Honda Super-N road test: £19k Twingo chaser is “truly fun to drive”

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Kei car-based cutie escapes from Japan as Honda’s latest EV venture

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The Honda Super-N, along with the Renault Twingo, is one of the green shoots appearing in the scorched earth that was the previously thriving A-segment. Fun, affordable small cars have had a tough time with legislation and profitability, leaving them neither much fun nor very affordable. As battery prices are coming down, though, there’s now hope that A-segment cars can return as EVs.

With the £18,995 Super-N, Honda is rekindling the joy of pocket-size driver’s cars like the Renault Twingo RS 133 and VW Up GTI. It truly is small: just 3600mm long and 1573mm wide without the mirrors, but with its pumped-up arches, sporty tyres and simulated engine and gearbox, it promises real driving fun as well.

It’s a bit of an experiment in more ways than one. Being derived from the Japanese-market N-One E, it tests whether Japanese kei cars can work in Europe. They’re wildly popular in the insular market of Japan, where they offer affordable motoring, albeit at a cost of some performance and safety. Indeed, the Super-N boasts just 128 miles of range and 94bhp. Are we willing to make the same trade-offs over here??

It also represents a reset for Honda’s EV strategy, if 'strategy' isn’t too generous a word. Like most Japanese manufacturers, Honda hasn’t exactly embraced electric cars, and its first two attempts haven’t moved the needle. The Honda E was highly likeable but offered very little range for a very high price. The e:Ny1 was still expensive but not very good. After cancelling its 0 Series EVs, the Super-N is a way of literally starting small and going from there.

Clearly, Honda is going to need a lot more to stay relevant in Europe – particularly since the Super-N is sold only in right-hand-drive markets – but that’s something for the execs to worry about. All we’ll concern ourselves with for now is whether the Super-N can deliver enough fun and utility to make it make sense despite the short range.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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Honda Super N review 002

For us in Europe, the Super-N is an entirely new car that shares very little with the existing Honda line-up, but back in Japan it’s the latest evolution of a long line of kei cars that started in 1967 with the N360, which evolved into the Life and finally, in 2012, into the N-One, reprising some of the N360’s styling cues. The current, second generation is powered primarily by three-cylinder engines, but last year also spawned the electric N-One E.

Despite Japan’s EV scepticism (the market share was just 1.3% in 2025), kei cars lend themselves well to an electric drivetrain. Because they’re limited to 3.4 metres in length, they tend to be quite tall to fit everything in. The N-One already carries its fuel tank under the front seats, so a battery fits neatly in the same space, with ancillary electronics going under the short bonnet that normally hides a tiny 658cc engine.

The matt black 'grille' is speckled with white because it's made from recycled bumpers of other cars. It's a neat effect – I like it.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

It’s necessarily a very small battery, mind. It’s an NMC unit of just 25.4kWh of usable capacity made by AESC in Japan. The engineers say the platform has the potential to accommodate a bigger battery, but that would require a bit of reconfiguring, so would only be realistic for a next generation.

The motor, inverter and all of the power electronics, meanwhile, are bought in wholesale from a supplier, which certainly shows that Honda is nowhere near as serious about EVs as all the Western and Korean brands that have been bringing this technology in-house.

The motor has only 63bhp, in line with kei car standards, but in the Super-N it can temporarily be boosted to 94bhp. In general, the Super-N breaks out of the kei car straitjacket, as it is meant as an export product. As such, its sportier bumpers and wider arches mean it’s longer (3600mm) and wider (1573mm without mirrors) than would be allowed.

By any other standard, though, this is still a very small car. For reference, the Toyota Aygo X hybrid is 176mm longer and 167mm wider. Despite the pumped-up looks, the Super-N retains the N-One’s extremely high cuddle factor. In a world of increasingly angry-looking cars, along with Renault’s Twingo it’s a breath of fresh air.

Elsewhere, the transformation from N-One to Super-N comes with a reinforced rear torsion beam axle, stiffer hubs and lightweight forged lower suspension arms for the front MacPherson struts that give a 50mm wider track. There’s a faster steering rack with bespoke tuning and equal-rigidity (albeit not equal-length) driveshafts to reduce torque steer.

The brakes are upgraded with bigger discs at the front. The Super-N retains drums at the back, though this shouldn’t be a problem – it was sufficient for the VW Up GTI, and an EV does most of its braking with regen, anyway. Even though the Super-N is an EV, it only weighs marginally more than the Up: 1097kg versus 1070kg. That’s exceptionally light for an EV, even one with a tiny battery.

One other repercussion of the Super-N’s kei car origins is that it exists only in right-hand drive. That means the UK is the single European market it’s available in, alongside Japan, Australia, New Zealand and a couple of South-East Asian markets. The engineers say it technically wouldn’t be especially difficult to convert it for left-hand drive, but as the Super-N is a bit of a pilot project for how such a car would do outside Japan, there are no immediate plans in place.

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INTERIOR

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Honda Super N review 011

Kei cars are often little marvels of packaging, and the Super-N is no different. The cabin is narrow but thanks to the big glasshouse doesn’t feel claustrophobic. The seating position is relatively high and upright, which actually feels entirely appropriate and leaves a good amount of space for the second row. As a result, it has a similar amount of rear leg room to a BMW iX3. The floor is fairly high and the head room limited, but that’s still very impressive.

While the rear seats don’t slide like in a Twingo or Hyundai Inster, they are pretty clever. Like the Jazz and HR-V, the Super-N has Honda’s ‘Magic seats’ where the bases flip up completely to make a tall pass-through space that can fit a bicycle. The backrest also folds down completely horizontally, which transforms this tiny hot hatch into a tiny van. With the seats up, boot space is predictably limited, but 162 litres is still respectable enough.

The glasshouse in this car is extraordinary – something we rarely see any more on modern cars. Together with the lack of a centre console, it gives this tiny car a very spacious, airy feel.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

Up front, the Super-N is clearly a cheap car with plenty of hard plastic surfaces, but Honda has given it lots of thoughtful touches so you’re not reminded of this fact every step of the way. First, there’s the steering wheel, which is round, firm and upholstered in fairly convincing imitation leather. The other big one are the seats. They are completely different from those in the N-One base car and feel like properly bespoke sports buckets, with very heavy bolstering. The padding is soft and comfortable, though, and they’re set at an angle that still supports your thighs. There’s a slight shortage of lumbar support and back-and-forth adjustment, but that’s to be expected in this class. We also love the combination of white faux leather, black microsuede and blue fabric to put you in a racy mood.

The dashboard has quite a funky three-tier design with useful storage space on the middle tier and a cupholder to the right of the steering wheel. There’s a relatively big glovebox and more storage on the floor between the seats. We would have liked to see some rubber mats or dividers, because items do slide around on the hard plastic surfaces.

Pleasingly, all the main controls, including the climate, heated seats and steering wheel, media volume, mirrors and drive modes, get chunky physical switchgear.

The digital side is fairly basic, as befits a basic car. The 7in driver display has simple and calm graphics, and offers a number of layouts, though scrolling between them is a little cumbersome. The main infotainment screen is the same as in all other modern Hondas, which means it looks a bit dated and doesn’t offer many functions – not even navigation. In the main that’s fine, because most people will just default to phone mirroring (wireless for all devices), which works well, but some might want some built-in EV route planning. Worse, there doesn’t seem to be a way to set a charge limit, or schedule charging.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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Honda Super N review 021

You would be forgiven for looking at the Super-N’s swollen wheel arches, deep bumpers and sports seats, and expecting spirited performance. Do so and you’ll be disappointed when you first put your foot down. It has only 63bhp in the standard modes, and 94bhp in Boost, for a quoted 0-62mph time of 14.5sec or 10.0sec.

Fortunately, that claim turns out to be pessimistic because the Super-N clocked a 9.1sec time to 62mph and 8.5sec to 60mph. The latter figure, incidentally, is identical to the one we recorded back in 2018 for the VW Up GTI. The Super-N’s performance clearly tails off after that, but unlike the original Dacia Spring it’s perfectly happy in the outside lane of a fast motorway.

There are two more drive modes: Econ, which softens the accelerator and turns down the climate control; and Sport, which gives you engine noise and sharper accelerator response but still only 64bhp. Both feel a bit pointless, and we'd rather have an individual mode.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

Outright performance, then, is adequate for zipping along local A- and B-roads, and certainly around town. However, this is a car that would certainly be improved by another 20-30bhp – something that probably wasn’t viable given Honda buys in the drive system from a supplier. We also wish the full performance wasn’t hidden behind so many intransigent drive modes.

In most of them, you’re limited to 63bhp, which is marginal for merging onto motorways. That said, the brake pedal is progressive (it’s the same by-wire e-booster as on Honda’s hybrid cars), and so is the City setting’s one-pedal mode.

The only way to get the full 94bhp is to engage Boost mode via the purple button on the steering wheel. This also calls up the car’s party trick: simulated engine noise and seven gears. It’s convincing and encouraging enough: the ‘engine’ sounds like a high-performance four-cylinder turbo engine, and it will bog down at low revs and clatter into the limiter if you don’t shift up in time. Those shifts are faster than any real gearbox. Ultimately, the illusion is not quite as strong as in Hyundai’s electric N cars as the ‘engine’ feels like a diesel truck motor in the way it’s very slow to rev.

Still, it adds an additional layer of engagement, which would be very welcome if it weren’t mandatory. There is no way to get the additional power without the simulated engine, so if you want the Super-N to be acceptably quick without the brm-brm noises, you’re out of luck.

Clearly, there’s no technical reason it has to be this way, and unless you’re flooring it, it makes no difference to economy, but the engineers say that to have the engine noise in the faster mode is part of the concept of the car. We think this is a mistake and will alienate quite a few people who just like the pure EV experience. Hopefully Honda can apply a quick software fix and introduce an individually configurable mode.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Honda Super N review 022

The Super-N is a rare thing in 2026: a genuinely small car. It might break out of the kei car regulations, but it’s still shorter and narrower than a Kia Picanto, let alone a Renault 5. On British roads, that feels like a bit of a superpower, since twisty, narrow, hedge-lined roads suddenly become open playgrounds because there’s always room to carve a line or avoid that pothole. There are simply more places to have fun in a car like this than with a supercar.

The Super-N backs this up with textbook fun small car handling. That is to say it certainly doesn’t have the most sophisticated chassis but counters that with a clear sense of fun. It has a simple rear torsion beam, and on bumpy roads it will bounce around a bit, but its small size and low weight mean that never feels threatening.

Facelift fixes? Aside from some more power and battery, an individual drive mode and an ESC off-mode should surely feature
Richard Lane
Deputy road test editor

Instead, you always feel confident chucking the Super-N into a bend. The steering is sensibly geared, with some keenness just off-centre, and it will weight up nicely to let you know the car’s gripping.

The front end responds well initially, and there’s strong grip in the dry from the Yokohama Advan Fleva tyres. Back off the power mid-corner and there’s a fleeting hint of throttle-adjustability as the chassis wants to start rotating, but the non-switchable stability control rudely kills any slides before they can develop.

In some ways, the Super-N is reminiscent of the VW Up GTI in that it doesn’t have the poise and crispness of a proper performance car, but then it isn’t meant to. Instead, it thrives on its lightness and chuckability. There’s no mass that needs to settle into a corner – the Super-N grips and turns in that go-karty way. It’s just fun.

Clearly, then, you wouldn’t buy a Super-N for comfort. Indeed, there is a lot of road noise at motorway speed (73dBA at 70mph), but that’s fairly standard for a city car (Up GTI: 72dBA). That said, the suspension is well damped and the tyre sidewalls are decently tall, so high-frequency impacts are dealt with adroitly.

Adaptive cruise control is standard, and works fairly smoothly, but will only go up to 71mph. Because the Super-N has been specially homologated for the UK (and not the EU), it doesn’t legally need overspeed warning, so it doesn’t have it. It does have lane keeping assistance, which is quite intrusive, and a bit more annoying to disable than it should be.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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Honda Super N review 001

The Super-N has a clear and obvious Achilles heel: its 128-mile WLTP range. Fortunately, it proved quite efficient in our testing, at least in its natural habitat. You can easily get over 5.0mpkWh in suburban driving, though 3.3mpkWh touring economy is a bit disappointing. In mixed use, 100 miles is realistic.

A good rapid-charging speed could have gone some way towards compensating for the short range, but even allowing for the fact that this battery is too small to take a high peak speed, a peak of 46kW and a weighted average of 36kW are quite poor. We’ve seen better from a Skoda Kodiaq plug-in hybrid.

The tyres are off-the-shelf, fairly sporty Yokohama Advan Fleva. I wonder if the Super-N could gain some range with a lower-rolling resistance compound. Good options are available these days that maintain good grip and steering, albeit perhaps not in 15in.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

We must put all this in context, because the Super-N is part of a wave of sub-£20k short-range EVs. The Renault Twingo musters 157 miles, the BYD Dolphin Surf Active 137 miles and the Citroën ë-C3 132 miles. It’s unfortunate that the Super-N doesn’t get the Electric Car Grant, even though it’s built in Japan, because at £17,000 it would be a really good deal. Even at its current £18,995, though, the Super-N is actually quite good value compared with those cars.

That’s reinforced because most of those others, as well as the entry-level versions of the Fiat Grande Panda and Renault 5, are very bare-bones. Meanwhile, the Super-N has heating for the seats and steering wheel, keyless entry, adaptive cruise control and a six-speaker Bose hi-fi as standard, since there is only one trim level. Honda also has quite an attractive PCP finance offer.

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VERDICT

Honda Super N review 025

Clearly, the Super-N’s range and unimpressive fast-charging speed will limit its appeal. As a result, it is destined to remain a second car for local trips to the shops and station and school runs.

Within that limited remit, though, we think the Super-N is rather brilliant. Unlike Honda’s first attempt at an EV – the Honda E – the Super-N is actually affordable, joining the growing class of sub-£20,000 EVs. And unlike most of those, it has a real sense of character and quality, while its kei car packaging makes it remarkably practical for its small size; it will genuinely carry four people in comfort. Above all, what makes it endearing is that it is truly fun to drive. At just 1100kg, it brings the A-segment’s hallmark chuckability to electric cars.

A 100-mile EV with simulated gears may prove a fleeting trend, but for now it’s quite a welcome one.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As a road tester, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews and comparison tests, while also managing the magazine’s Drives section. Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s in-depth instrumented road tests.

He loves cars that are fun and usable on the road – whether piston-powered or electric – or just cars that are very fit for purpose. When not in test cars, he drives an R53-generation Mini Cooper S or a 1990 BMW 325i Touring.