Honda Super-N Review: It proves UK rules are STUPID!

A boost button! Oh yeah, I can't wait to press it. This is the new Honda Super N, which later on in this video I'll mistakenly call the N-Sport. And it's a little bit like a bonsai tree because it's Japanese, it's small and it's green. Even though this one's actually purple. Anyway, in this video I'm going to tell you why you should definitely buy it, but at the same time definitely not buy it. Confused? You will be. I am. Is this car's name a complete lie? The N-Sport. Is it truly sporty? We're going to find out by launching it. We've got a single electric motor driving the front wheels with 64 horsepower. I'm in sports mode, especially it's timing gear. It's going to time it from 0 to 60. 3, 2, 1. Come on, I don't want to run out of road. 11.37 seconds. It's not that sporty. Listen carefully, you might be noticing something. Come back to what I'm talking about in a moment. But while that wasn't that impressive, there is a way to make it more impressive. Because I forgot about something! The boost button. All right then, I'm now going to press this boost button. And instead of 64 horsepower, we now have 95. Probably make a difference. Let's go. Oh yeah, I'm feeling that. This is more like it. 8.8 seconds. That's like old school hot hatch quick. That is actually pretty good. And it feels sporty. I like it. It's nippy. But does it stop well? Let's find out. Brake test. From 60 miles an hour. A decent number is 35 meters. Anything under that? Oh, is that a baby pheasant? Like the babiest pheasant. Oh no, here comes a bus. Here's a reason to actually stop. 33 meters. That's good. And I'm a mile away from the bus. There are two main reasons why this car stops so well. The first is that you get good tyres and standard. Look, Yokohama, proper Japanese tyres. Also, it's light. It weighs under 1.1 tons. And that's because it's so small. It's actually based on a Japanese K car, which is a certain category of car they have in Japan, which are super small with small engines called the N1. But here for the N... No, it's not N Sport. The N... The Super N, they have made it about that much wider and about that much longer. But it's still dinky by European standards. So look, I can step the full width of the car quite easily. It's about 1.5 meters wide. But how many steps for the length of it? You ready? Biggest steps ever. Can I do it in two? Just 3.6 meters long. There's something like Japanese anime character about it, isn't there? I love the headlights. And then you've got some big vents down here. And these vents do stuff. That's a real vent. This is a real vent to help cool the battery. Moving down the side. I love this, the wheel arches. They remind me of the wheel arches on a Group B rally car. It looks so, so good. Wheels, they're dinky. 15 inches. I mean, certain cars like Bentleys and Audis and stuff, have up to 23 inches. Just 15 here. But they fill the arches perfectly. In fact, the whole car's dimensions are just beautifully proportioned. Looks good. It looks sporty, looks squat, looks purposeful. But with these side skirts, make it look like it's hugging the ground. More air vents there. Once again, doing real stuff, not fake. More flared wheel arches. And then here around the back, this big roof spoiler. Interestingly, you can have this Honda in black. Or you can have some decals across the roof. You can also get a black roof. But those are the only differences from car to car. Otherwise, as standard, they all look the same. There is one thing to note, and it's this here. Reminds me of the rain lights on a Formula 1 car. It's actually the fog light. Reason being that it's there and not in the light cluster is because in Japan, you don't have to have a rear fog light that you do in Europe. So they've had to fit that to make it compatible with EU and UK laws. Overall, I love the look of it. This thing turns head, as you will see when I take it for a drive. People just rubberneck it. Now the inside. The inside's interesting. Let me show you. Apart from this blue flash and this LED strip here on the dash and the cool looking seats. A bit bland and plasticky, a bit kind of budget. And check this out. Look at this. What? Lisa's steering wheel feels nice and the switches are quite nicely damped. Another thing I like is this. Hallelujah. Physical climate control buttons with heated seat there. But this is classic Honda. There's all the climate stuff. Apart from one thing, what's missing? Oh, the heated steering wheel, which is down here by your knee. Yeah, by your knee. What's all of that about? Now, the rest of the car is pretty logically laid out because there's not much to it. You've got this main screen here, which, look, it's a little bit dark and dingy, but you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless. But you can probably see here the definition's a bit meh. It's the same when you put the car in reverse with the reversing camera. There we go, see? Low definition. Same with the driver's display, but it does show quite a lot of information on it. So you can go through different menus by pressing this home button. Then you can scroll through and see all these different layouts and information. That is actually pretty good. I like that feature. In terms of practicality, it's... So the door bins, they're good enough for a bottle, look. Then you have a cup holder down here, which is quite deep, so bottles don't fall over. But my favourite bit, you have a cup holder there and it's right in front of the air conditioning, which can be a good or a bad thing. When it's hot and you have your air conditioning on very low, it keeps your drink cool. But if you've got coffee, you wouldn't want to put it there because then it'll cool it down. And then it's the flip if it's the wintertime. That makes sense. Now, you do have some storage on here, this tray, and that's for your mobile phone. But if you accelerate hard, your mobile phone will slide out of there. You have your USBs there, so it's not too much cabling dangling down here, which is good. So there is a 12-volt socket down there, as you can see. Glovebox, it's fine, fine. Another practical feature is these massive sun visors with big vanity mirrors, which is good. The only thing that I'm finding a bit awkward are the seats. These bolsters grab my bottom a little bit tightly. I'm not sure if it's because I've got a fat bottom. Miguel, give me the camera. I want you to sit in there. Tell the truth. Don't try and make out I've just got a fat bottom because I don't think I have. I'm quite slim. I think I'm quite slimly hipped. OK, exactly, exactly. So it is for petite Japanese people, I think. But overall, I do like it in here. The best bit, though, is probably the back seat. So easy to get into the back of this car because the rear doors open to almost 90 degrees and the opening is huge. Look, that is impressive. What's also impressive is knee room, headroom. Well, if you're really tall, you might find it tight, but there is a solution and it's this. Get a recline on, my friend. Oh, my goodness. Why do you need cars to be bigger than this? Now, because the mattress is on the floor, yeah, you do sit quite low to it, so there's not great under-thigh support. That's not bad. And you can put your feet into the seat in front. Also, you've got a bit of storage. Look, there's a door bin there for a bottle and another bit of storage there. However, there are no USB ports anywhere in here. It's a bit annoying. So too is this, look. Three windows are big and they're nice, but they don't quite go all the way down. Ah, what I can't fault, though, is how easy it is to fit a child seat in here. The Isofix angle points are easy to get to and there is enough space, even for a bulky rear-facing seat. So that is all good. Is the boot good, though? Let's find out. The boot capacity is 160 litres, which isn't loads, is it? At least there's no load left. There's a bit of storage underneath there. How much can you fit in there? Let's find out. I'll just put the seat in its more upright position, give it a chance. All right, let's put some suitcases in. Here is one suitcase. How am I going to do these? I can't do it that way. Can I even do it that? I can't even do it that way. That won't shut. Oh, let's try that way. Is this going to shut? A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. Let's try one more, actually. No chance of bother. Not even close. Two suitcases. Oh dear. Yeah, a Renault 5 has a bigger boot. That brings me up to five annoying things about this car. While the steering wheel has height adjustments, it goes up and down, it doesn't have reach, so you won't go in and out, which could be problematic depending on your ratio of arm length to leg length. There is only one colour available as standard, and believe it or not, it is this purple, which is sort of limiting because most people in the UK would rather have a more sedate colour than this purple. And then you have to pay an extra £700. The door handle is built into the armrest. So when you want to rest your arm on the armrest, it goes into that door handle and it ain't comfy. I hate Honda's drive select because these buttons are confusing. Reason B, right? You think that this is drive. Pulling down. Let's go. Pull to drive, like in a normal automatic. But no, it's this button here, which feels like it should more be reversed. Look, I want to go backwards. I'm going to press the one towards the back. The quickest the Super N can charge is a mere 50 kilowatts, which means it only adds about two and a half miles per minute charging at its very best, which is slow by modern standards. However, it's not all bad though because I do like the location of the charging port here on the front because most people are going to charge this at home. You just drive it to your driveway, to your charging station and plug it straight in. No having to reverse when you're that close. Look what you can do with the seats. Lift it up. Lock it in place. Lift it up. Lock it in place. And then you can walk through the car. That's not the real reason for having that feature. It's so you can carry taller items just in this part of the car there. Makes up for the small boot. Unlike with an overpriced car from Porsche, you get a Bose sound system as standard in the Honda. There's even a subwoofer in the boot. See these paddles on the steering wheel. Look. Now, unlike with most EVs, they're not for increasing or decreasing your regenerative braking. Oh no. They're actually fake gear changes. So when you're accelerating, you pull on a paddle, it'll actually give you a brief interruption in torque so you get a jolt and it feels like you're changing gear. There's even a rev counter and some fake engine noise. The Super N is good for virtue signalling because you see this pedal on the front? This is actually made from the recycled covers over the car's taillights. But that's not all. This material on the seats is made from recycled Honda factory worker uniforms. This part is from their skin. It's not from their skin. This is fake leather, don't worry. This car is fully vegan friendly. I'll tell you what's also good. The price. The Honda Super N costs just £19,000. It's not bad, is it? Thing is though, you could have a nearly new Renault 5 for the same money through Carwow. Stopping at that. Or if you want to go for an internal combustion engine car, what about this Op GTI I found on Carwow? Regardless, one of the problems with buying a used car is the fact that you don't know fully what its history is. Unless, of course, you do a car vertical history check. That's why for every used car, you should do that. Because here's a VW up with a dodgy past. Look, the car vertical history check shows that it's been crashed. Probably wouldn't want to buy that, would you? Thing is though, does this drive as good as a VW Op GTI? Let's find out. I'm going to come right out and say it. I absolutely love driving this little car on the twisty roads around where I live. I've got loads of cars on loan at the moment, but this is the one I keep on picking up the keys for. It is so much fun. It really is. It's just a great little thing to drive. It makes you so happy. Well, it makes me happy. And do you know what? There's something about it. You can tell that at Honda, the engineers love driving cars and they set them up in a way that would please them and would please other people that love driving cars. You can also tell it's a company that isn't governed by the accountants, nor the marketeers. It's the engineers that drive things forward. It is such a fun little car. The controls, just so precise, so in tune with your brain. The throttle response is on it. The brake feel is lovely. The steering is just nice. You don't even have to drive very far to tell this is a really well set up car. It's perfect for people like me, like motoring journalists. All motoring journalists will love how this car drives. And then there's the fake gears. Yeah, the noise is artificial, but as electric cars go, this just adds another dimension. It really does. It just makes it even more fun. There is one thing that would make it even, even, even more fun though. Imagine if we had the turbocharged engine, the 660cc turbocharged engine that they get in Japan in the K version of this car and a manual gearbox. Why don't we have it? Because of European rules. In fact, European rules made worse by Brexit because when Europe said, well, we want all cars to be electric by 35, all new cars, Great Britain went, oh, well, we're separate for you now. We don't have to follow you. We're going to do it five years sooner because we're idiots. Meanwhile, the Japanese are sitting back watching us going, what the heck are they doing to their country? Anyway, rant over because I'm just going to enjoy this car because for an electric car, it is great fun and there is a benefit to it being electric. You're not heat cycling an engine when you just take it for a little short drive. It's really low maintenance. You don't have to take it to the petrol station to fill it up. You can just charge it at home. It's so good. I am seriously considering buying one of these for me, but should you buy it for you? No, that is a completely different proposition. I'm going to explain why. Before we get into that though, I need to allay your fears about something. So you might be thinking, oh, well, obviously this car is sport to drive and it handles really flat and you know, that's great, but does that mean the suspension is too firm? Well, no, it's not. It's fine. It does have a firmish edge to it, but just in a sporty kind of way, it never feels uncomfortable. Actually, it feels great. Even around town, just mooching about going over bumps and stuff. Can't complain about it. And also around town, this feels very, very compact because it is compact compared to all the SUVs everyone's driving around. Everybody should actually be driving around town in these, not SUVs. And visibility is great, huge window, pillars aren't too fat, big door mirrors, great big back window. It's just so easy. And the steering, nice and light in town. Another thing I like about it is there's decent pickup. Like if you put your foot down and you're in boost mode like that, look, it's so quick. I thought I was going to crash into our tracking coach who's filming me as I'm driving along. It's just instant, which is perfect for pulling out of junctions. It really is. You're not left floundering. If you're in eco mode, you won't quite go like that. Let me just do it. It's much slower, but it's not bad. If you floor it, it seems to understand what you want, but I'm not going to drive around like that. I'm going to be in boost mode. That's where the fun is. Look, people are just looking at it the whole time. They're going to love it. What is that? Where the compact dimensions really help out is parking. I don't think I'm going to fit in there, but I might be able to fit in this one. Will I fit in that one? Let's have a go. Reverse. I just remembered I'm rubbish at parking. So whatever you see me do here, you'll be able to do twice as well. That's basically how this works. Look, everyone looks at this car. Thankfully, we've got parking sensors. And we're in. Let's see how close I am to the kerb. Not bad for someone who can't park. Have a look around here. Now, I could get closer to the kerb than that, but this is the beauty of a car this small. If you come back out here, I'm actually not sticking out further much than this. And very similar to the van. Wonderful. But we need to test something else. Actually, do you know what? I'm going to put it right. Brilliant. I can't be bothered to get it out there. James! Can you get the car out? Thanks. Just let James do that. We've got loads of room. More, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. Stop. Reverse hard, left hand down. You can see how close you can get there. Really close. Many, many minutes later. Right, that's it. Now, reverse up and put the car there, and I'll get back in. A bit further back. Stop. Thanks, James. Appreciate it. I'm such a diva. Well, that is great. There is one thing that isn't quite as good as I expected. And that's the turning circle. So it's 10.6 metres, which is okay, right? But for a car this small, I thought it'd be tighter. I should be able to make it round here. But if there's another car there, I'd be scuppered. That's fine. But it's not as impressive as I'd expect for a car this tiny. Hardly a deal breaker, but that brings me on to the area where this car struggles. And this could make or break it. Okay, so now we come to the problem with this car. It's not this, though. It's not the fact that you're joining the motorway, you think it's going to be a bit slow, but it's not. You put it in boost mode, and this is the pickup from 40 to 70. Three, two, one, go. For a small car, this isn't too bad getting to 70, which is... Nah. Also, the noise levels. Yeah, there's wind noise and there's road noise, but not bad for a car of this size. Absolutely fine. Do you know what the issue is? It's the range. You see, I've driven this car from having a full battery to it being completely empty, and it did 120 miles. That's all. Now, it's supposed to do 128, average. So it's close to what Honda claim. Now, they do say that all round town, it'll do, like, almost 200 miles, but you don't need that extra range when you're driving only round town, because if you're only driving round town, you're close to your home, and you're always going to just be charging it up, aren't you? So that doesn't make sense. And that's the problem with this car. The thing that makes it great to drive is also the thing that makes it not great to own. You see, its battery capacity of about 30 kilowatt hours keeps this car nice and light. It makes it agile, nimble, and just makes it have that wonderful feel to it. But it means your range is no good. And couple that with the fact that it's really slow charging, even on DC current, if you want to do a long journey in this, it's going to be an absolute nightmare. You're going to be stopping regularly, and you won't be able to go to some places if the charging infrastructure just isn't there. And this just means it has a very narrow remit, this car. And this brings me to the problem with this thing. It's not a problem with this car in particular. It's the problem with our rules. And here's why. You see, the British government has this thing called ZEV mandate, which means that car manufacturers have to have so much of their fleet as zero-emission electric vehicles. Otherwise, if they produce too much internal combustion engine cars, they'll get a fine. But imagine now if Honda bought this thing in with a little three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, it would be a car that would suit so many more people. And wouldn't it be better if a lot of people were willing to switch from normal cars into something small and highly efficient? Yes, petrol, but still, the overall effect to the country's CO2 emissions could be reduced more so than just making this little car electric, because ultimately, not many people are going to buy it. It seems backwards thinking, really. So instead of going on about this, no, internal combustion engine cars sold new from 2030, maybe we should implement something like the Japanese have in terms of a K-car category, where you get tax breaks, you get price reductions on cars that are below a certain size, engine capacity and fuel consumption. I think that would be a better way to get people out of big cars into cool stuff like this for most little journeys and help reduce the overall carbon output of the country. But no, we're not that clever, are we? And so we end up with a car that is brilliant, but massively compromised for money. So then what's my final verdict on the new Honda Super N? Should you avoid it, consider it, shortlist it, or just go right ahead and buy it? Well, even though I love it and I think it's more fun to drive than a Renault 5 and it looks even cooler because of the dinky dimensions, the issue is the range. It's just going to be hard to recommend it to many people because this is less of a car and more of a toy. And if you can afford a toy at 19 grand, go for it. But if you need a car, I wouldn't recommend you get this. Do you agree with my verdict though? Let me know in the comments. Also, watch that video there to see if you agree with my thoughts about the Renault 5 not being as cool to look at, nor quite as fun to drive. Maybe you disagree with that as well. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a like and I'll see you next time.