Honda Urban EV hatchback for 2019 packs ultra-wide screen, suicide doors

More news from Honda, this time they have revealed an all-new electric vehicle, the Urban EV Concept.

The Urban EV is reminiscent to the 70s Civic to me. But, that’s the only reference to the past. Everything else, especially the interior, is innovative.

The concept car is built on a completely new platform, and sets the direction for the technology and design that will appear on a future battery electric Honda production model.

Short and sweet

The Urban EV Concept is quite a compact hatch with an overall length 100mm shorter than the Jazz supermini. Honda does do small cars extremely well.

The Honda emblem on the concept is backlit in blue, which previews a new styling feature for the company‘s future EVs.

I am particularly loving the suicide doors.

Messages

What is really cool is that, at the front of the car, interactive multilingual messages can be displayed between the headlights.

This means you could display greetings, advice for other drivers on the road, or charging status updates. Handy for when you’re behind someone who insists on having their fog lights on. All. The. Time.

Inside

It’s the interiors where compact cars need to be the smartest though. Thankfully, the Urban EV is not short on the cleverness here.

The Honda hatch can accommodate four occupants, across two bench seats finished in different materials.

To create a lounge feeling, the front row is upholstered with natural grey fabric, with the seat backs, squabs and arm rests embellished with contemporary wood finish accents.

The seat belts for the rear bench are fixed in the middle of the seat, allowing the belt to retract out of the way before a passenger exits the car.

The same wood finish wraps around a large ‘floating’ dashboard console.

This houses the steering wheel column, a set of simple control buttons, and a panoramic display screen.

As well as that huge wide-screen display, the concept does away with wing mirrors in favour of displays in the doors.

Electric Vision

Honda’s ‘Electric Vision’ strategy, launched at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show, includes the development of a dedicated electric vehicle platform, featuring fully-electric powertrain technology.

The company’s new concept was officially introduced by Honda Motor Co. President and CEO, Takahiro Hachigo, during his press conference speech in which he promised:

This is not some vision of the distant future; a production version of this car will be here in Europe in 2019,”

However, there’s no word on the expected performance or price point of this Honda EV. Well, we only have to wait until its European launch in two years time.