Check Out This Cool Delivery Vancycle Thing Honda Is Building
Honda gets into the urban delivery game with the funky, boxy eQuad.
The last-mile box vanscycle is all-electric, with swappable batteries, regenerative braking, and OTA updates.
Pricing should be out closer to its launch in 2026.
Package delivery has become a huge business, with Amazon vans everywhere and thousands of folks squirting through city streets on scooters with insulated square boxes on the back delivering who knows what to who knows where.
Honda sees this as an opportunity. The company that makes everything from weed whackers to Formula 1 engines and all things in between will enter the micromobility business by the end of the year.
At a ginormous trade show in Frankfurt called Eurobike, Honda announced the establishment of Fastport, which it called 'a new B2B business dedicated to transforming the last-mile delivery industry with innovative micromobility solutions.'
It also unveiled Fastport's first product in prototype form, the funky, boxy eQuad, shown here.
'This all-electric quadricycle delivery vehicle, designed for use in bike lanes, enables companies to enhance their urban logistics operations with speed, efficiency and reliability,' the company said.
It'll be all-electric, and powered by Honda Mobile Power Pack (MPP) swappable batteries and software-defined vehicle (SDV) features like service and maintenance plans, along with AI-powered dashboards with real-time insights that enhance driver and fleet-management operations. It also sports regenerative braking, automatic parking brakes, a canopy with UV coating and a ceramic tint option, and even a ventilation fan and full-frontal enclosure. And check out that four-wheel independent suspension. Are those coil springs?
Maximum payload is 650 pounds, with a top speed of 12 mph and 'up to' 23 miles range. But when the battery dies, just swap it out for a new one. The cargo box can be ordered in up to 89 inches long, 60 high, and 47.9 wide. No price was mentioned.
The Fastport is intended for use on bike paths, which some cities have and some don't. San Francisco and the Greater Bay Area, Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle, and even New York have bike paths or lanes. A lot of cities don't. (I'm looking at you, Las Vegas.)
Trying to squeeze a 47.9 inch-wide big box through some city streets could be a challenge. For comparison, something the size of a Vespa scooter typically used for food delivery is about two and a half feet wide, or a foot and a half narrower than the Fastport. But a Mercedes Sprinter van is almost eight feed wide, so you could get three Fastports in the width of a Sprinter.
Ah, math.
The Fastport eQuad will be produced at the Honda Performance Manufacturing Center (PMC) in Ohio, a small volume, specialty manufacturing facility using domestic and global parts. Since opening in 2016, the PMC has been responsible for production of the Acura NSX supercar, multiple Acura PMC Edition vehicles, and the CR-V e:FCEV fuel cell electric vehicle, as well as Honda Performance Development race cars.
Look for them in early 2026, Honda says. Pricing TBA.
Will this thing succeed? Tell us what you think in the comments section.
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