in their design, full of slashes and wings and vents. And this has got no wings, no vents, no madness, just lovely sculpted wide arches. Really stocky kind of stubby little confident design. No stupid spoilers. None of that kind of type of faff. These beautiful, again, glass panel here, Perspex panel with the square kind of quartic rear lights. So there's an element of retro about it, but it's not just a pure like retro thing. It's got a futuristic feel to it. This car's got AI in it. And what it will do is it will it will monitor apparently your heartbeat, your temperature of your body and what it will do with all that information. It will suggest appropriate music and it'll configure the driving style according to the way you are behaving right now. Well, fortunate enough to have the designer of the Urban EV, Honda's Urban EV here, Fumihiro. Pleased to meet you. Nice to meet you. You have designed probably the most desirable concept car of 2017, I would say. I want to know what cars you were thinking about when you designed this, because it's really captured people's imagination. Oh, absolutely. And inside, it's very casual, like a lounge. It feels like a living room. Exactly, that's what we wanted. We wanted to go. Ah. Oh, it's magic. Yeah. So it's a suicide-style opening two-door car, completely flat bench seat. But look at the wood inserts and the fabric that they've used. It is like a luxurious sofa. The dashboard is just one big screen. I presume this is touch screen? Was it your decision to make the steering wheel square? It's fantastic. I love it. Can you tell me your favourite aspect of this car? Yeah. So you could have it inside your house as an additional part of your living room or furniture. Great idea. This could be the future, you see. No, it's not aggressive. That's exactly it. It's not aggressive. But yet, it has some beautiful shapes. Was it difficult to design? A difficult shape? Did you? And these shapes, similar to the steering wheel? Oh, everybody doing everything. So exterior and interior. Yeah. Well, the result, I think, is fantastic. So this car is going into production in 2019 in Europe. Fantastic. And it will look very, very similar to this, we think. Please say yes. Please say yes. Which aspect of this car is your favourite? Which bit for you really is the most important? Well, he actually wants to hug the whole thing. Do you want to hug it? It has, it's the face. It's the face. It's got a, it's like a Pokemon kind of face. Yeah. So you charge it inside there. Yeah. Thank you. It's fantastic. Really, really beautiful. Okay, this is the freshly unveiled Honda Sports EV concept. We've just waited for the crowds to die down a bit so we can actually get a bit of one-on-one time with it. This is a three-wheel drive small sports car based upon a similar platform to that, which is the Urban EV. That came out of the Frankfurt Motor Show. This has been uncovered for about two hours, and it's a gorgeous little thing. And what it is, again, is Honda's statement to say, we are going into electrification. We're going to have all of our vehicles semi-electrified or fully electrified by 2025. We want to sell a third vehicles in Europe electrified in some way, but we're keeping stuff sporting. Honda has a rich heritage with sports cars and sports bikes, and that's what they want here. And someone like me, I actually own a classic Honda sports car. Their first model, in fact, an S600 Coupe. And this to me is like the, this is kind of moving the game on from that. So it's a very, it's quite a small car. I've got some notes on it because it's still fresh in my mind. It's 3.95 metres long, which I think is really similar to a Mazda MX-5. So if you think of it as kind of Mazda MX-5 size, it looks wider than an MX-5. Hard top, glass roof, which goes straight down into a lovely little sloping beetle back. There's no tailgate at the moment, but remember this is a concept car. If you come round to the back, the DNA for that car, the Urban EV, the gorgeous little Urban EV, is really clear. You can see here it's telling me this information on the LED screen, which I love, hashtag Honda EV, or just telling people hello, or profanities, who knows. But anyway, inside, very similar to that, you've got a huge full-width screen, a cortic-shaped steering wheel. So this car has been confirmed, like that one, this has been confirmed for production. This is going to be produced and able to be bought in 2020. That's going to come out in 2019. Look under here, this is cool. So obviously this is an electric car, rear-wheel drive, Honda are giving no specifics on the battery or the type of motor at the moment, they're being a bit cagey. I think they're saying that one will do 150 miles upwards. I don't know what this will do, hopefully more than that. But look, they're making a visual statement out of the propulsion unit. So this would have been where the engine lives. So the motor or the batteries, and maybe this is some sort of visible air cooling, like the cooling vanes on an old motorbike engine. They're making a real statement about this, which is great. And like I said, rear-wheel drive, which is your traditional layout, so you put the weight over the front axle, you have the power going to the rear wheels. It's just a really, and look at these, really nice little haunches. These actually remind me of the Toyota 2000 GT, classic sports car. Again, like that, no silly wings, no stupid big chin spoiler, a really, really smooth front. Everything behind that glass, Citroen, if you remember, Citroen did an SM back in the early 70s, where the headlights and everything were behind a big piece of glass. It was gorgeous, even the number plate. So Honda already has dipped its toes into electrification, because the flagship car in the Honda world is the NSX, which is the fastest, most exotic vehicle, and that is hybrid. Of course, Honda did do the Insight, the glorious Insight, which kind of went off the boil, and then they quietly canned the project, and it really wasn't as good, the latter-day car, as good as the Prius. They were chasing the Prius rather than trying to pave their own way. Now, they're paving their own way. If they can get this car to market soon enough, this will be a pioneering vehicle, and I love it. It'll have proper Honda DNA, great bit of design, a real characterful look to it, and hopefully it'll have that balance and that drive that you'd expect from a rear-wheel-drive sports car. Maybe it'll be affordable, but it's coming in 2020. You're going to say, well, what batteries has it got, Johnny, and what motor has it got? This is the quote. It has high-density, lightweight battery pack, integrated heat management, and energy transfer function. That's all I know. That's all anyone knows at the moment. Honda are being quite quiet about that, so we'll see, but that's for urban use, and this is for your country lanes and your more sporty appeal, and I think both of them look gorgeous. So, there you have it. Honda, it's going cool again. This is Makoto Harada. He is the designer of the Sports EV. Thank you for your time, and thank you for designing a car for looking so beautiful. Thanks. It really is gorgeous. So, Honda has a rich history of making sports cars, small, successful sports cars. This is rear-wheel-drive. What I love about it, the first thing that captured my attention is this. You've made a real piece about the cooling or the engine. There's no internal combustion engine in it, so we put an air-cooling system. So, this is all about letting the air out, but making it appear like an engine of a traditional car. What inspiration did you have for the shape of this? Well, to be honest, I don't have a direct inspiration image, but I was always trying to ask myself what kind of car is closer to people, friendly, while being able to provide a fun-to-drive driving experience. Because some sports cars are very aggressive, but this is not aggressive. It's confident and it's beautiful, but it's got that characterful face. And like the Hondas that we see in production now, it doesn't have crazy wings and vents. It's quite simple, but beautiful. That was hard, though. Was it? Yeah, it is. Because you, am I right, you won the competition out of 150 other designers around the world? Something like that. You were chosen to single-handedly design this car, so it was just a one-man job, which is gorgeous. Thank you. We've actually been thrown off the stage, because it's been a popular day for you, hasn't it? Yeah. I bet you've been talking all day about this car. All day. Went through, what, like 20 interviews in a row? Really? Yeah. But the thing is, is suddenly Honda's got so much attention from first the Urban EV. Yeah, which is cool. And did you have any part in the Urban EV? Was that anything? No, I wasn't involved. No. So this is your baby now. Exactly. Is there any talk about what kind of performance it will have, or the range of the batteries? Well, the thing is that, unlike that car over there, Urban EV, this is only a concept car. So there's no engineering detail available yet. But very similar, I know the front design language in the lights, steering wheel. Yeah, these guys share exactly the same headlight, taillight units, platform, interior space too. But obviously this is going to be, it's more about the joy of driving, the spirit of driving, rather than the other one is a character for maybe commuter city car. Sure. As a designer, what cars do you really like the look of? Some particular car, you mean? Yeah. Or aspects of certain cars? Well, like something that, I mean, fun to drive is the most important thing to me, actually. Is it? It is. It's not about exterior design. Well, that's a big part, but it's not everything. Don't do yourself a disservice. It has to look interesting. Exactly. But driving experience as a person, not a, you know... So you want to be able to get in this, and it has to feel right. Yeah. You've got the traditional layout, the rear wheel drive. The front. To be exact, it's not like, okay, we don't know if it's going to be rear wheel drive or front wheel drive or all wheel drive. We don't know yet. Yeah. But it could be all of them, potentially. Possibly. I don't know. Yeah. We don't know yet. But you've got the NSX as the Honda's flagship hybrid supercar. You've got the cars of the S660, which really sadly we don't get in the UK. I think it's an amazing little car. It's great. We'll put a picture of it up now. You've got that. This is going to sit somewhere between the S660 and the NSX, which is great. Yeah. Sport car used to be, you know, everyone's thing. Yeah, it did. But these days, it's only like some small number of people's thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. All people want the look of a sports car, but the practicality of a car that does many other things. Right. So that's why I wanted to make this guy wide open to a wider range of people. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I was saying earlier on, Honda's very first car was a sports car. The S500 and the S600, they were little sports cars. And it's almost the DNA of that I can see hopefully trickling through into this. We were trying to take the spirit of it. Yeah. And I think at the time, people maybe didn't realise how special those cars were. But now, you know, 50 years on, they can look at that and go, Honda's been very ambitious with projects and quite bold in the past, haven't they? They've made lots of interesting choices. So I hope this is one of those interesting choices which will come to market, which will be great. Yeah, I like it a lot. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. It's great. Yeah. You have to produce it, you know that you have to build it.