Honda EP-X
Car of the Day #123: 1991 Honda EP-X
Here's the thing: I know exactly what I need in a car.
The Honda EP-X is that car.
I'm not only saying this as someone who's naturally attracted to strange-looking coupes with two tiny tandem seats (like the EP-X has); I’m saying this as someone who religiously tracks fuel economy and has no friends. I also know:
- The type of terrain I drive on: flat.
- The speeds I do: typically 70% B-road / highway and 30% city; ~62 km/h / 32 mph avg speeds.
- My climate: temperate to cold; option to walk if necessary.
- Electric, hybrid, ICE? No preference…but I'd like to shift gears if possible.
- The space I need: Usually me and a briefcase 99.9% of the time, so anything above two seats is overkill; for long trips I pack very light — as little as one carry-on for two people.
- The type of driver I am: I stick to the speed limit most of the time, and being caught here at anything 50 km/h (31 mph) over the speed limit could mean an impounded car. I instead corner quickly, keep my speed up, and accelerate smoothly, maintaining a high average speed and low fuel consumption — I simply can not, should not, turn off my brain long enough to pretend a public road is the same as a race track. It’s not.
- The fuel economy I get: I don't generally hypermile, but I drive efficiently – 40 U.S. mpg or more should be an easy ask, even when driving with more gusto.
Before y’all suggest Car A, B, or C, I respectfully don’t need and can’t afford the advice. Thanks, anyway.
It's nevertheless wild how commonly we see startups, prototypes, and concepts that fit the mold of eco-wonder, sent out onto the show circuit for People Like Us. Then, being told it is we who need to compromise, that it would be more fruitful to choose a similar but not equal car until the really efficient version appears in a few years.
Delay, cancel, rinse and repeat.
Long story short: Honda could have solved all of my problems in 1991. It leads to a question I ask myself over and over again — not about Honda but for auto manufacturers in general — would they be able to revisit past concepts even if they wanted to? Because many, including the EP-X, have been wiped from public-facing archives:
Do you also look at the Honda EP-X with great longing and sadness?
Shown at the 1991 Frankfurt Motor Show, and 1992 Chicago Auto Show, it was no doubt overshadowed by the high-horsepower, exotic machines and concepts that typically graced motor shows of that era. We had barely begun to tackle the ozone layer, with global warming, fuel crisis, and a few financial falls since thrown in for funsies.
Why do I feel like this is losing?
Those shocks to our systems pushed people's buying habits toward capability, size, and always having more than you'd ever need.
Honda EP-X concept • via Honda
With 2024 eyes, it’s as if an Aptera, Riversimple, and Jetcar merged into one, finally complete, production vehicle: the 2026 AFEELA EP-X. ;)
Knowing firsthand how great '90s Honda engines were, I have a feeling that its 1.0-litre 3-cylinder engine would have been a willing companion inside this slim-fitting econosock.
Having driven the Beat, with its normally-aspirated SOHC 656-cc 3-cylinder engine (with individual throttle bodies!), 63 horsepower, and top speed of ~135 km/h (84 mph), added displacement and an aerodynamic body would have offered a noticeable improvement for Honda's kei-sized lineup that extended to hatchbacks, vans, and trucks. (Speaking of, there’s a famous 3-cylinder Honda Today track car in Japan that absolutely RIPS, capable of a lap at Tsukuba in the 1:03-1:04 range — but the damn thing is shaped like a 2-piece Duplo set, not a Gundam orifice-sized low-drag suppository like the EP-X is.)
A story on the EP-X at autoweek.nl says it had 70 horsepower, a weight a few kgs above 600 (~1325 lbs), and that means it would have approached a period CRX in power-to-weight ratio. And we all know how well that car did among enthusiasts. Both employ Kamm-like tails, too.
Mechanically simple, it doesn't take much effort to design a car like this, fewer resources to produce it, less fuel to run, and less space to park it in. If you like this sort of thing, see also the Chrysler Aviat, Volkswagen Scooter, Jetcar, and General Motors XP-512E.
Or visit your local Toyota dealer and ask about this newfangled thing called a "Prius"? Weird, never heard of it.
Honda EP-X interior • via Honda, allcarindex.com
The problem, time and time again? Conventional wisdom tells us there are better profit margins to be had selling kettle chips at a fair than to design, engineer, manufacture, market, service, and support a community of tightwad drivers with no friends and no passengers.
Better instead to make whales of us all, where "hauling air" in the form of oversized, overweight vehicles is somehow the path of least resistance for shoppers and a source of larger profits for makers.
You could do so much more with a truck.
But then I'd have a truck.
Question is: why don't truck owners do more? Start there. Ask why their bed is empty and not why my econobox is full.
Misconception time.
Cars like this are NOT about economy or fuel efficiency or to be cold called and congratulated by Al Gore.
Cars like this are about personal freedom. They're about cutting through the clutter and providing straightforward transportation to owners who are well aware of their wants and needs.
Today's vehicles are not regulated, built, or sold for these people. Our people.
It's nevertheless wild how commonly we see startups, prototypes, and concepts that fit the mold of eco-wonder, sent out onto the show circuit for People Like Us. Then, being told it is we who need to compromise, that it would be more fruitful to choose a similar but not equal car until the really efficient version appears in a few years.
Delay, cancel, rinse and repeat.
More than 30 years ago in 1991, Honda sent this ultra-efficient concept car around the world in order to show off its advanced engineering capabilities, accumulating more miles as air freight than commuter car.
In 1993, Honda unveiled its first SUV for North America: a badge-engineered version of the Isuzu Rodeo called the Passport — a gateway drug of sorts to the coming decades of highly lucrative SUV and crossover sales.
Sure, we got the hybrid Insight and CR-Z, but my ill will is directed not at Honda, only the situation that prior generations of auto executives and car buyers got us into today: where highly efficient, single purpose cars are the weird ones.
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