5 years and 59,792 km ago to the day we leased an electric car. But not just any electric car – Honda e. I first fell in love with it when it was still a prototype and the decision to buy it was purely emotional, not rational. This is the worst way to make a decision, but 5 years later I stand by it. I love this car. I love to drive it. I love looking at it. It has a lot of drawbacks. Some would consider them deal breakers. But it is so much fun.
When last month a moment came to decide what to do next, I looked at the car market with a bit of shock. I didn’t want anything used, Chinese or crazy expensive. I didn’t see anything interesting. So after thorough consideration, I decided to buy out my lease and drive this Honda into the ground.
Design
It’s still a looker. Just yesterday I was overtaking a car on the highway and suddenly it started to catch up with me. I was a bit frustrated (I hate when people do that), but then I saw that two people in the car were looking at the Honda and smiling. They gave me a thumbs up and went back to their original speed.
It’s still one of the best-looking, most unique cars on the road. The closest thing among comparable cars is the new Renault 5, though it’s not as fun.
Range and Charging
I’ve charged it outside of the home only a handful of times. 5 years in, I still haven’t opted for a wall charger and continue to charge it from the regular outlet.
It still gets me almost the same range, around 170km of range during summer. So I charge it every 2-3 days during summer and every day during winter. If I lived in a city or had a garage, I would probably charge it less often, but it stays outside even during harsh winter.
Screens and Tech
I still love the coexistence of 6 screens in the car with physical buttons. Unfortunately, the main screen and computer behind it are not the best. Especially during winter, before the car is fully warmed up, they lag.
Wireless CarPlay still works and is still amazing. The side mirrors are clear as day and I still love them. I’ve used the 220V outlet in the center console multiple times to charge my phone fast.
After the PS5 connection experiment, I haven’t connected anything to HDMI ever since.
Drive
It is still really fun to drive. I love how small the turning radius is. It is a perfect city car. You can park it anywhere. It fits. Also, being electric, it’s really responsive. It’s not Tesla fast, but for daily driving it is more than enough.
Expenses
Probably the most interesting part for everyone. For the first time – full picture of expenses published.
35,000 EUR – price of the car (additionally we’ve got 500 EUR credit for charging or parking the car, which I’ve used for parking our diesel car and donated the rest of it).
4,206 EUR – interest on the lease and some fees
2,369 EUR – maintenance, which included yearly checkups (around 200 EUR each), tires (I blew two of them in the first year and had both winter and summer tires), change of one parking sensor (around 300 EUR and there are 13 of them, so fingers crossed they will last longer).
3,333 EUR – insurance, both OCTA and KASKO. The latter one was around 500 EUR a year and now thankfully went down to around 250 EUR.
42 EUR – got a government inspection twice.
241 EUR – car washes
134 EUR – parking, for all the times I couldn’t find free parking.
31 EUR – charging outside the home
4 EUR – car sharing for a time when I had to leave my car at the dealership for service
85 EUR – two speeding tickets I got
The last one is an approximation of charging costs. I drove 59,792 km and my average consumption was 18 kWh/100 km, which comes down to 10,763 kWh of electricity used. During that time I’ve had different tariffs, 0.14 EUR/kWh, 0.06 EUR/kWh and 0.11 EUR/kWh. So even if we calculate with the highest one, it would be 1,507 EUR for charging the car, which in reality was even less.
Total comes to 46,952 EUR over 59,792 km, which comes down to roughly 0.79 EUR/km.
Conclusion
Plans have changed we are driving forward. That’s how I feel about this car. Does it have any drawbacks? Sure it does. But do I love driving it every single time I get behind the wheel? Yes.
