But with California regulators allowing hybrids to get ZEV credits, the pressure was off to sell a pure EV. Honda produced and leased a couple hundred more EV Pluses in the following two years in California – and a handful in Japan and Europe. However, 1998 California was already loosening its zero-emissions targets to include hybrids. Nonetheless, Honda found more than 100 customers in 1997, one year ahead of the California mandate’s deadline. The EV Plus’s surprising sticker price was $53,900, but Honda would only allow the car to be leased – at $455 a month for three years. The four-passenger compact was about a foot longer than today’s BMW i3 and 1,000 pounds heavier. Power was modest at 66 horsepower and a top speed of about 80 miles per hour. gave the Honda EV Plus a range rating of 81 miles – an achievement for the era. “But I can definitely sense the coming age of the EV.” “There still are many issues at hand, including the battery,” said Kenji Matsumoto, head of the company's development project. The cameras captured a single small unit of the EV Plus rolling off the line. In April 1997, newspaper reporters and television crews assembled at Takanezawa plant, Honda’s manufacturing facility for specialized small production runs. Concerned about the durability of lead-acid batteries, Honda took the bold step of using nickel-metal hydride batteries, the first car company to make the switch.īased on 80,000 miles of real-world testing, Honda’s president Nobuhiko Kawamoto gave the go-ahead in January 1996 to create an original body design for Honda’s EV. A total of 10 cars were put on California roads for testing. That was followed by the CUV-4, an electric conversion of a Civic.
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