Why the Honda E won: The E’s futuristic exterior looks are backed up by the kind of clever technology to which even Tesla would doff its cap.
The E is just one of the winners in this year's Britain's Best Car Awards - see the full list here.
For much of the past decade, many manufacturers have considered themselves at the cutting edge of in-car technology simply by having touchscreens. The bigger, the shinier and the more of them there are, the more like Apple we are, seems to be the rationale.
But for every iPhone, there’s an unbranded knock-off from the local market that’s little more than a glorified calculator. In the car world, that analogy extends to the best in-car tech enhancing the overall experience, the worst being downright unsafe and distracting.
Nobody yet has come along and really convinced us that full digitisation is preferable to a good old-fashioned joystick-style controller and a few sensibly located and sparingly used buttons.
The Honda E is winning the argument against us, though. Here’s a car whose interior – and even elements of its exterior – is designed around the tech, rather than seemingly having it stuck on as an afterthought.
Its show-stopping feature is rear-view cameras that replace wing mirrors. This isn’t a world-first new feature, granted, but it is at the E’s price point. And while they take a few journeys to get used to, you soon appreciate the wider field of vision they afford you, the handy markings that show distance to cars behind when you’re changing lanes and their improved visibility in low light, not to mention their near-immunity to interference from direct sunlight. They also have the handy knack of reducing drag and therefore improving aerodynamic efficiency.
The ‘mirror’ screens at the base of the A-pillars are merely the bookends to the full-width digital dashboard, which has been created by those who not only know software development but also the realities of how in-car tech is used on the road.
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