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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

Hope the price is in line with that short range, 124 miles and that is probably the more generous testing methods.

Is there a market for low hundred mile (two hundred KM or less) vehicles? Perhaps if the price is seriously low as well. Wasn't long ago this range would have been amazing but Telsa basically forced the industry as a whole towards providing true usable range. I am of the opinion that three hundred miles plus is where premium brands must land and mid two hundred is fine for standard cars, for now. The sub 200 club is just not trying or needs to be priced so well to create a market; commuter style.

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I think it depends where you are - if you're in a city, you probably do very low mileage. Yes, of course, there are plenty of people who do 100+ mile commutes or are traveling salespeople, but most of the people I know could have a car with a sub-100 mile range and that would never (or perhaps once a year on an airport run) be a problem.

I think we all need to think differently about transportation, and that it's just 'tough' if you have to take a 1-hour break in a long (200 mile+) journey. We've been spoiled by our ability to pollute our way around, and we need to recalibrate that in the same way it's not socially acceptable to litter, drink drive or the many other common behaviours that we now no longer do.

It's even better you can get 200mi of range in 35 minutes now with a model 3. Soon 300 miles in 15 minutes will be possible...

> Is there a market for low hundred mile (two hundred KM or less) vehicles?

I hope so, and I trust that Honda did due dil on potential market size.

My wife and I are in the market for a small electric car - commute is less than 25km so this would be perfect for us. And looks cooler than Nissan's Leaf.

For when we need range / space we have a (decently efficient) CI car that we know we can rely on.

This definitely isn't a road trip vehicle, but as a daily driver it could be great for a lot of people. I work from home, but my wife drives to work and it's about 9 miles round trip. So she could get to and from work and take a bunch of diversions along the way to run errands and still easily be under 20 miles per day.

The great thing about electric cars is that, as far as I know, unlike ICE vehicles, short journeys do not cause excessive wear on the engine and drivetrain because oil, water and components are unable to get up to correct operating temperature.

How does this square up with the advice not to "warm up" your car that seems pretty common from automakers these days?

If you mean warming up your car by idling before you drive off then yes, that advice is rather stale.

First, by idling you only warm up the engine, oil and coolant. By the time you drive off your gearbox oil is still cold, as are the driveshafts, CV joints, differential, and your brake fluid.

Lots of new cars have something called a cold start where for the first minute or two they run very rich, burning excess fuel to get the catalytic converter and exhaust up to temperature as quickly as possible for emissions reasons.

You definitely should warm up your engine, but strictly before starting it and not by idling it (i.e. use a block heater). This is because it takes a lot of time for the engine to warm up when idling without any load.

For the Japanese domestic market (and China, to a great extent) 124 miles is plenty for a large proportion of consumers. The Honda E appears to qualify as a Kei car, making it uniquely appealing in Japan.

I don't understand, how is it better than the Leaf which gets better range than 124 miles now?

It's a different market; it's a sporty RWD subcompact car with amazing design aesthetic. North Americans love huge vehicles and don't "get" this market which is why we have almost no cars sold in this segment anymore. But in European and Asian cities a small vehicle like this makes a huge amount of sense, and they sell very well.

It's maybe more competition for the Kia Soul EV than anything else, but this is sportier and much nicer looking.

Borrows the design language of the classic Honda Civic, which is nice, as all of Honda's current cars look terrible.

I'm not usually a fan of Honda and up until recently they were openly hostile to electrification, but this vehicle is really nice.

Kei cars are small (unless I'm gravely mistaken), while Leaf isn't that kind of small.

If you can charge every night, 124 miles will easily handle most commutes. In a traditional American 2 car family, one car is a commuter and the 2nd car can be kept for longer trips.

2nd car?

Id need that range very rarely, certainly not for the 2nd car.

The stats for commuting distances would seem to back that up.

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