Honda Super-One EV confirmed for Australia: BYD Atto 1 has a Japanese rival. Tiny city car will be a fun and different drive promises Honda
The first Honda EV to be sold in Australia will be a tiny city car with a sports car attitude primarily intended to be a learning device rather than a big seller.
It will be the production version of Super-One “prototype” that debuted at the Tokyo Mobility Show on Wednesday.
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In Europe the Super-One will be known as the Super-N where it will effectively replace the cute Honda e that never came to Australia.
The Super-One will be on-sale in Australia in the second half of 2026. We don’t know pricing or spec, but we do know it will be the first in a steady stream of EVs for Honda Australia, which is expected to add the 0 Series SUV in 2027.
Measuring up at less than 3.6m long and less than 1.6m wide, the Super-One is only a little bigger than Japanese market kei cars, which are built to regulations limiting their size to leverage tax breaks.
In fact it is closely related to the Honda N-One E kei car that has just gone on-sale in Japan.
While we don’t know if the Super-One will share the N-One E’s 47kW e-motor, it has been confirmed it will come with a boost mode, a simulated seven-speed manual gearbox and piped-in engine-like noises.
The prototype also comes with pronounced wheel arch blisters, sports seats and triple gauge instrument cluster to underline its performance orientation.
Honda Australia president and CEO Jay Joseph said the attitude of the Super-One would separate it from the EV crowd.
“It’s exciting for us to bring [Super-One] to Australia as our first EV because it’s a different product,” he said.
“It isn’t like everything else out there. There are so many options for Australian EV shoppers today, but it’s a bit of a sea of sameness and Super-One stands out because it’s small, it’s sporty, it’s really fun to drive.”
Joseph admitted sales ambitions for the Super-One would be “really small”.
“As our first BEV in the market part of what we need to do is learn more about the consumer and how they use its relatively short range,” he said.
“It’s really targeting urban metro drivers people who don’t need to go inter-city from Melbourne to Sydney.
“It’s for somebody who knows that they’re just driving around the city and want to do so in an efficient way.”
Joseph revealed Super-One testing for local conditions had already begun and would include validation of both driving and charging.
“That in-market testing is critical to knowing that everything works the way it was intended and we’ve got to match the laboratory results to the real world and that only happens by testing in the market,” Jospeh said.
A minimum four-star ANCAP rating has also been targeted. The maximum rating achievable is five stars.
“It’s got to be four star or better and that’s a reasonable expectation for consumers,” said Joseph. “We have to be able to do that or it wouldn’t be the right car for the market.”
Joseph admitted the challenge the Super-One would face from Chinese rivals such as the BYD Atto 1 that will be marginally bigger in size but also cheaper, with a $25,000 starting price.
“The value proposition of those vehicles is definitely something we have to pay attention to. Part of how we compete with that is the way we take care of our customers,” said Joseph.
“We have a reputation for quality, innovation and engineering, but part of our value proposition is that we can take care of our customers.
“We’re seeing with some of the new entrants that are growing really quickly that they’re struggling when there’s an issue with the vehicle.
“They’re struggling to get parts, they’re struggling to have the network to service the vehicles – that’s one of our strengths.”
