Yahoo Autos The Honda Motocompacto Is As Fun As It Is Cute
On a chilly, gray fall day at the M1 Concourse in Pontiac, Michigan, myself and several other local journalists became the first to take a hands on look at Honda’s briefcase-sized answer to that last little bit of any adventure; the all-electric Motocompacto.
As someone with the body of a heavy reader with complex medical problems, I was not sure how I’d handle the Motocompacto. Part of me considered not going on the drive at all. I stay away from two wheeled conveyances because my balance is pitiful and some days I hurt myself just walking. I’ve recently become nervous on bicycles, and have never ridden a motorcycle or moped. So a rectangle with a seat and two narrow solid tires seemed like a big ask.
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While the Motocompacto looks very futuristic, it’s based on a foldable scooter sold in Japan between 1981 and 1983 called the Motocompo. It was a trunk scooter included with the subcompact Honda City. The Motocompo was designed to fit perfectly in the City’s trunk but it wasn’t exactly a last-mile solution. First off, the Motocompo weighed just under 100 pounds. By the time you parked your City and luged the ’80s Motocompo out of the back, you’re already starting to sweat. And it’s not like you can easily get it up and down stairs in apartments, so you’d better hope there was some empty parking for your Motocompo nearby. The old ’compo also required liquid fuel to motivate its 2.5-horsepower, 49-cc two-stroke engine.
Our new friend is much more in keeping with the original vision of the Motocompo, if not the execution. This svelte little fella comes in at only 41 pounds. It can handle 265 pounds of human and is specially designed to be comfortable for the majority of people, regardless of height. The seat and handles are non adjustable, so if you’re very tall, you might have a hard time. But then again, you already do with all the jokes about playing basketball and the weather up there.
The Motocompacto comes with a permanent magnet, direct drive 250 watt motor with 11.8 lb-ft of torque going to the front wheel. Its 36-volt, lithium-ion battery takes about 3 to 3.5 hours to charge to its full 12-mile range on a regular outlet and it comes with two drive modes — one, which increases speed slowly and two, which takes the ride from 0 to full throttle in no time. There’s no key, no ignition. Just press the small throttle on the handle forward and wooosh to a top speed of 15 mph — a surprisingly easy maximum to reach on the narrow scooter.
