Tiny Honda EV Finally Crosses Into Europe With Fake Gears And A Sub-£19K Sticker

For two decades, getting your hands on a brand-new kei car outside Japan meant either importing a grey-market example or giving up entirely. Honda is about to change that story with the Super-N, a genuine factory-backed kei EV arriving in Europe this summer with a full warranty and a price tag that undercuts almost everything else on sale.

Built on the bones of Japan's Super-One and channeling the spirit of the beloved 1980s City Turbo II, the Super-N starts at just £18,995 (roughly $25,100 or €21,900). That makes it Honda's least expensive EV anywhere in Europe, sitting only £345 above BYD's entry-level Dolphin Surf and comfortably below the expected price of Renault's Twingo E-Tech.

Despite measuring a mere 3,599 mm long and 1,573 mm wide, Honda insists the Super-N can genuinely seat four adults. Credit goes to a clever flip-up rear seat base borrowed from the same packaging philosophy that made the original Honda Jazz punch above its weight against rivals like the Ford Fiesta back in 2001.

The real party trick, though, is what happens when you hit the dashboard's BOOST button. Left in its default setting, the compact e-Axle sends out 63 hp, enough for a relaxed 14.5-second crawl to 62 mph. Mash BOOST and output surges to 94 hp, slashing that time down to a much livelier 10.0 seconds. In a car tipping the scales at just 1,097 kg, that shift is enough to make city driving feel genuinely spirited rather than merely adequate.

Honda has also fitted a simulated seven-speed gearbox complete with fake shift points and an artificial powertrain soundtrack, technology that first appeared in cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N and has since spread all the way to Porsche's updated Taycan. It's a small but telling sign of how far synthetic engagement features have trickled down the market.

Given its 29.6 kWh battery, the Super-N is clearly built for city duty rather than long hauls, with a WLTP range of 128 miles that Honda claims can stretch to 199 miles in stop-start urban conditions. An 80 percent fast charge takes about half an hour. Throw in CarPlay and Android Auto support, a Bose sound system, and multiple graphics packages for personalization, and the Super-N looks like Honda finally leveraging its kei car heritage to build something small, cheap, and genuinely fun for European roads. American buyers, unfortunately, are still left watching from the sidelines.