Honda’s tiny Sports EV Concept is big in Japan – Roadshow

Honda managed to nail a particularly difficult design brief with its Urban EV hatchback concept at the Geneva Motor Show, managing to make retro proportions and details blend seamlessly with futuristic surfacing and a modern EV powertrain. Just unveiled at Wednesday’s Tokyo Motor Show, Honda’s new Sports EV Concept takes that same winning cocktail and applies it to a two-seat sports coupe.

The result is sensational.

The two door’s cab-backward proportions and round halo headlamps bring to mind Honda’s short-lived S600 Coupe from the 1960s, yet the Sports EV Concept doesn’t appear slavishly nostalgic or out of date. Its hunkered stance, large wheels and cantilevered glassback roof design help it feel up to date.

Although Honda has thus far declined to give out specifications for this new show car, it appears to be smaller than today’s Mazda MX-5 Miata, making it a little slip of a thing. Unsurprisingly, the Sports EV Concept is based on the same all-electric architecture as the Urban EV Concept — a model Honda has already confirmed for select world markets in 2020. That commonality suggests that Honda could have production in mind.

We’ll push Honda for more specifications and details here at the Tokyo show, every bit as hard as we’re going to push them to make a production version of this little electric hero.