Do you remember the Honda Mobile Power Pack e: ? Sure, the name might be cumbersome, but at some point, we just have to accept that Honda likes sticking an "e:" at the end of all of its most recent things involving electricity.
If you've been around for a minute, it's kind of like how everyone had to make a big deal about moving from carburetion to fuel injection by sticking an "i.e." or an "i" at the end of a model name when the technology was not yet the norm. Then eventually, that got phased out and it just became the way things were.
Anyway, back to Honda and its swappable electric battery packs. Over the past few years, the company has systematically been building out an ecosystem of things that make use of the little packs. First and foremost as far as RideApart is concerned, there's the triumvirate of electric two- and three-wheeled delivery vehicles: the Benly e:, Gyro e:, and Gyro Canopy e:.
Pretty early on, Honda also began cooperating with other companies on other things that could potentially utilize the Honda Mobile Power Pack e: , such as light construction equipment from Komatsu. It's also been used to power tourist boats.
Now that it's July 2024, Honda just introduced the latest piece of its electric puzzle in Japan. It's called the Honda Power Pod e:, and it's essentially an all-electric 1,500W generator.
Using the Honda Mobile Power Pack e:, the Power Pod e: can charge all your devices in the event of an emergency, or if you're just at a remote work site. It's also modular, so you can use special parallel cables to operate more than one together.
Importantly, it's also rated to work with several widely available solar panels. So you can potentially keep generating and storing power as long as you have access to sunlight. You can use this to charge your Mobile Power Pack e: units for use in any vehicles you need them for, as well as keeping the Power Pod e: running to charge your other electric devices, from computers to smartphones to a whole range of things.
So far, it's only available in Japan, but given Honda's plans for decarbonization as a company, it seems pretty inevitable that it will eventually be released elsewhere as well. As and when that happens, we'll be sure to keep you updated.
