The Honda EV Plus might just be the most important EV you've never heard of. This electric car was the first on the American market to use something besides lead-acid car batteries for power. Instead, it used an innovative nickel-metal hydride battery and a Honda-developed brushless motor for an impressive 81 miles of range—in 1997, a decade before the Nissan Leaf was unveiled.

What's even more fascinating is this JDM-looking machine was actually just for Americans. Honda developed it specifically for California to comply with turn-of-the-century EV-mandate laws in the state. After half a decade of research and development, Honda built just 300 of these tiny electric hatchbacks and leased them as fleet and corporate vehicles. They roamed Californian roads for roughly half a decade, and then Honda ended the leases, took the cars back, and crushed 298 of them.

Photo by: Victoria Scott / Motor1

There are two remaining EV Pluses left on Earth, both owned by Honda. I got the rare chance to see one of these two at Honda's headquarters in Torrence, California, and what struck me was just how normal the EV Plus was. Air conditioning, power brakes, electric windows, a heater—all there. It may seem like common-sense that an electric car has all these features in a post-Tesla era, but these were all things that, up until this car, were generally excluded from penalty-box EVs that had to prioritize weight savings and range to squeeze every last drop of mileage out of highly inefficient lead-acid batteries.

While the EV Plus ultimately was relegated to a historical footnote after it became clear that lithium-ion batteries, not nickel-metal hydride, would become the standard for EV power, it's still a fascinating time capsule to the early days of electrification, and I 'm excited I got to check it out close.