FULL REVIEW: Chris Harris drives the all-electric Honda e | Top Gear

It comes from Honda. As you'd expect, it's called the E. And as you can see, it's small, pretty and manages that neat trick of looking fresh and yet somehow timeless. It's a lot like the original Mini, except here, Honda has taken that tried-and-tested less-is-more approach and really run with it. You see, the one question people ask about any new electric car is, how far will it go on a single charge? And in this case, the answer is, not very far. Officially, it's about 130 miles. Now, if you live in Gloucestershire and commute to Glasgow, that's a bit of an issue, but Honda reckons, for the rest of us, it's not such a problem. You see, it turns out, less than 1% of journeys in the UK are longer than 100 miles. So, Honda says, there's no point lugging around a bunch of extra heavy and expensive batteries that 99% of the time, you don't need. How can I put it? It's like sometimes you're asked to take a load of in-laws to a wedding, right? And what you need is an eight-seater minibus. But you don't actually buy an eight-seater minibus for the two times a year you might actually need it. What you do is you buy a normal car and you tell mad Aunt Jean to take a taxi. And it's the same with the E. It's not about what might occasionally be handy, it's about what you actually need every day. And besides, smaller batteries mean a lighter car and a lighter car should mean more fun to drive. And this thing does manage that. I've got a wheel at each corner, it feels squat, it feels agile. The steering is really quick. And like all electric cars, it somehow manages to feel much quicker than the numbers suggest. It just punches out of corners with all that torque. It's great. Okay, it's not very fast. Not 68 seconds, top speed, 100 miles an hour. And this is the fast one. But that doesn't matter. The old Mini wasn't fast. But it was fun. And so is this. However, the old Mini was also cheap. And it has to be said, the Honda E isn't. This one is £26,000 and that includes £3,000 from the government, which is enough to stop most buyers in their tracks. Unless, that is, those buyers like lots and lots of toys. Now, in here, you get more screens than the Dixon's telly department. Have a look at this little lot here. It is remarkable. To start with, you can have Japan in autumn. I don't know why that's useful, but it's great. And if you're really bored, and you'd have to be really bored, you can turn the whole facia into an aquarium. Don't ask me why, but the people at Honda thought it'd be funky. Now, the rear-view mirror is actually a camera facing backwards, and both wing mirrors are also cameras, with all the mouses ears on the side of the car. And if you really want to have a massive crash, you can connect a PlayStation. Don't get me wrong, the little Honda is great fun. It's just that £26,000 is a lot of money for an electric car that, aquariums aside, isn't really bringing anything new to the party. And that's a real shame, because Honda's history is full of innovation and new ideas. It knows how to do revolutionary better than any other car company. But this E, it's lovely to be in, it's lovely to drive, but it's just a load of existing technology wrapped in some fancy clothes.