The Honda Super N is the car you never knew you wanted

This is the Honda Super N and it is one of the most interesting, one of the most surprising and I'm going to say one of the most appealing cars that I've ever tested. At £18,995, the Super N goes up against other small electric cars such as the Hyundai Insta, the Fiat 500e and the BYD Dolphin Surf and is also up against cheaper models including that The Super N is designed to Japanese K-Car regulations. You actually buy this in Japan just as the Honda N but the Super N is a bit different because it's a little bit bigger, it's electric but it's still tiny. 3.6 metres long, it's only 1.8 metres wide, it's smaller than a Dacia Spring and because it's so small it obviously doesn't have a huge battery so the maximum official range in this is 128 miles so not huge. What is huge however and what is quite surprising is the space inside. Want to see something clever? Firstly look how wide these doors open, look how big the space is and then look inside because the Super N gets Honda's amazing magic seat so you can lift these bases up and carry all sorts of things and then if you want seats just drop them down like that. It's so simple and look how much space there is. I'm going to climb in and slide across so if you follow me in I mean this thing is proper TARDIS like. So I'm 5 foot 11, this is where my driving position is and look how much space I've got in the back of this. I've got room for my knees, there's a bit of room under there for my feet, decent amount of headroom. You can only fit two because it's such a narrow car but I mean it's incredible isn't it? Amazing. It looks terrific too, the flared wheel arches, the rear spoiler and the 15-inch alloy wheels all give it something of the stance of a shrunken hot hatch. Now the huge amount of space in the back seat is unfortunately not carried over to the boot which is tiny and also has this enormous tailgate so you need quite a bit of space behind the car, relatively speaking, in order to open it but you only get 165 litres in here so that's quite a bit smaller than in a Dacia Spring. You can see we've got charging cables in here. I mean it's not a disaster but it's definitely on the small side and there's not really much in the way of underfloor storage either. If you drop these rear seats that gets you 967 litres of space and one thing I've actually just noticed is if I pull this back up again you can make a little bit more space by having these seats a bit more upright. Obviously that's not going to be as comfortable for rear seat passengers but it does get you a bit more. Before I hop in, I just want to point out these seats. These have quite deep bolsters and side support because the Super N is actually a little bit of a hot hatch so these seats are designed to make it feel a bit sporty. Now before we get to also just want to talk about the general layout and how sensible it is in here. So if you're used to electric cars being a bit different, very minimalist, this is not one of those. So I've got lots of physical buttons here for all the heating controls. I've got heated seats and a heated steering wheel in this that comes in all Super Ns and everything just feels very simple including the view out is really remarkably good. Obviously you've got really tall windows, tall windscreen, excellent visibility. The driving position is pretty good. You can make the seat quite high. I actually like it quite low in this. The only thing in terms of driving position is the steering wheel only adjusts for height. I would like it to come a bit closer to me but other than that I think the driving position is great. Every Super N gets a 9-inch central touchscreen and a 7-inch driver's display. The software is familiar Honda fare, recently tidied up so that the menus make more sense although it's still quite basic in places. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both standard. Something not quite so good about this interior is the storage or rather the lack of storage. So you have like a flat tray down here and a cup holder and then you've got this shelf here and a diddy glove box. The problem is all of it is the same hard plastic and so if you put your phone on it even in this sort of indent here it tends to slide around a bit when you're driving. There's another cup holder here which is pretty handy but yeah overall in-car storage is a bit lacking. Every time I get in I think oh am I going to put my phone and my keys and stuff. You also have this kind of indent here in the door which I think is designed as a bit of an armrest but because again it's really hard plastic it's actually not particularly comfortable to rest your arm there. What is the Honda Super N like to drive? Well it's a car with some quite different characters actually. If you just get in it and you press the drive mode down here and you set off it is I mean a bit like a smaller Honda Jazz. It's smooth, the controls are all very predictable, it's a really really easy car to drive. I said it's got great visibility, it's obviously very narrow so it's very easy to thread through little gaps. It's a great town car as you would expect. Surprisingly it's also pretty good on the motorway. It all sits at 70 quite easily. It feels much more stable than you might expect given its tiny footprint and overall you really can just use this car as you would any other Super Mini. It just kind of works. Then you have these different drive modes. So in normal mode everything feels pretty responsive. You can knock it into city mode and that gives you basically one pedal driving so much stronger brake region. You can also adjust the brake region on the back of the steering wheel here and in any of these modes you have 63 horsepower for a 0-62mph time of 14.5 seconds. So well not fast. Another impressive thing about the Super N is the ride comfort. It's actually remarkably good considering the tiny wheelbase. It really does absorb bumps pretty well indeed. So all in all with all those different drive modes and the visibility and the smooth predictable controls and the brake region it's just a really easy simple car to drive. But then there is the other side of the Super N which you access via this button on the steering wheel called boost and that unlocks, I mean it's going to sound a bit pathetic, but it unlocks another 30 horsepower. So in standard mode 63 horsepower. In boost mode 94 horsepower, a 50% increase. The 0-62mph time drops from 14 seconds to 10 seconds. These paddles on the back of the steering wheel, well they change from brake region to a fake gear shift. You get a fake engine sound and honestly it feels like a different car to drive. It's like a mini hot hatch. It's so much fun and because the ride is composed it actually stands up really well to being thrown around a bit. What a wicked little thing. The Super N rides on beefed up suspension with a wider track and firmer springs. It has grippy Yokohama performance tyres in place of the usual eco rubber that you might expect to find on a small EV. If there was one thing about this Super N that I could ask for an improvement on it would be the steering. It's not bad, it's not bad, it's just a bit slow to respond. I think that particularly when you're in boost mode, the way this thing can make you grin and the way it will hang on through corners, it's like a little terrier, it's fantastic. I would just like it if the steering turned in a bit more sharply with a bit more urgency. But that aside, I don't know, it's just got so much character this car. It's hard not just to love it. It's not a full hot hatch, you know, 10 seconds 0-62 is ultimately not that quick but it just always feels faster than that. It feels so invigorating and full of joy to drive. It's a bit like an old Mini in that you feel like you're always going about 10 miles an hour faster than you actually are just because the sensations are just so vivid. It's just great. Charging is handled by a 50 kilowatt DC connection which is pretty slow by modern standards. However, because the battery is only 29.6 kilowatt hours, it can still charge from 15 to 80 percent in around half an hour. Now actually, even in boost mode, this is still an incredibly efficient little car. It weighs about 1100 kilos, a little bit less so, you know, not light for the size of the car but certainly light by EV standards and it will easily do four and a half to five miles per kilowatt hour which is incredibly efficient and it means that, okay, so the official range is only 128 miles but at least you know you're making the most of that battery. You're not just driving around in two and a half tons of EV not being very efficient. This thing is all about efficiency, lightweight and fun and it does all that whilst feeling just more grown up than you would ever believe. I've had four people in this car cruising around. It never feels that small inside. It just feels like a normal car actually once you're inside it until you press boost and then it feels like a go car. Now clearly, it's not perfect this car. As we've said, the steering could be sharper, the range is going to limit its appeal for some people, the boot could be bigger and the in-car storage isn't brilliant and I don't care about any of those things because it's so flipping charming. It's so much fun. It just puts a smile on your face and there are not enough cars these days that do that. I think this Honda Super N is such a welcome addition to the new car market and I really encourage you to go and have a look at one because I think it might surprise you.