Every automaker is pruning its electric car offerings just a little bit or, at least, delaying the rollout of certain vehicles to certain markets. Honda, which briefly sold one of the more popular EVs in the United States as recently as last year, has announced it’s taking a $15 billion charge related to EV development and, most shockingly, killing the next three electric vehicles it had planned for the United States.
Honda made a big show last January of showing off two different electric car prototypes: the Honda 0 Saloon and the Honda 0 SUV. These are futuristic, wedge-y, very Honda-style electric vehicles meant to pick up demand from the built-by-GM Honda Prologue. Importantly, the vehicles were to built in Honda’s Marysville, Ohio plant in order to take advantage of Inflation Reduction Act-related credits. Joining them would be the 2026 Acura RSX, an EV crossover with the name of the old Integra replacement.
None of that is happening now, according to the annual financial announcement from Honda:
In order to improve the current earnings situation as early as possible, Honda considered various options; however, after careful consideration, the company made the decision to cancel the development and market launch of three EV models that had been planned for production in the U.S., namely the Honda 0 SUV, Honda 0 Saloon, and Acura RSX. Honda determined that starting production and sales of these three models in current business environment where the demand for EVs is declining significantly would likely result in further losses over the long term.
Based on this decision, Honda now expects to record 1) write-off and impairment losses on tangible and intangible assets that were intended to be used for the production of these three EV models, as well as 2) losses related to additional expenses resulting from the cancellation of the development and sales of these models.
There is a lot here. First of all, Honda is probably right. None of the electric vehicles planned here were likely to create positive cash flow for the company anytime soon, especially without government assistance. In particular, the 0 SUV and Saloon were so strange and probably so expensive that it wouldn’t make sense.
The Acura RSX is the bigger surprise. Acura dealers have been clamoring for new products, and while a new SUV probably isn’t what they wanted, at least it’s something. Given that these products were intended to be built in Ohio, it’s an open question of what will be built there now. Here’s a hint from Honda:
In light of the recent slowdown in the growth of the EV market in the U.S., Honda will reassess its resource allocations and further strengthen its hybrid models.
Is this just more hybrid development for Ohio? Will Honda pull back from more investment in the United States as Japan weighs whether the investment is worth it, especially considering the tariff decision by the Supreme Court and higher energy costs in Japan?
The timing of this, of course, is terrible. The world is potentially at the start of a new energy crisis and that might drive more people to seek efficient cars. Right now, Honda has the most popular hybrid in America with the CR-V and plenty of popular hybrid versions of other models. The company is already winding down the Prologue and will have maybe nothing to replace it.
Seeing as how the Prologue was mostly General Motors underneath, the 0 saloon and 0 SUV were meant to be Honda’s first real foray into the North American electric vehicle market. Not only that, but the cars were supposed to spearhead the company’s new corporate design scheme, as well as its new, next-generation operating system, ASIMO OS. The 0 duo was also expected to be Honda’s path to introducing its Level 3 automated driving tech, which it describes as fully eyes-off, to the public.
After all the hype around these vehicles from Honda, the sudden change is going to be discouraging for any customers or employees who worked on the development which, at least in the case of the RSX, seemed to be far along. Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe agreed, according to Nikkei Asia:
“I’m fully aware of the passion poured in by many employees, business partners and sales staff, as well as the high expectations expressed by our customers,” Mibe said, admitting the three models were hardly viable under current market conditions.
Clearly, Honda didn’t think it was worth it in the long term to keep trying to make electric cars a thing. My next question is: Will Honda and Sony keep trying to pursue the Afeela 1 EV or is that another dream that doesn’t make sense? What will happen to the company’s “EV Hub” in Ohio?
While the specifics of Honda’s Marysville facility are not out, Automotive News is reporting that the company will try to shift its battery plans into making more hybrids:
Honda said it will channel its electrification resources into hybrids. A new hybrid powertrain and automated driving system are under development for commercialization after 2027, Executive Vice President Noriya Kaihara said.
In North America, Honda will expand its local procurement ratio of components and vehicles for this upcoming hybrid lineup, he said. Honda will also explore shifting battery output in North America from electric vehicle batteries to hybrid batteries at its local joint venture with LG.
The company may also divert some of that production to storage batteries.
“We will put the automotive business back onto a growth track,” Kaihara said.
That is not as easy as it sounds and takes time. Kaihara estimated it won’t be until 2028 for Honda to fully start to feel the impacts of those changes.
Update: it sounds like the folks at Sony Mobility/Afeela were also surprised by this news.
In my dreams, the backlash to the current administration would result in a leftwing candidate who removes nearly all oil and gas subsidies, causing gas prices nation wide to pass $10 a gallon. Then EVs and ICE could compete fairly.
That’s a nice fantasy that will never happen… especially given that there is no true ‘left wing’ in US politics these days.
What do you consider ‘true left wing’, and what do you think the current left side of the aisle actually is? Genuinely curious.
Speaking for myself, other than some outliers, the “left” in this country is very centrist.
It needs a really hard kick to the left to counter the recent fascist issues we’ve had to endure.
Looking at political parties in democracies around the world the US Democratic party is center left on most things.
On gun control and healthcare the Democrats are more conservative than the German center-right CDU party.
Are riots in your dreams? Because $10/gal gas would definitely cause both the middle and lower class to riot.
We’re an extremely car-centric nation. How are people going to get to the riots if they can’t afford the gas to drive there? Genuinely only half joking.
They’d probably have gas to get there, but not to leave. The Urban poor who already live in the cities would be the hardest hit in addition to being most likely to protest (proximity).
The urban poor likely don’t have cars so gas prices don’t affect them (directly, at least. Their bus fare will likely go up at some point down the road though). Why would they protest?
I think you and I have a very different idea of ‘urban poor’. At least for here, everyone has a car. A good chunk of them happen to be stolen, not have a valid plate/insurance, or in such disrepair they would be crushed in Germany. I’m not strictly referring to homeless levels of poor, even though many of the homeless have cars in which they live in.
Specifically, middle class income in my state is 45k-137k household, so under 45k would be low income households, of which the largest group is urban, followed by rural, then suburban.
I thought one of the benefits to living in a city is that you didn’t need a car to get around? Unlike rural and suburban areas, public transportation is generally readily available in larger cities and generally very inexpensive, especially when compared to car ownership.
Are these folks “urban poor” because they’re not making good financial decisions and deciding to own a car needlessly? If I lived in a large city (can’t do it; I don’t like people, so I definitely don’t want to be around a ton of them! Plus, I DO like cars, and it’s silly to have one in a city), I’d definitely be taking advantage the opportunity to save a TON of money by not owning a car!
Most American cities are not designed to be lived in without a car to take you most places.
Exceptions are older East Coast cities and a handful ones in the West Coast (not LA, but SF/Portland/Seattle up to a point) that were built up before cars took over fully.
Do you live in the US? There’s a handful of cities where public transit is even a viable option (mostly east coast), and my state is notorious for being car centric (Michigan, the automotive state).
As for the why the lower class income households are lower class income, that’s not really relevant to the discussion.
Very few cities in the USA have good public transit and many don’t have any. For example – when I lived in Birmingham, AL there was no way to do my commute on public transit. That is a metro area with 1.2 million people.
Today I live in Portland, OR. (2.5 million people) For the USA we have very good public transit with an extensive bus network and 5 light rail lines. It is also a quite compact city. There are people that don’t have cars but with public transit you trade cost for time.
My commute the most direct way is 21 miles. That takes 40 – 45 minutes to drive most day. The same commute on public transit is 105 to 120 minutes and that assumes I make the 3 connections that are 5-6 minutes apart. If a bus or train is late add another 15 to 20 minutes for each missed stop.
(I’m 1 mile from a train station on each end and within 200 yards of a bus station)
It worked in France. Perhaps it can work here.
In theory, I would love fuel prices in the US to be more in like with what they cost in Europe, but in practice, this would cause so much economic hardship to those who can least afford it.
In Europe, consumers have dozens of super efficient vehicles which start well under €20,000. Heck, WhatCar just did a video on sub £12,000 EVs! In the US, we have precisely one petrol car under $20,000. Also, in Europe, there are public transportation options. In the US, except for people who live in large cities, owning a car is practically mandatory.
The transition away from using fossil fuels for transportation in the US necessarily has to be slow and gradual to be equitable.
In my dreams, the removal of gas and oil subsidies happens slowly over a 10 year period. Giving people, businesses and infrastructure time to adapt. The person who bought a 15MPG truck today should get 5+ years out of it before the slowly increasing prices make it impractical to operate. The ICE car bans attempted by many nations and CARB states were too heavy handed IMHO. Make fuel get more expensive, predictably over a decade, and people will switch for economic reasons.
Whether or not the Honda 0’s would have been successful, I don’t know. But, I see the rest of the world passing the U.S. by right now when it comes to EV’s, especially China and its worldwide sales.
First, automakers are not going to be able to keep up with the current speed of the U.S. political pendulum. So, they should ignore it the best that they can and just do what they think is right for the market long term.
Second, they need to plan for when consumers in the U.S. are begging for BYD’s and other Chinese cars because the rest of the world has them and is living in modern times, while we’re a decade behind because of the chaos of the current regime in the U.S. and the short-sightedness of automakers doing business here.
I genuinely hope that a future administration allows the import of Chinese EVs with low or no tariffs. I just want these protected legacy manufacturers to endure a swift kick in the pants for their pandering and short-sighted decisions.
You want an excellent analysis of this issue? ARSTechnica has it:
Honda says there are several reasons for killing off its new EVs before they even reach the market. The first is extremely predictable: the ongoing chaos of the trade war and its tariffs, which have eaten into the profitability of the cars it imports into the US. A second is the US government’s revanchist decision to cease enforcing emissions and fuel economy standards on the auto industry. Although Honda says that “striving for carbon neutrality” is a “responsibility Honda… must fulfill for the future,” it seems that responsibility only applies when being forced by a government.
The third? China. They’ve leapfrogged everyone on cheap EVs. Does that need anymore of an explanation?
“ it seems that responsibility only applies when being forced by a government.”
That’s typical behaviour from legacy automakers.
Honda will come out with their own BEV on their own BEV platform eventually.
Companies like Honda are very conservative and are good at being tech followers. They’re great at taking what is known and well understood and making their own versions with excellent execution and attention to detail.
Right now, there is still rapid change going on with BEVs… particularly with solid state batteries, Sodium Ion and other tech coming on the horizon.
Look at how long it took Honda to get into SUVs/CUVs… Their first SUVs in the 1990s were rebadged Land Rovers and Isuzus.
Their first true in-house SUV/CUV was the CRV in the mid 1990s… which in it’s first gen was basically a hopped up Honda Civic Wagovan/Shuttle.
The first mainstream Ridgeline and MDX didn’t come out until the early 2000s… well over a decade after most other companies like Ford, Chrysler, GM, Nissan, Toyota, Isuzu and others were making bank selling SUVs/CUVs in volume.
So based on that, I predict that Honda will take their time studying BEVs and BEV tech and come out with something competitive and profitable some time in the 2030s.
it’s hard to call it “leap frogging” when the context is considered. Western political and business leaders openly discouraged or ignored the obvious future, while China publicly announced literal 5 year plans that contained this information. The only surprise was self inflicted. China didn’t do this “overnight” as those in charge would like to have us believe. They were simply caught underestimating a competitor, which is funny in its own right. Respect your enemies. If you don’t, you’re as weak as you think they are
They’re ahead, right? I would call that leapfrogging. They’re about to enter both the EU market and Canadian market in full force.
That’s not the definition of leapfrogging. Per Wikipedia: The main idea behind the concept of leapfrogging is that small and incremental innovations usually lead a dominant firm to stay ahead, but sometimes, radical innovations will permit new firms to leapfrog the ancient and dominant firm.
This was not radical. China has been chipping away at EVs for a long time, and they were blatantly vocal about it
Not a new or original prediction. The US automakers are either going to need another bailout, or they’re done. They can’t survive on selling cars to a market which is the US only. Economic principles of manufacturing factor in heavily, mainly ‘the economies of scale’, will see to it everything built in small quantities will be expensive, and all of the other stuff, components shared by many, will be cheaper (EVs).
This country is going to be stuck with refreshed, last gen pollution barges, while the rest of the world moves on because they didn’t make investment in the future a politically divisive topic
Automotively, the US could become like (or more like, at least) post-WWII Iron Curtain countries. Recycling old sh-t that is largely unsellable outside of the area. With that comes economic depression.
Don’t worry friend, we’ll be flooded with cheap and efficient kei cars soon!
Cancel culture has really gone too far this time!
I mean sure the 0 Saloon made some disparaging comments about marginalized groups but it was quite drunk at the time and has voluntarily entered rehab. Cut a sedan some slack!
And maybe the RSX EV was named a few times in the Epstein files, but that doesn’t prove anything, right?
And those alleged 0 SUV photos with its charger cable plugged into a Charger EV? Well it’s the age of AI! Come on people.
Electricity prices are soaring too due to data center consumption and overall increased usage, this is a no-win situation for the average consumer who needs a car.
That’s a local problem. My electricity prices haven’t gone up in years. Currently 8 cents overnight for me.
$0.09 per kW off-peak for me. $0.45 on-peak.
That is after a 30% increase in 5 years that people like to blame on the data centers but is actually due to Oregon renewable electricity mandate.
My cost has actually dropped recently when I shifted from flat rate to time-of-use. Made some some investments in energy efficiency as well.
Minnesota beat it’s renewable energy mandate without raising rates. Green energy is cheaper than coal or gas. The biggest difference is we have more buried lines than other states, so ice storms or other natural disasters don’t cost us as much. My electric company is also a COOP so they don’t need to make a profit.
Oregon passed a mandate in 2021 requiring 80% renewable by 2030 and 90% in 2035. We were 50% renewable in 2020.
Green energy is the cheapest new generation to build out but it still costs $$$$ when you are replacing fully functional gas plants before their useful life. It also requires a lot of storage.
It isn’t even possible to replace that amount of generation in 9 years so our utilities are buying a lot of renewable power on the open market.
Most of the western states are taking this path. Customers of PG&E are the exception. They took that $13.7 billion judgement paid to the survivors of the 84 people killed in the Paradise fire, and raised their rates to compensate. It’s not coming out of their pockets, it’s coming out of the pockets of the customers. PG&E needs to be converted to a municipal utility, stripping it of the inefficiencies of having to show a profit to shareholders.
Our two largest electrical utilities in Oregon have charters that set rates on cost + a fixed profit margin. Every time costs go up due to regulations, fuel prices, lawsuits, storms, etc that gets directly added to people’s power bill.
You’re right that it is local and is highly variable by locale but (totally anecdotally) seems that many have had their prices increase dramatically. Where I am on the east coast, it’s driven largely by a population/building boom and simply general demand. My rate has increased about 50% in 2 years. And of course, the supplemental wind energy plans were scrapped sometime in Jan 2025…
By vast majority, those data centers are gojng into red districts and states. Why? Less restrictions and less power by the people to do something about it. This is what you voted for.
It’s not what I voted for. I just got out-voted by dipshits.
Not me, but someone did I guess.
The current hotspots for data center buildout are 1) Virginia by a HUGE margin 2) Texas 3) Arizona. So those particular areas are the ones affected the most.
You get what you voted for. Enjoy.
Asking for a friend: were any of these three EVs going to be compelling (to customers) and competitive in the marketplace?
The 0 Series, no, as much as it pains me to say, but the RSX had a chance if they got the specs and price right.
Yes.
I absolutely love the 0 Saloon! It’s like a cross between the Bizzarrini Manta and the Ark II. But it likely would have been priced way higher than I’d be willing to pay, and I fully understand that the design does not appeal to the masses. Of course, the masses appear to love The Big Bang Theory and its spin-offs, so their taste is pretty questionable.
Wild to just completely cancel the RSX when it was clearly 99% production-ready. You’d think at that point it’d be better to just release it and see what happens.
I do kind of get where they’re coming from, though. Honda’s base is notoriously conservative, and when you can get 40+ mpg out of a CR-V and 50+ out of a Civic, it’s a hard sell to get people into a $50k+ EV.
I’m guessing that even if they could sell any it would be at a loss, so just putting the millions of dollars into producing a few thousand that will languish on dealer lots is throwing good money after bad.
I feel for everyone in Marysville, though. I used to work for Honda in development and the years since I’ve left have seemed rocky.
Takeaway . . . Toyota was right about everything (Okay, maybe not hydrogen). Honda et al are just now seeing the light.
They were right in the sense that Americans are afraid of change, but the rest of the world is going to continue to electrify, and in that sense, they are wrong
A very important point. In the global automotive supply chain, a small niche industry of ICE manufacturing can’t survive in just one country. The economies of scale matter in manufacturing.
Japan is even less electrified than the US is. By a huge amount, in fact. So everyone loves to throw shade on the US and everything Americans do, but Japanese consumers are even more conservative than we are.
Not even. They bet their futures on fuel cells, and hybrids, to lessen the country’s dependence on foreign oil. Remember their much touted ‘Hydrogen Village’ during the Olympics? They’re saving face by not admitting they were wrong, and are about to get their asses handed to them by the Chinese, who chose the proper path forward.
You mean Toyota that just launched a crap-load of refreshed or new BEVs under three brands in the US?
They launched one not very competitive EV with three different badges and slightly different wheels/tires. Those Bz-based EVs are already outdated compared to almost every other EV in their class in the US market.
Wheels, tires, and cargo areas, and there are 9 of them by my count (if the ES makes it to market). I predict it won’t matter to the normies that they are outdated; these will sell just because they are competitive-ish and have a Toyota/ Subaru/ Lexus badge.
Honestly, you might be right. I’m all for people purchasing an EV, and if they choose an outdated/less competitive Toyota/Lexus over a more feature-rich Rivian or Hyundai because they expect (and are likely to get) Toyota reliability, that’s still a good thing.
I may have been looking at this all wrong, which is a little silly of me considering I got a Hyundai over a Tesla because buttons!
Not really. They even chose the wrong path in battery development. They stuck to NiMH for years until they switched gears, noting the direction industry was taking, and finally did something about it.
Short-sighted move by Honda and a waste of all that time developing their new EV platforms. In a couple of years the winds of politics will hopefully swing back and we’ll see incentives for EVs/solar/clean energy again.
A MUCH smarter move would have been to continue to develop their electric powertrains and EVs but build them out E-REV variants, and maybe, if demand required it, later full EVs. .Have at least 80 miles of battery range (100 would be better) and you’re golden.
I’ll cite Scout as the example. Their EREV reservations far outnumber the pure EVs. My issue with the Scout E-REV is that not everyone needs a large off-road pickup / SUV. A small, CRV-sized single motor E-REV crossover with decent battery range and efficient design (shoot for 4+ miles/kWh) at a reasonable cost would be ideal. Offer 2-motor AWD for the snow belt and performance-minded as an option. Smallish battery and a purpose-built single-speed ICE/generator happy meal built with Honda reliability please.
A plug-in hybrid/E-REV is THE answer for anyone who can only have one vehicle. For those with access to a simple 120v outlet (level-1) they’re still likely to be able to charge up 50-60+ miles every night for their daily commute. No level-2 (220v) outlet needed. Maybe even charge up at work from a nearby outside outlet. – and for any trips over the range of the battery alone you’ve got the ICE generator to kick in. No public charging, no expensive 200v level-2 outlet, no range anxiety, GLORIOUS instant torque, and depending on your daily commute, no ga$ needed.
If you DO have access to a 220 outlet at home AND you have access to an ICE vehicle for road trips, I think pure-EVs make great city/primary cars, but for those without level-2 home charging, or who travel more than 50 miles a day, E-REVs (and I guess PHEVS) are the ticket.
I disagree. That would’ve required even more financial investment, since it sounds like these platforms were developed with the intention of being EV-only. If they wanted them to be E-REVs they probably would’ve had to scrap everything and start all over again.
The sensible thing for them at this point is to just do a Toyota and continue hybridizing their entire lineup. The word is that the next-gen Odyssey and Pilot will have hybrid options, and hopefully be hybrid-only. Honda right now is just in need of more PHEVs. Those seem to be a much easier sell to conservative buyers, who currently seem to make up the majority of Honda’s ownership base.
More? Maybe, but they’d have product to sell. As it is now, they’ve wasted their investment.
Seems to me, adding a range extender to an EV powertrain retains all the work done on the EV side, so maybe not as much engineering as a clean-sheet would require, but I’m not an automotive engineer.
I’d rather have an E-REV than a PHEV, but both can do the same thing. My issue with PHEVs is your available power/torque in EV only mode is typically pretty low and you need the ICE to kick in sometimes, where an E-REV has full power/torque all the time, If Honda’s PHEVs have decent all-electric range and power, than sure.. PHEVs may be a viable option.
I’m not an engineer either, but I would think adding an ICE would require a complete ground-up re-think of the platform. You’d need to make space for a whole engine, plus a fuel system and that would also require moving the batteries around. They’d basically have to not only cancel the existing platform and eat all of that money, but then they’d have to invest even more in developing an EREV platform, all for a non-guaranteed RoI.
I was an automotive engineer for Honda, and unfortunately it basically is a ground-up redesign. In some cases trying to save existing platform stuff ends up costing more, especially if you’re talking changing powertrains.
As an example, the Pilot/Ody/Ridgeline/MDX all technically share a platform (or are in process of moving to the new platform), and it always seemed to surprise the accounting folks that all the little changes and retesting we needed to do seemed to make “platform sharing” just as expensive as new platforms. The biggest cost savings was sharing engines and transmissions, but that wouldn’t apply here.
Do or die pursuing the future through investment.
Easy to say when you don’t have tens of thousands of jobs on the line.
Right. Those jobs are now in jeopardy. They took the wrong path forward.
You’re not wrong about the benefits of PHEVs and E-REVs. But I have to say, as someone who has owned a PHEV for the past 4 years or so, I don’t see myself buying another PHEV.
Yeah, I plug in with a simple level 1 charger. Yeah, the car runs on gas as well when necessary so I never feel range anxiety.
But honestly, the driving experience is my least favorite of any car I’ve owned. A lot of PHEVs have big combined power numbers (remember when the RAV4 Prime was touted as the fastest car Toyota sold)? But that also means that EV Mode is Slow Mode in comparison. When you’re in a sporty drive mode, or the car has decided the engine should be running, you press on the accelerator and GOOOO as both power sources contribute. When you’re running on electric only and press the accelerator the same way… not even close. The discrepancy in power delivery is annoying, and honestly I could see it as a safety issue for less-aware drivers (“I pressed on the gas like I always do to make that left turn but the car was really sluggish this time”).
In retrospect I’d rather be driving an old-school gas car with a stick shift (most of my cars have been manuals) or a pure EV with predictable power delivery and no need for gear shifts.
An E-REV would likely be better since you’re always using the same motive force, as the engine feeds the battery rather than driving the wheels.
My daughter has a 25 Escape PHEV. I’ve driven it plenty and it’s okay in all-electric mode (you can select AUTO, EV-NOW, EV-LATER) – EV now it will stay in all-battery mode for about 30-40 miles until the battery is depleted then it functions as a REALLY GOOD hybrid. Her daily commute is about 40 miles so some days she doesn’t burn any gas. But like you said, sometimes that gas engine kicks in too, and especially in the winter (electric heated seats instead of the dash heater help keep it in EV mode). I do wish it was an E-REV but honestly it’s pretty good as a PHEV. Better than I expected.
Our Hybrid Maverick has essentially the same powertrain. I wish IT was a PHEV as it only gets about 3-4 miles ALL EV mode, and only when under light load/low speed.
We have Hyundai Ioniq 6 in the stable (we sold our BOLTs for good money) – and it’s the EV that’s our primary car. We only use the truck when we need to do truck stuff or take a road trip. We also are fortunate enough to have 220 outlet in the garage for our over-night charging though we’re not driving every day so a 120 would actually work for us if that’s all we had.
PS they’re giving away the remaining 25 Escape PHEVs. We paid $27K for one that had a sticker of $52K! Great deals if you can find one!
When I watched the 2024 Tournament of Roses parade (in Torrance, Honda HQ) and saw that Honda had entered a float with the flower-ized versions of the then-brand-new Prologue and Acura ZDX, I had a big hunch that EVs at Honda were already doomed.
Honda has gotten in bed with GM before, and it always seemed to benefit GM more than Honda. These two EVs were clearly no exception.
These two vehicles were also apparently plagued with software glitches and the Acura ZDX was killed right after unseating the prior ZDX as one of the worst-selling Acuras of all time.
Both are taking an absolute killing on the secondhand market, too. Five-figure discounts and cash on the hood still weren’t enough to shift them.
So despite all of the CURRENT events of the last week, this decision to cancel EVs at a corporate level was likely made weeks ago. I’m sure the Prologue and the ZDX helped make that decision easy.
Damn, I totally forgot there was a new Acura ZDX. I agree with your assessment of the GM EV collab though – those didn’t seem like vehicles in Honda’s wheelhouse. As a previous Honda/Acura buyer I tend to think we’re the sort of people who are willing to spend a little more upfront to save a lot later (on gas, repairs, resale value).
Vehicles like the ZDX don’t hit that spot – that’s just spending way too much upfront.
Honda managed to shift almost 20,000 ZDX’s since it’s ’24 release. I have seen exactly ONE on the road. Not exactly common, but still 2.5x the total of the ’09-’13 ZDX (less than 7200 sold).
I was interested in the RSX EV, so I’m sad to hear it’s being cancelled.
If there’s one silver lining to be found in this, I hope it’s that the Accord will get more substantive updates; it hasn’t gotten a refresh 4 model years in. It’d be nice to see a better-looking front fascia and a 360 camera, as well as a Sport Touring trim with Still Night Pearl blue.
Even Toyota is releasing different EVs that seems good enough for their customer base, including the Highlander, a very popular nameplate. Toyota will capture those Honda customers that wanted an EV.
Their hybrids are very good but it doesnt matter how efficient they are, if gas keeps increasing (and it will), your savings will be erased with the expensive price you have to pay at the pump plus supplies needed for basic manteinance, stuff that an EV is more isolated. Electricity prices doesnt fluctuate as fast as gas.
This is the time to buy an used EV, the Chevy Bolt is the new Geo Metro.
In the current environment, doing exactly the opposite of what is seemingly sensible is the only thing that makes perfect sense. Because doing otherwise isn’t working out for George and never has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y_6fZGSOQI
They had absolutely no plans to put those concepts into production no matter what BS their marketing departments claimed. They just happened to have found the perfect excuse.
A few comments down is someone saying they have been contributing to this project for over a year. Looks like it wasn’t just marketing speak…
The vast majority of projects I’ve worked on have never gone to production. Roughly 80% if I had to guess. Many have been projects doomed from the very start, just to see if it could be done. Proof of concept is great marketing, just like concept cars.
Contributing to a project really means squat on a corporate level the size of Honda. In fact, many of times doomed projects get a lot of hours put into them so they can be written-off when that project ends up being cut.
Based on this decision, Honda now expects to record 1) write-off and impairment losses on tangible and intangible assets that were intended to be used for the production of these three EV models
The write-off people!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCP27_vquxQ
You just fold it in.
Kramer : It’s just a write off for them .
Jerry : How is it a write off ?
Kramer : They just write it off .
Jerry : Write it off what ?
Kramer : Jerry all these big companies they write off everything
Jerry : You don’t even know what a write off is .
Kramer : Do you ?
Jerry : No . I don’t .
Kramer : But they do and they are the ones writing it off .
Jerry : I wish I just had the last twenty seconds of my life back .
I mean, makes sense. EV’s don’t make sense compared to PHEV’s, and most people buying sports cars/exotics want ICE. EV’s also depreciate much harder, have no governmental backing now, and are less convenient. We will likely get leapfrogged by China in EV development due to the back and forth the US government does every election cycle on this matter.
A Phev makes sense? Good news.
How don’t they?
Well, how do they?
COTD if you both keep asking each other the same question all day. 🙂
HOW DON’T THEY JENS? HUH? HOW?
I won’t answer, if you are using Capslock.
So now you’re going to be serious rather than cute and glib?
Here’s why I think PHEVs can make sense: in a single car you get an EV range that will cover most/all of a daily commute but you never have to worry about range. It’s an appealing bridge between hybrid/ICE and EV for those who can’t dive wholly in on electric.
Fair enough?
If you don’t want to worry about the range: get a modern diesel. Ah wait. ‘Murica!
PHEV are great in the WLTP. In the real world far from it. Depending on the model, the consumption is simply bad.
I get the point of locally emission free driving. But combining gasoline engines with rather poor efficiency with rather low range EV tech doesn’t work out that great.
Additionally from technical point of view, your engine will run way more often in cold start conditions. Result are worse emissions, way more wear of all components.
As someone who had the pleasure of working within the development department of an OEM and who was able to drive nearly everything thats available on the market: There is no real world consumption benefit.
I respect professional opinion but it would’ve saved time to post this initially rather than playing “ooh, I know something you don’t know” with a throwaway one-liner to Yoboi.
Your take is that for me, someone with about 25 miles of daily driving around town on a weekday, I wouldn’t see a substantial reduction in fuel use and tailpipe emissions using a PHEV vs an HEV? Say, Prius Prime vs. Prius? That’s 6,500 miles of theoretically gasoline-free driving each year, same savings an EV would provide.
“get a modern diesel. Ah wait. ‘Murica!”
Come now. Are you new here? “Murica!” is a semi-derisive dig at the type of people more likely to WANT a diesel pickup, not the type of person pushing PHEVs.
One example of a car I’m driving a lot:
Mazda CX60 PHEV. Consumption according display (and usually you can add ~10% on that to get the real word value): 8.5 Liter gasoline / 100km + 21,5KWh / 100km. Sorry – too lazy to calculate this into MPG values.
Every efficient gasonline vehicle will be able to beat these values WITHOUT EV stuff in it. And yes again I am talking about modern EU vehicles.
And sorry about the slighlty offensive ‘murica comment. If you take any modern european Diesel, you will get great range. Depending on the vehicle it’s easy to reach values around 5 Liters / 100km which is somewhere around 47 MPG REAL world.
With the PHEVs of course you can partially drive locally emissions free. But it depends so much on your driving profile, whether this makes any sense at all. And since you were talking about range…that’s not where they show their benefits.
“But it depends so much on your driving profile, whether this makes any sense at all”
You know, I don’t think we’re as far apart on this as it seemed initially. My use case falls within that driving profile. I think a lot of American urban/suburban commuters do as well. But for frequent longer range driving, I agree the PHEV case becomes thin.
Alright – let’s be friends then =)
I’m always a friend. Just a periodically mercurial one.
A PHEV makes sense for someone that needs one car to do everything.
I personally don’t see them making sense for the typical family with multiple vehicles as pairing an EV with a hybrids tends to be cheaper.
(I guess PHEVs did make sense when the feds would pay the difference between the PHEV and hybrid and you were getting the plug for free but those days are gone)
Counterpoint – EVs with decent (300-ish or more) range make the most sense for people who need one car to do everything.
You aren’t lugging around an ICE engine that needs constant maintenance and increases the cost of the overall vehicle.
That really depends on where one lives and drives. I’m in Oregon. The west coast has some of the best charger infrastructure but there are still large swaths of central and eastern Oregon where taking an EV even with a 300 mile range doesn’t make sense. Our chargers are clustered on 101, I-5, and I-84.
I drove 3 days and 450 miles last fall on a campervan trip without seeing a traffic light.
(We have a single rural congressional district that is larger than every state east of the Mississippi.)
First, that congressional district sounds insane! But second, are you sure your rural areas don’t have charging infrastructure? I only ask because DCFCs aren’t usually advertised with billboards and signs like petrol stations, but if you open up PlugShare, even in the middle of nowhere, there are likely to be some chargers in the near vicinity.
What I find in most rural areas is not that DCFCs don’t exist at all, it’s that they are present but often limited to like 50kW, which is pretty slow. Depending on how much energy someone needs during that portion of a road trip, it might not be that big of a deal.
That district is 70,000 square miles with 700K people – most of which are in a handful of small cities.
I have an EV and have used Plug Share. Yes, I’m positive the trip could not be made in an EV. Even saying range is 300 miles (which is unrealistic at freeway speed) I get:
Warning: 1 segments of your trip have ‘total distance between two charging locations’ greater than your ‘max range estimate’ (shown above in red). We recommend adding additional charging location(s) in between.
Okay interesting, thanks for the information.
Clearly, the only solution here is to upgrade to the Lucid Air that gets like 500 miles of range. Problem solved!
The solution was adding more chargers along state highways. That was Oregon’s plan for federal NEVI money but now that money is effectively gone. Oregon spent of bunch of time siting and planning only to have the federal funding pulled.
This is wild- I’ve spent the last year and a half working on these projects for an integrator, and I’m finding out that the project is dead via The Autopian.
Oof. That sucks. My condolences.
Such is life in automotive, we’ve already started our next project, and this is far from the first time this has happened with Honda or any of our other customers.
I feel you, man. I worked on a palletizing system for a Toyota wheel production line. Halfway through the project we found out they were closing the plant. The good news was, and probably is in your case, too, that our work still went ahead to fruition and we still got paid.
I certainly have my money. AFAIK Honda is a good customer and we won’t have to worry about getting paid as a company, although I’m just a PLC guy so I don’t know about that for sure.
Hey! Me too! [fist bump]
Damn. I was going to post by myself but instead I’ll reply here.
I’ve engineered for two companies that supply production equipment to automotive manufacturers. Both would potentially be working for the new production lines in Marysville, and that will be dead now, if they got the contracts. Even if the plant remains and shifts to some hybrid product, it is a gap of years, and re-bidding.
Honda bet on the idea, that there was such a thing as a “city car” and made the Honda E, with the laughable short range.
I thought it was cool and beautiful so I would love one! but I would also like to be able to drive out of the city, just now and then, so no Honda E for me. I guess the rest of the world thought similarly…
I think the concept of a small car for everything is great! But the conventional combustion city cars have range for using them to just about whatever you want, no questions asked. You want to drive your Twingo through a jungle? Fine. You want to drive your Aygo around the world? Fine. That’s true freedom. The one thing the Honda E didn’t provide.
I guess they also made other half hearted EVs, I’ve never heard about. And that’s not how it should be with an innovative company like Honda.
Honda E real world range is about 100-112 miles.
That’s the distance from LA to Palm Springs – and well beyond the range of San Francisco to Santa Cruz, Sacramento or Sonoma.
For a small city car – that seems pretty good to me.
I think the problem is that, in the US, the concept of a limited-range “city car” doesn’t work because affordable and convenient public transportation between cities is non-existent. For anyone who occasionally does road trips, 112 miles of range just isn’t enough.
In Europe, city cars make more sense because people can just hop on a train to go on a trip.
This, after Honda reconfigured the Marysville plant to accommodate EV production and shifted a good portion of Accord production from there to a plant in Indiana. Now the EVs aren’t happening and Accord sales are half what they were a decade ago and half that of the Camry. A little worrying for plant workers, I’m not sure what is going to backfill that lost plant capacity.
Agreed. That plant is flexible (CRV, Accord, TSX, RDX if I recall) but the lines are size limited so they can’t bring in the Pilot, Ody, Passport, Ridgeline, etc. At least they couldn’t when I was at Honda. Maybe the EV updates also expanded things so they can put some of the bigger platform stuff in there.
Electric put the cart before the horse, we have no infrastructure. People claimed this, said it was premature, stupid etc… and got made fun of, made to look like climate diners and anti-science. But it was just the truth and the facts. Car websites, commenters and others owe a lot of us an apology. But we will never get that, because they will move the goal posts and say “achhstualllY”
EV’s are dead and never were our future.
I’m basically saying I’ve been contrarian on here since launch, and have got lot of wise ass responses and I am LOVING what I have been seeing. The truth is coming out and its beautiful.
What’s your threshold for infrastructure? Here in the Northeast, nearly every highway exit has fast chargers. I still wouldn’t recommend somebody who can’t charge at home buy one, but for those who can, they’re perfectly fine to live with.
I live in the north east. We have none in our town and most the towns around me. I live in MA, the “best state in the world”. There isn’t chargers in most places, and there are none in apartments, streets or any easy to get to place. We have a top 5 college in the town next to me I grew up in, and they don’t even have many around. So basically, having chargers in towns, having the power plants to support it. If you live in the NE, you know your bill sucks ass every month and that its getting worse. So basically just look at your bill, and when the rate gets halved, we can do EV’s.
How do you know there aren’t any chargers? They aren’t as obvious as gas stations because they don’t have big signs. The best way to find chargers is to use Plugshare.
As for EVs being dead, that is far from true. There are millions of people with EVs in the US and we aren’t going back. I love the convenient and cheap home refueling and the driving experience is leagues better than any automatic transmission and rattly 4 cylinder.
because its a small fucking town and I know every street in it. What is going on in you peoples heads that you just cannot accept truth. Its like it burns you.
Show us a map. It’s not fuckin’ hard.
Your response is “DOX YOURSELF it’s not fuckin’ hard”?
My dad’s local town is a post office, bar, volunteer fire dept, two churches, and a repair shop. They don’t even have a gas station anymore (closed 3 years ago). It’s a 30 minute drive to the nearest gas station. Add another 15 minutes on top of that to the nearest charging station.
Not to mention my dad’s electricity rate is roughly double mine in a small city and he’s limited to 100a service. The house is set up for 400, but we’d have to pay to run about 6 miles of new wire to upgrade.
Not really a valid complaint against EVs when it applies to ICE as well, now is it?
Except his dad would have more options by self charging at home (entirely possible off 100amp service) as well as looking at even better options like a load sharing panel or a solar/BESS system maybe even to the point where he could actually utilize that 400amp system his paid for for some reason when only 100amps run to his house.
When EVs are mildly inconvenient but still have mitigating options that could make them even more convenient than the status quo: Frothing mouth rage.
When the status quo ICE is actually about as inconvenient but more inefficient, has your balls in a vice by the only local gas station, and doesn’t have a way to mitigate it: More daddy, please!
Solar/BESS is definitely in the future, just not any time soon due to cost, performance, and lifespan. A 400a ‘system’ is just the main electrical panel. The line service is the limitation currently, but probably won’t be 50 years from now, and it sucks ripping out and rewiring a master panel twice. The original building/service line to the pole was only 60a.
My point is it’s remote, and another example like Greg’s where there’s no public charging nearby.
It’s much easier to put 500mi of gas or diesel in jugs and haul it home.
What if I told you that electricity is already delivered to your home…
Solar or wind is likely cheaper than running 6 miles of power line. I’m seeing a lot of solar pop up in rural areas
Between inclination, winter, and average cloud cover, we’d need one hell of a solar installation. Also the house is down in a heavily wooded valley, so most wind energy goes right over the top. It’s fun when the local weather report says 0 and the thermometer is hovering at -10.
I fully agree this is a very niche, edge case scenario. My point is just that one size fits all fits few well and some not at all.
Sounds like a nice place
And yes, a niche edge case.
My grandmother’s place was 80 acres with about 20 acres of that wooded. Mostly open field. She also mowed about 2 acres around the house for some reason.
I’m sorry if I offended you. My point was that I’ve seen those claims before and they weren’t true. It can be easy to miss something if you’re not actively looking for it.
Many suburban and urban people don’t have a grasp on how ‘rural’ rural areas can be. They’ve either never experienced it, or think they have while never truly understanding.
If you’ve never had to drive a hour to the grocery store, and half the trip is dirt roads, you don’t get it. Same for being trapped at home due to impassable roads after a storm (unless you cut/dig/shovel your way out).
And a lot of suburban/urban residents don’t have easy access to charging at their homes. Condos and apartments. Old 1920s Craftsman style homes like mine without a conventional attached garage and the electrical panel (that would need to be replaced/updated) on the opposite side of the house from where the car is…
Rural places have longer drives but also easy home charging.
Also less than 20% of the US population lives in rural areas. It is a large area geographically but not as a percentage of the population.
(before you ask – both my parents grew up in rural areas. My grandmother lived down a dirt road and was 40 minutes from the closest grocery store. Had gasoline and propane delivered to her house. Looking at it today it would be a great location to go off-grid. )
Easy home charging? Maybe if you have a diesel/propane genset.
Way easier to rotate fuel in a couple of gas cans, especially when the powerlines are down for a couple weeks every spring due to storms.
Yes, easy home charging – like anyone that owns a single family home with off-street parking and is free to install a home charger of their choosing.
If ones’ utility is so unreliable that they are losing electricity for weeks at a time every year it is time to go off-grid.
“If ones’ utility is so unreliable that they are losing electricity for weeks at a time every year it is time to go off-grid.”
Now you’re starting to get it. They basically are off-grid, save electricity, which is only really needed sparingly. Satellite internet is the only option for connectivity, phone/cable lines were never ran. Eventually it’ll have a solar system, once the cost/performance curve makes sense.
You also said that New England hasn’t added a new power plant since you have been alive. That is a wildly inaccurate claim.
I live a couple miles from my local town, I can see both sides from the middle. I also go on long road trips with my 4Runner and quick fill ups are necessary. I do a lot of off-road driving too, so I did a custom lift, tires, and a bumper. If you tell me a Hummer EV is for off-roading, I will let you try first and send me a video, and not some crap “look it can do a gravel road”. I took my 4Runner on Black Bear Pass, and other roads in CO, I guarantee you even if I had the money, I ain’t dumping it on a dead brick.
“I also go on long road trips with my 4Runner and quick fill ups are necessary. I do a lot of off-road driving…if I had the money, I ain’t dumping it on a dead brick”
Are you me? Every time I see a Rivian I think what an impressive vehicle it is and what a nice daily it would be compared to my 4Runner, but then I remember that I’d use half the battery capacity just getting to where the dirt road starts. The West is no place for an EV off roader.
I understand there are use cases where it might not work. I have a Pontiac Solstice for weekend open top + manual fun. I don’t care if you have an EV or not. I’m sharing my experience that an EV is great for daily driving and even road trips along an interstate.
I enjoy being right as much as the next guy, but I don’t exactly see the failure of EVs, much of which is thanks to a wildly inconsistent policy, as being something to love. Hooray, a bunch of companies set piles of cash on fire, and tons of people are going to lose their jobs. China will continue to hand out beatings to the rest of the industry. Neat.
Infrastructure needed improvement, and I agree we weren’t quite there for EVs to meet the needs of most, but even I’ll admit (begrudgingly) that we were getting there. I’ve been on here willing to highlight the shortcomings of EVs plenty but I’m not going to applaud the death of progress to be “correct”.
its not policy, its reality. It has nothing to do with biden or trump in office, they are failures on a base level. We are SO far away. And now that data AI crap is a thing, we are even further away. It’s just the reality. We need 100 new nuclear plants, then make everything electric. Until then its a tax on the poor and destroys our living standards.
Progress is a funny word. And its also nothing something to chase, just to chase.
And you lament big corps throwing away the money, but you didn’t speak up WHILE they were throwing it away. People losing jobs they are going to lose to automation and AI. If they are even losing their jobs, I haven’t read about large lay-offs included in any of these plans. I am guessing head of EV will need to transfer departments though.
Repeating something is “just the reality” does not make something reality.
It does come down to policy. Policy dictates the sorts of power plants that are viable. Policy dictates how charging infrastructure is developed. Policy determines incentives for purchasing EVs and/or providing for residential charging. Just like policy once turned the US into a place that you effectively have to own a car to be a productive citizen in, policy will determine the viability of, well, just about everything. The free market never existed, and never really will.
I think you’ll find plenty of people on here own EVs that meet their needs nicely. Some will be a little… extreme about it lol, but most are reasonable and have great arguments for how accommodating the EV experience is. They may not yet be useful to you, But not every product needs to be for you. Just like how not everything is meant for me.
Claiming it’s a tax on the poor, and destroys our living standards (…) isn’t a legitimate argument, but rather, just a conservative talking point. 100 nuclear plants? That’s a fun round number!
Pretending this administration isn’t a major part of the calculation for these manufacturers making these decisions, is also, not genuine.
It’s wild that I’m here defending EVs as someone who doesn’t really have a horse in this race. But I also root for positive change, even if it doesn’t immediately benefit me.
My work van is an EV and it’s the best work van I’ve ever had. I charge it maybe twice a week, and never have to worry about oil changes. Low operational cost, low maintenance, perfectly capable of doing everything my gas or diesel vans did. Granted, I already do very low miles in a day, but for a fleet vehicle in an urban area, EVs make a lot of sense. We were gearing up to buy more of them which would have been awesome now that gas prices are up, but now that’s off the table.
Last mile delivery/urban work are two of the best case scenarios for EVs. Mileage is comparatively low, the vehicle is in use for less than 12hr a day allowing for easy overnight charging, and most travel is stop/go city traffic maximizing efficiency.
Problem is when usage goes above 50% daily, highway use becomes significant, or long commutes are involved. Cold temps in the north compound all of those criteria.
Why are more EV work vans off the table? They sound ideal for your specific case.
I think they’re off the table because they’re all being cancelled.
Local work vans make a ton of sense as EVs.
Correct. Both on policy and that EVs work for plenty of people.
I have an EV, a gas car, and a diesel. The EV gets the most miles and is by far the cheapest to operate. The gas car is nice for longer trips until my EV gets update to one with faster charge speeds.
Don’t want to buy and EV – don’t. Celebrating US companies losing billions is just stupid.
Policy existed in Biden’s 2022 IRA Act. Trump destroyed all of those infrastructure improvements, including funding for nationwide chargers.
You’d have to double-check this, but I am pretty certain that funding for DCFC infrastructure was restored recently after some lawsuits found in favor of states who sued for funds congress already allocated.
Some. But the direct damage to the EV industry in America still stands, in addition to scaling back emissions through the EPA, and lowering fuel efficiency requirements. Can it get any worse?
If there is one thing this administration has proved, it’s that it can always get worse!
Restored by the federal courts but then effectively killed again with a new requirement that raises domestic content from 55% to 100%.
100% domestic content is impossible because every commercially available part has some imported content.
“I’ve been on here willing to highlight the shortcomings of EVs plenty but I’m not going to applaud the death of progress to be “correct”
Agreed, and I don’t understand the strong polarization that EVs elicit. So many conversations devolve into evangelicals vs antagonists. EVs don’t work for me, but I’m happy that they are out there as a choice. If the charging situation in my classic home were correctly sorted, I’d be happy to put an Ioniq 5 in the driveway for normal duty and use an ICE/hybrid hauler for the road trips where range is a genuine concern (and it is out here).
It was the mandates.
When EVs were going to be something you were forced to buy (if you wanted or needed a new car), it was easy to see it as government overreach.
Since the mandates have been mostly rolled back or overturned (for now) I have backed off my strongest EV criticisms. I’m still open to considering one in the future if or when the tech improvements make them feasible for me. But I want that decision to be made on my timeline, not the government’s.
“When EVs were going to be something you were forced to buy (if you wanted or needed a new car), it was easy to see it as government overreach.”
That I do agree with.
It was the mandates, exactly. From the federal level subsidies for EVs and ever increasing strangulation of ICE, to outright ICE bans floated in multiple states, many Americans gave the gov the middle finger. The easiest way to get Americans to do anything is tell them they have to do the opposite. Forcing anything only delays it’s acceptance and promotes rebellion.
Zero states had an outright ICE ban. They didn’t even have a ban on sales of new ICE vehicles.
Even CARB states would have allowed hybrid sales after 2035.
“…to outright ICE bans floated in multiple states…”
I never said ICE bans were law. I said the idea to ban them was floated. Floated, as in a proposed law or regulation.
The CARB zero emission vehicle mandate that was proposed would have outlawed new ICE sales in CA (plus any others following CARB regs) in 2035. This was blocked last year federally.
https://www.natso.com/california-gov-issues-executive-order-banning-internal-combustion-engine-ice-vehicles-sales/
The CARB ZEV mandate did not ban ICE cars in 2035. It allowed hybrids with a 50 mile electric range for light duty vehicles. The MD and HD regulation didn’t even require hybrids.
Read the actual regulation not articles with click-bait headlines.
This. The other part that gets missed is that CARB relaxed the standards in August 2022 (under “Clean Cars II for anyone who wants more info) to allow for… more (plug-in) hybrids that are fun to drive.
True but most people didn’t read the regulation (and neither did most of the people reporting on the subject.)
Sorry, should have specified ICE ONLY as in non-hybrid when typing out the above comment. My mistake.
Show me the bill with this mandate. What page number? Which paragraph? Until then, you’re just repeating Fox News lies.
https://coltura.org/clean-cars-2030-signed-into-law-in-washington-state/
https://abc7ny.com/post/electric-vehicle-new-york-zero-emissions-cars/12279246/
California’s bill mandated a cap of 20% PHEVs or fuel cells, otherwise all EVs. You can dispute if that’s a mandate, I call it one.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/california-moves-accelerate-100-new-zero-emission-vehicle-sales-2035#:~:text=Eligibility%20and%20Credits,new%20warranty%20and%20durability%20requirements.
I expect an apology, otherwise you’re buying into the same propaganda you accuse me of.
That’s not a mandate. That is continuing forward, in the spirit, requirements and mission set forth by Republican Richard Nixon’s EPA, in a constant bid to lower emissions. That includes individual states doing the same, some to a higher degree than others. Same trajectory. Absolutely nothing has changed, except Trump took an axe to the EPA.
OK?
So under the terms of these laws, would you or would you not have been able to buy a pure ICE powered car in the respective states after 2030 or 2035?
If the answer is anything other than an unqualified yes, then it’s a mandate.
I don’t care who started the EPA, who passed the laws, who is in charge of the government, or whatever you’re going on about. The question was initially posed: “Why are EVs political?”, my answer was “primarily mandates”, and another commenter rudely questioned whether there were mandates at all. Which is gaslighting of the highest order.
“Mandate”… weird use of the term. Does that mean banning lawn darts was a “mandate” for other lawn games? Or has my number just not been drawn yet for when the government drags me out of my house and to the dealership forcing me to buy a car?
Considering there is nothing compulsory about those bills, using he word mandate is just a buzzword meant to tug at emotions more than anything else. It’s just pearl clutching by people who like to pretend their existing choices are exclusively due to a free market and unwilling to admit nothing about the market today is free. It has already been tainted. The scales have already been tipped. Pushing them back the other direction is no more of a mandate than the existing system pushing them the opposite.
Pick another word if you don’t like “mandate” then, but the truth is that those bills were set to restrict sales of new cars to certain types, and that fact made people mad and led to backlash against EVs.
It was a much bigger difference in degree than other types of vehicle standards and its the height of delusion to pretend otherwise.
One doesn’t even need to oppose the “mandates” to recognize how politically damaging and unwise to the cause of electrification they were. For some reason a lot of people here seemingly want to ignore that or chalk things up to propaganda.
Is it though? Trucks and SUVs account for about 75% of the US market; which is many multiples higher than when these distortionary (?) regulations that now favor them first started in the 70s. EVs were supposed to be 80% of the market. Sounds pretty similar in scale and degree. It just took tens or hundreds of smaller and less specific regulations to achieve that market concentrations similar to that of the one big “mandate”.
You can still buy new car-shaped cars now though if you want to. Nothing was banned by government decree. I legitimately do not know why this is so difficult to understand.
So defacto ban = good? But a specific ban is a government mandate, scary, and bad? Got it.
I do not recall endorsing anything resembling a ban, defacto or otherwise, anywhere in this thread. In general, I believe our market would be improved by fewer and/or less restrictive rules and regulations on the types of vehicles that can be sold.
Among two bad things however, one can certainly be worse than another, as once again I must repeat that cars are not banned.
You know why. It is political. It clearly is a ‘my side, your side’ issue. Which side gets political funding from Big Petroleum?
Both – but the GOP gets more.
It is ironic that Texas leads the nation in renewables and oil / gas.
Much worse.
I’m a person who would genuinely consider an EV if one of these manufacturers would you know, give me what I want in a car that just happens to have an EV powertrain. There’s a few things that I’d like to improve about the usability, both otherwise, I could be convinced the next time I’m in the market (I’m very much not in the market). There’s both positives and negatives, like you know, most things.
It sucks that this has like most thing, turned into something polarizing when it simply doesn’t need to be. But when there’s money involved, as usual, someone will inevitably fire up the lobbying and propaganda machine.
Hey just curious – what’s going on with the charging situation in your home that you think you can’t install an EVSE?
I ask because I have an old home (about 100 years old) with 100 amp service, and I have been running an Ioniq 5 and my partner’s Ioniq 6 since November 2025 with no issues.
A lot of electricians assume that because most EVSEs can deliver up to 50 amps, installing one requires a service upgrade. However, all EVSEs can limit the current. Mine is set to 24 amps on a 30 amp circuit and that is more than enough to keep our EVs charged for all the driving we need to do.
Also, there are lots of very weatherproof EVSEs. I am lucky enough to have a garage, but my Grizzl-E classic is totally weatherproof and can be installed outdoors.
The panel’s old and one circuit is occasionally overloaded and trips the breaker. Have to run the wiring 50 feet from it to the corner of the house that would reach the car, either trenching alongside the house next to the gas line or digging up into attic. Would definitely need the weatherproof charging station. Nothing insurmountable but the costs add up and it requires legwork and scheduling more akin to “let’s remodel this room” than “let’s go down to the dealership and replace the old car in 2hrs”.
I’d be wanting to pair it with a few other electrical and natural gas upgrades. May do so in a few years and then I will actually give an EV a hard look. We have few EV use case limitations to examine.
Hmm, it sounds like your whole panel needs to be replaced to better balance circuit loads. If you’re at all handy, you can try it yourself. I had to replace the subpanel in my garage before installing my EVSE and it was a fun project that only took about 4 hours.
However, I understand your dilemma. One thing to consider – if you happen to have a dryer near where your car parks, there are intelligent load-sharing splitters which will give you a NEMA 15-50 plug for an EVSE and not allow the EVSE to draw power if the dryer is running.
My dryer is just as far. Nothing is working for me.
Not touching electrical work. Our clothes dryer growing up had a big dent in the metal from the wrench that my dad’s arm involuntarily threw at it when he accidentally touched a 240v line. Not sure how he did that given that he is pretty handy himself.
But it left and impression *rimshot*.
I’ll pay someone when the time comes.
It is a chicken or egg thing. Companies don’t build chargers until there are enough EVs to make charging a profitable business. People don’t buy EVs until there are enough chargers. What the US has going for us that many other countries don’t is that more than 50% of people in the USA live in detached single family homes with a dedicated off street parking. That allows us to charge at home and the need for public charges largely goes away.
Power is power. We have no issue adding it for other uses but for some reason when it comes to EV suddenly people say the grid can’t be upgraded. An EV doesn’t require any more electrical service than an electric clothes dryer or stove.
As Taargus said – companies burning more than $100 billion in cash isn’t a good thing. My employer laid off 3,000 people this year between tariffs and having both a new green field EV assembly plant and a new battery plant sitting idle.
Okay, but at 1500 a pop to install the charger, you aren’t getting most the people on board, and as well the energy rates you guys keep ignoring. Also, we added energy for data centers, but really we just stole from the rest of the people. Where are we adding to the grid and updating everything that isn’t effecting ev’s? I haven’t heard about that anywhere. Best I’ve seen is new poles that will fall instead of ground buried wires because its too pricey. In New England we shut plants down, haven’t opened one in my entire life. Where is this happening?
Your employer did lay offs because they hired too much during covid and most the employees probably didn’t do much, or were replaced by AI type stuff. At least if its like any of these other large companies doing lay-offs. This will continue more and more and has nothing to do with EVs.
These are the responses I get and that I mentioned in my first. You guys just can’t accept you followed a dumb thing and turned your brains off to problems facing the industry. I’m done defending reality today.
If spending $1500 to install a charger is holding people back they can’t do math. It is a one-time expense that pays back in almost no time.
Looking at national averages for gas and electricity someone driving an Equinox EV is saving $900 a year in fuel alone vs a gas Equinox. A Honda Prelude saves $450 a year vs a CR-V hybrid.
Yes, we are adding generation, transmission, and distribution to the grid every year.
In 2025 we added 54.9 GW and retired 5.2 GW = net add of 49.7 GW
In January 2026 we added 3.9 GW.
Not going to go through every New England state but in CT they have added 232 generating stations since 2000 totaling 5.7 GW. Most of those are Solar but CT has also added 41 new natural gas single or combined cycle turbine plants.
EIA has a list of every electric generating plant in the USA. Updated monthly with every plant that is operating, retired, and planned.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860m/
Funny how people act like we aren’t adding generation capacity because they don’t see smoke or cooling stacks going up.
In their defense – Industrial gas turbines do have a much smaller footprint and lower profile than the old coal plants they are replacing.
Okay first, my EVSE cost me $500 to install, which included the EVSE, a NEMA 15-50 outlet, 8-gauge wiring, a whole new circuit breaker panel, and circuit breakers for the panel. The actual EVSE was $250, and it’s a Grizzle-E Classic that I bought open-box, not some no-name Chinese Amazon special.
Second, if someone has to pay an electrician to install an EVSE and it does end up costing $1,500, if that one-time cost is putting someone off EV ownership, they are not very good at budgeting or cost/benefit analysis. That is a very shortsighted way of making decisions.
The problem isn’t a single charger install in a single family home. The issue is thousands. The neighborhood grid may not be able to handle the increased load, or maybe it’s the local substation. The grid is effectively maxed out in many areas.
Level 2 chargers are generally set up for 48a if the home wiring can handle it, nearly double a 240v clothes dryer (20-30 amp). They also run at that 48a draw for a few to several hours depending on vehicle SoC. That’s a lot more draw for a lot longer than an electric clothes dryer.
Virtually all EVs as well many of the charge cables have an option to delay charging so the load on the grid is primarily after-hours. We’ve had a level-2 charger at home for years and our EVs could be setup for a target time of say 6:00 am at 90%. Plug in when you get home, and sometime in the wee hours the charge would start, with the battery hitting the 90% mark just as programmed at 6. The load on the grid taking place when there’s usually more capacity.
The grid issue may be a problem in some locations, but it’s not certainly universal. It all depends on the local utility. That said, all of the grid needs to be designed with current and future loading in mind.
E-REVs (and PHEVS) with level-1 charging from a simple 120v outlet is even less of an issue. I’m a big fan of the E-REV concept for those that don’t have access to level-2 charging at home and/or don’t have access to an ICE vehicle to compliment their full EV.
The grid is not even close to being maxed out 24 hours a day. It is close to maxed out (in some places) for a few on-peak hours in the late afternoon / early evening. That is not when people charge EVs. They charge off-peak in the early morning hours when the grid isn’t close to being maxed out.
My charger is 48V. I have it plugged into a 30 amp circuit so it is set for 24 amp max. I could run a new 60 amp circuit but faster speed just isn’t needed. At 5.5 kW I’m adding 19 miles of range per hour and my commute is 45 – 50 miles per day.
EDIT. There is also the fact that newer EVs can help balance the grid with vehicle to home. Charge off-peak when demand and prices are low and then power the home on-peak when demand and prices are high.
I wish more people understood that EVSEs don’t always draw 48 amps. Mine is also set to 24 amps, and honestly that is still faster than my house needs with two EVs.
I am not the biggest fan of vehicle-to-grid technology as there are inherent power losses, plus the idea of giving a huge corporation the power to decide what to do with the energy in my car makes me nervous. Utility companies can and should be building our more energy generation capacity instead of focusing on shareholder returns, but you know, capitalism.
I’m not interested in vehicle to grid either. States and utilities have already shown they cannot be trusted when they changed the rules after the fact on solar net metering. IF utilities were to buy power from my home they should be paying market rate.
That is why I said Vehicle to Home – which is what most US EVs are set up to do anyways. That keeps the decision making with me not the utility. In my case I could charge a 9 cents off-peak and then draw from my EV on-peak when electricity is 45 cents per kwh. That more than makes up for a 5 – 7% charging loss.
Oops – I misread your initial post. Vehicle to home is the bomb.
Level 2 EVSEs are not “generally set up for 48a.” That is the maximum amperage most EVSEs are capable of, but all can be throttled down to deliver less power. Mine is set to deliver 24 amps, which is less than a clothes dryer.
Also, if you think that widespread EV adoption is a problem for the grid, you should really look at the amount of power data centers are drawing versus what it would look to have everyone drive EVs. Saying “the grid can’t handle mass EV adoption” is exactly what right-wing politicians and oil companies want you to think. The truth is that the grid could easily handle widespread EV adoption in most places, and where upgrades are needed, we have the money and technology to do so.
Energy generation is a gigantic problem. In the last 20 years a ton has been done to lower demand, but every time there’s a breakthrough in old technology (LED lighting, heat pump HVAC) the unused supply has been gobbled up by new technology (Datacenters, AI, EVs). Meanwhile cost per KwH has steadily risen over this period.
The entire roll out of modern EVs has largely been a farce. We’ve been building (and buying) the equivalent of gas guzzlers that happen to run on electrons instead of dead dinosaurs (maybe still dead dinosaurs depending on your local power generation sources). But hey, at least the celebrities were able to greenwash their reputations and provide cover for their private jet use.
EVs will eventually supersede ICE. Energy capacity per kg is the primary problem. Charging availability and charging speed are problems 2 and 3. Until those problems tip firmly in EVs direction, some form of ICE will be the default choice for the average person.
EVs are generally 3-4x more efficient than gas if you look at the cost/kWh and miles/kWh vs cost for a gallon on gas and MPG. Of course it all depends on the efficiency of the vehicle and your local energy costs.
The displaced emissions from fossil-fuel generating plants are also much cleaner than individual gas and diesel engines, but once again it depends on the vehicle and the local utility. Solar/Wind/Hydro power on the grid is obviously better for our grandkids that some crappy diesel garbage truck spewing crap in the air, while old coal power electric plants might suck compared to an efficient modern hybrid’s limited emissions. It all depends.
EVs are just part of the effort needed to try to combat our worsening climate crisis, but it’s an important one (don’t get me started on maritime diesel!).
IF you can accommodate an EV (level-2 at home, ICE for road trips) they make great primary/city cars. If you can’t level-2 at home, or you primarily drive more than 50 miles a day or so, I think E-REVs (and PHEVS if you have to) are the best choice.
What we have actually gotten as consumers are EV powertrains shoehorned into ‘regular’ vehicles, or beyond stupid vehicles (EV trucks/SUVs). We have large, heavy, expensive EVs that comparatively suck in terms of kWh/mi compared to what they could do if efficiency was the primary goal.
Maybe I’ll buy an older Prius when my current daily takes a dump. My current daily was $3k and averages 30+ mpg. Going to 40mpg would save me $800 a year, 50mpg $1300. Increased insurance costs or a car payment would eat some or all of the savings quickly.
As someone that had a 190 mile commute for awhile – find a different job man. It gets soul crushing and you can’t get that missed time with family back. Something that gets more and more clearly focused with age.
I would tell my younger self never to take that job even though it was interesting and paid well.
Definitely soul crushing, 3-4 hours of driving a day blows. No family to miss so at least that isn’t adding to the dread.
The job is a means to an end, with that end being a repair/machine shop small business that’s still a couple years out.
I used to have a rule I wouldn’t live more than 30min from work due to lost commute time. That went out the window when ‘We’re doing WFH permanently’ became ‘Everyone needs to be in office’ 3 months after buying my house.
Yes, WFH reversals surprised and screwed a lot of people. Lost a lot of good people too.
Good to hear you are working a plan – I know far too many people doing a commute like with no plan to change.
It’s laughable especially when my employer (major automaker) is touting how green and environmentally conscious we are at the same time. Yep, making everyone drive into the office instead of working from home is super green guys. Doesn’t matter if you drive ICE or EV, it’s still a waste of energy when you can do your job from anywhere with an internet connection.
Very true. Our reversal was partly a new CEO that straight up said he wanted to see butts in seats even if it didn’t increase productivity. The other part was the city threatening to take back tens of millions in tax incentives if we didn’t get employees back in the office.
Prior to COVID every meeting was in person and the whole team was in the same building. Going to the office made some sense.
Post COVID every meeting is online and the team is spread over 4 time zones but we have to physically be in a corporate owned building 4 days a week. Even if that means driving to work to sit buy oneself. Crazy.
Exactly nailed it.
The really dumb part is the ‘tax incentives’ are for sprawling properties that aren’t even needed, and would be better off sold in every category except the CEO’s ego size.
I’ve had approximately 6 meetings in 4 years that had to be in person. 5/6 were at assembly plants or involved a vehicle tear down. Any other time has been a waste of time, gas, and square footage. I intentionally waste time bullshitting with coworkers since we’re forced to be here.
We produce more than enough electricity to do the job. The wild card here is all the AI server farms. No one saw them coming. Before that, electricity usage in the US actually stabilized, that’s with all the EVs out there, people switching to heat pumps from gas, and other improvements.
From the numbers I can find, approximately 1.4% of vehicles in the total US fleet are EVs. You’re absolutely correct on electricity demand being effectively flat going back to 2007, but that is unlikely to continue IMO. The changeover to LED lighting is largely complete, and the conversion to heat pumps is unlikely to accelerate fast enough to offset increasing EV market share and new server farms.
I never supported the EV movement either. Glad to hear I am not alone.
lol
Yeah, I live in a medium sized Southern city and there are EVs everywhere.
People just want to shove their heads in the sand and not imagine anything different.
And frankly making shitty arguments apparently indistinguishable from the usual “gunbermint making the climate gay” should be a clue to them that there’s more than meets their eye.
But let’s just keep burning the imported consumable… the way of the future.
So long as oil and coal interests keep lining the pockets of our legislature and the cheeto in charge there will be no changes.
The rest of the world has proved you wrong. Your stance on the issue is purely ideological.
Uncertainty kills innovation as does inane public policy.
So the only EVs Honda has in development now are the budget version of the 0 SUV that they were developing for India and the little Japan + UK + Europe EV hot hatch? Or are those in jeopardy as well?
Ugh. This is world class shortsighted. Gas prices will be elevated for a long time. Nothing is going through the Strait of Hormuz in the next month at least. If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it. Plus the destruction of the oil and gas infrastructure there. The world will be feeling the pinch for a long time.
Honda has plenty of hybrids to sell to people concerned about gas prices. They also do not need EVs to meet fuel economy standards as they have the highest fleet economy in the USA.
The only wild card is CARB’s ZEV mandate. CARB has told automakers that although they are not collecting fines today – when they win in court all accumulated fines will be due. Every ZEV credit missed is a $5,000 fine (EV is 4 credits / PHEVs are 1 credit)
Well, they have three hybrid models*, two of which are in declining sedan segments. Maybe that will get them where they want to be, but not having a hybrid Pilot (and Ridgeline), Odyssey, and HR-V is looking a little short sighted to me at this point.
*Prelude doesn’t count!
Those hybrids are their 3 best selling products that make up 61% of their sales.
Honda’s hybrid V6 is due in 2027.
Honda’s 2025 US Sales:
1. Honda CR‑V — 403,768
2. Honda Civic — 238,661
3. Honda Accord — 150,196
4. Honda HR‑V — 148,771
5. Honda Pilot — 124,209
6. Honda Odyssey — 88,462
7. Honda Passport — 55,231
8. Honda Ridgeline — 48,448
9. Honda Prologue (EV) — 39,194
“Those hybrids are their 3 best selling products that make up 61% of their sales”
That’s a bit of a problem considering 2 of them are in segments that have been shrinking. The Accord has lost half its volume. It routinely sold 300K annually a decade ago and the Camry still does. Civic is down 30% from a decade ago despite being best in class. Not exactly growth segments. The CR-V is a bright spot but isn’t making up that lost volume.
2027 is late but better than never. A v6 hybrid that actually gets decent fuel economy would be pretty sweet.
There are lots of people who are EV curious but want one only with a Toyota or Honda badge. The Prologue taking 1/10 of the CR-V’s sales shows a healthy interest. That’s in line with the rest of the market, AFAIK. We’ll know more when the new actually decent bZ goes on sale for Toyota for a bit.
I sure hope they stop dragging their feet and have something in a few years when the hybrid CR-V leases start coming back in and their drivers want out of the ICE maintenance game.
Alternate headline: “RSX nameplate saved from being a disgrace.” Now they can make a Type R powered Prelude and badge that as the new Acura RSX.
In Ron Howard narration voice:
But they didn’t.
Pepperidge Farm remembers when the RSX was simply a disgraced Integra. Now we’re worried about the integra-ty of the RSX nameplate?!