Honri (Dewan) Electric Cars

Honri is a Chinese electric-vehicle brand sold in Pakistan by Eco-Green Motors Limited and assembled locally by Dewan Farooque Motors. It offers exactly one model in two variants: the Honri VE 2.0 at Rs 3,599,000 and the Honri VE 3.0 at Rs 4,399,000, both ex-factory as of 26 July 2026.

Everything Honri sells here is a BEV — a pure battery-electric car. No hybrids, no plug-in hybrids, no range extenders. If you cannot plug it in, it does not move. This matters because Honri is often listed alongside brands whose Pakistani ranges are mostly HEV or PHEV, and the categories get conflated constantly in local coverage.

The lineup

Both were cut by Rs 600,000 in December 2025. At the July 2024 launch they were Rs 3,999,000 and Rs 4,999,000.

Who actually builds this car

This is more complicated than a normal brand page, and the structure is the risk.

Eco-Green Motors Limited (EGML) owns the Honri brand rights in Pakistan and sells the cars. Dewan Farooque Motors Limited (DFML) builds them at its Sujawal plant under a toll-manufacturing agreement signed in May 2024 — meaning DFML is a contract assembler paid to bolt kits together, not the seller and not the warranty principal. Production began August 2024. Over 100 units were assembled within three months; more than 300 had been delivered to EGML by July 2025.

Dewan's own history is why buyers hesitate. The company posted negative Rs 3.2 billion in shareholders' equity as of June 2023, with lenders pursuing Rs 6.88 billion in liabilities, and the Sujawal plant sat idle for years across a decade of restarts and shutdowns before this contract revived it. That does not make the cars bad. It does mean the eight-year battery warranty is written by companies whose eight-year survival is not something a buyer should assume.

Is this the cheapest EV in Pakistan?

Our own working assumption was that it is. It is not, and we are correcting that.

The Rinco Aria EV lists at around Rs 2,340,000 with a 17 kWh pack and the same 100 km/h ceiling. Below that sit L7e-class quadricycles — the Nora EV from Rs 1,899,000 (65 km/h) and the **Alektra Metro** from Rs 1,095,000 (50 km/h) — which are not highway-legal cars and should not be compared to one.

What is defensible is narrower: the Honri VE is the cheapest genuinely car-shaped BEV from a manufacturer that assembles locally and files accounts on the Pakistan Stock Exchange. That is a real distinction, and it is worth something. It is not the same as "cheapest EV in Pakistan", and any dealer who tells you it is has not checked.

Why volumes are tiny

Honri sold 30 units in May 2026 and 20 in June 2026 — a 33% month-on-month drop against a market that rose 29%. For context, single Suzuki models move thousands.

The reasons are not mysterious:

• It is priced against the Suzuki Alto and loses on purchase price. The Alto VXR Upgraded is Rs 2,994,861. The VE 2.0 is Rs 604,000 more, and Suzuki has a service network in every city in the country.
• The safety kit is thin. Two airbags, ABS and EBD, ISOFIX. Some Pakistani spec listings claim a full ADAS suite on this car; we do not believe that and have flagged it rather than repeat it.
• 100 km/h top speed rules out motorway use for most buyers, which makes it a second car by definition — and second cars are a discretionary purchase.
• Early CKD buyers were unhappy. Owners of the first locally-assembled batch report that side-mirror controls and steering-wheel multimedia controls present on the imported demo cars were deleted, that bulbs failed within a month, and that ride quality and brakes disappointed.
• Resale is undiscovered. At 20-30 units a month there is no used market, no price history and no way to value a three-year-old example.

The one genuine demand signal came from government: the CM Punjab E-Taxi Programme launched 26 February 2026 with 1,100 interest-free vehicles in phase one using Honri models, with a 50% down-payment subsidy for men, 60% for women, and a 30% quota reserved for female drivers. Fleet procurement, not retail pull.

What Honri gets right

The running-cost arithmetic. This is a light, slow, small car, which makes it the least energy-hungry EV in our catalogue at roughly 14 kWh per 100 km at the wall. On a Rs 55 home slab that is Rs 7.70/km against roughly Rs 20.72/km for an Alto at Rs 331.52/litre petrol. The Rs 604,000 price premium over the Alto is repaid in under four years on grid power, and under three on off-peak or solar charging.

It is also the easiest EV here to run off a roof. At 585W panels yielding about 2.3 kWh/day in Pakistani conditions, three panels cover a 40 km daily commute. Since NEPRA replaced net metering with net billing in February 2026 — exports now earn about Rs 11/unit against Rs 40+ to import — daytime self-consumption is the highest-value use of a rooftop system, and a 3.3 kW car charger on a midday timer is close to an ideal load.

What to check before you buy

• Get the warranty booklet in writing, and ask specifically what battery state-of-health percentage triggers a valid claim. The published terms do not say.
• Ask for a written battery replacement price. Nobody publishes one in Pakistan. If the dealer cannot produce it, note that and price the risk yourself.
• Verify every safety feature on the actual unit, not the brochure or a listing site.
• Confirm whether the specific car has DC fast charging — the VE 2.0 does not have it at all.
• Establish who honours the warranty if EGML or DFML stops trading, and get that in writing too.

Charging infrastructure is a smaller problem for this car than for most: NEECA has issued 72 licences since October 2024 but only about 20 public points were operational nationwide as of January 2026, and with a 145 km real-world range you were never going to rely on them. Home charging is the plan. Load-shedding is the thing that will actually interrupt it.

We do not sell cars and take no dealer money. All prices dated 26 July 2026 and subject to change on any duty or budget notification.