Honda begins selling its silly little briefcase electric scooter in the US
A few months ago, we covered Honda’s unveiling of its smallest electric vehicle, the Motocompacto. The company has finally opened the order books on its little electric scooter, meaning you could own a new Honda EV for under $1,000.
Officially priced at $995, the Motocompacto is a modern-day homage to the classic Honda Motocompo motorcycle from the early 1980s.
The original 1983 Honda Motocompo was a pint-sized gasoline-powered motorcycle designed to fit in the trunk of a small car and give drivers a way to extend their reach into a city.
If you think keeping an oil-leaking motorcycle with a burning-hot tailpipe inside your hatchback is a recipe for disaster, then you’re absolutely right. That’s why Honda updated the Motocompacto as an all-electric vehicle.
And if you’re an Electrek reader, this news probably won’t come as a complete surprise. We covered Honda’s trademarking of the Motocompacto name last year and surmised that this was the likely outcome.
As interesting as an Oragami-style electric scooter is, don’t expect peak performance from the Honda Motocompacto. The small folding scooter has an equally small powertrain. The front wheel motor measures 490W and the top speed is a mere 15 mph (25 km/h).
The battery is listed as “6.8Ah,” though it’s impossible to determine the actual battery capacity without any info on the system voltage. A 24V or 36V battery would mean a measly capacity of just 163 or 245 Wh, respectively. Though this is intended to be a last-mile vehicle, so the “up to 12 miles” range is definitely within the tiny scooter’s design scope.
A 110V charger is said to recharge that battery in 3.5 hours and there’s even room to store the charger on board, just in case you want to recharge in the office under your desk.
As Honda described it, “Motocompacto is perfect for getting around cityscapes and college campuses. It was designed with rider comfort and convenience in mind with a cushy seat, secure grip foot pegs, on-board storage, a digital speedometer, a charge gauge, and a comfortable carry handle. A clever phone app enables riders to adjust their personal settings, including lighting and ride modes, via Bluetooth.”
Honda Motocompacto orders open
Orders opened for the Motocompacto today, with riders given three options. They can either order online, or visit a local Honda or Acura dealer to buy it in person.
For those ordering from the comfort of their computer chair (or bathroom), keep in mind that you’ll have to select a local Honda or Acura dealer to place the online order through, though it’s pretty easy to do it directly from Honda’s site. You can choose home delivery or an in-person pickup at the dealership while placing the order online.
You should also note that the US $995 price might not stick. There will likely be added taxes to toss on, and you may have local dealer fees. Checking the price for the dealer closest to my family in Florida, it looks like the sticker shock amounts to US $1,243. If I select a dealership a few miles down the road, it drops to US $1,044. Opting for a dealer in Los Angeles nets me the sweet US $995 price, though that’d be quite a road trip on the way back.
Electrek’s Take
It’s a silly thing, but I kind of love it. The fact that wheels, seat, and handlebars fold in is an excellent design that makes it easy to stash somewhere. You slide it in the back of a closet, under a bed, or even in a car trunk.
Yea, it’s a bit pricey for the performance, but you’re largely paying for the engineering and the Honda badge. Plus, I’m guessing you could roll back into your local Honda dealer if you ever needed service. They might look at you strangely, but it’s still a Honda after all.
And you know what they say, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.”
Oh, and why yes, I did buy one this morning. How did you know? Is it because I have a reputation to keep up? Stay tuned to hear what I think of this fun-looking little runabout.
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GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
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While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
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There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
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