The Next Honda Accord Is Going To Look Very Different

I like the current look of the Honda Accord, which has a sleek profile that suits both its desire for efficiency and its status as one of the few remaining sedans on the market. Honda, a company that’s so far on its back foot it could push its heel through a marble floor, doesn’t agree with me and is in the process of rushing out a dramatic refresh of the model

As a Honda hybrid owner, it baffles me a little that Honda doesn’t have more of these on the market. I got a call from a dealer yesterday asking if they could buy my car, which isn’t something I’m interested in, but I might get a quote for an article. The poor salesperson tried to imply that maybe a bigger hybrid Passport was coming next year. I had to tell him it wasn’t. The mess at Honda will require strong leadership, and a cabal of ex-leaders reportedly tried to throw the current guy out for, among other things, spending too much time with golfers.

It wouldn’t be The Morning Dump without some executive intrigue, and Honda’s CEO isn’t alone. The head of a startup truck company is having to face a lot of complaints from employees that he didn’t pay them. Oops. Ford’s CEO would like to keep selling affordable cars, and he’s asking for some fairness in the upcoming USMCA negotiations.

The 2027 Accord Will ‘Feel Like A New Model’

The photo at the top of this post is of the 2003 Honda Kiwami concept, which looks curiously like the now-canceled Honda 0 Saloon, even though it debuted 20 years earlier. I initially doubted that the new Honda Accord would look anything like it, but it was a fun thought exercise to remember that Honda really, really, really likes this shape.

This month is the 50th annivesary of the Honda Accord and the car is selling well. The current Accord was nearly up 30% year-over-year in May and about 29% through almost the first half of the year. Unlike the Passport/Pilot/Odyssey, the Accord has a popular and excellent hybrid system available. Yet, it’s not selling well enough for Honda, which is planning a dramatic refresh.

Folks at Honda told Automotive News that the new car will be bolder than the current version:

Gary Robinson, American Honda’s head of product planning, described the changes as “pretty major,” declining to elaborate on what’s headed to dealerships in the second half of 2027.

“Customers will see a substantially redesigned Accord that will feel like a new model,” Robinson said.

What does that mean? AN‘s sources have some ideas:

The sleeker, more aerodynamic design draws inspiration from Honda’s scrapped 0 Series electric sedan. “The 0 Series went too far,” one of the people with knowledge of the update said. “The Accord strikes the right balance.”

It’s possible that this means it looks like the cleverly-named Hybrid Sedan Prototype shown by Honda in March, which was left-hand-drive and looks very American, with production-spec DOT-style reflectors, motors, et cetera. As Thomas pointed out:

Those details are far more intriguing here because this “Prototype” model features far more radical styling than the Acura crossover. It’s a dramatic two-box design with a serious slope to the roofline. The front lighting arrangement is like nothing we’ve seen from Honda, and plastic cladding on a sedan is rather unusual. While it’s hard to judge size from a photo alone, the Hybrid Sedan Prototype does appear slightly longer than the Acura Hybrid SUV Prototype, so it might be more Accord-sized than Civic-sized.

My guess is that it’s exactly this, which does indeed take some small cues from the Honda 0 Saloon, which itself took cues from the Honda Kiwami concept. Through the transitive property of car design, it means the Honda Accord that America is going to get in 2027 is based on a 25-year-old design. At least I hope it is, because I love the Kiwami concept.

Honda’s Old Guard Reportedly Tried To Boot Current CEO Toshihiro Mibe

As evidenced by the above, Honda is not in great shape now and is having to execute a large turnaround amidst big troubles in also-large China, as well as tariffs. It’s therefore not a huge shock that some of the company’s old guard has a lot of concerns and at least, according to this detailed report from Reuters, considered removing current CEO Toshihiro Mibe.

It obviously didn’t work, but the attempt did surface a lot of the concerns around the company. In addition to Honda’s ill-fated push into EVs and rough go in China, Mibe himself is represented as not being involved in the genba of the company, which is how Honda refers to the “actual place” of the company, meaning the factories, labs, and sales rooms.

That Reuters piece includes this interesting detail:

During Mibe’s tenure, Honda’s share of the Chinese market nosedived, falling from 8 percent in 2020 to less than 3 percent last year.

Honda said the focus on the genba remained at its core, even as it worked to become more competitive in a changing market. It declined to specify how many times Mibe had visited China but said that travel was conducted as necessary.

Mibe, the alumni argued, was too focused on Honda’s golf sponsorship, including playing rounds with Akie and Chisato Iwai, pro sisters supported by the company.

When things are going well, the fact that you go out and play golf or drive cars or whatever makes it look like you’re a confident person with a well-balanced life. When things are going poorly, all of it is going to be used to paint you as a person who doesn’t have their eye on the ball. I don’t know what’s happening in Honda other than what’s reported, but if only for appearances I’d probably be playing less golf if I were Mibe.

EV Truck Startup Windrose Hit With Allegations Of Nonpayment

I haven’t covered the Tesla-challenging EV Semi startup Windrose because, after the whole Nikola disaster, or the Bollinger disaster, it seemed like maybe all of these companies might just fail. This one even has a young CEO who gets on a lot of lists at places like Forbes and then finds himself trying to explain to reporters why he’s not paying employees.

This time it’s Windrose’s CEO Wen Han, a 36-year-old Chinese native with a Stanford business degree. I am no oracle, but whenever I see “Stanford business degree” in an article about a tech startup I start to get a little concerned. For all of the hype surrounding the vehicle, things have not gone well according to this detailed report from Nikkei Asia:

Han hired more than a dozen American engineers, technicians, operation experts and factory managers — most former employees of defunct electric truck company Nikola — to develop Windrose’s U.S. operations and fulfill orders he said he had lined up. Most were in California while some worked remotely. By February, all but one had left the company or been laid off by text message or email, according to former Windrose employees.

Jason Gies, the former head of North American operations for Windrose, sued the company last October for $412,500 in unpaid severance after he was terminated by text, allegedly without cause. A federal court in the eastern district of Michigan ruled in Gies’ favor in January, after Windrose failed to respond to the lawsuit.

Han, who said it was a mistake to fire Gies over text, told Nikkei Asia he never personally received notices of the lawsuit. He said they were sent to the company’s office in Sunnyvale, California, which is shared with a boutique law firm and where he does not regularly check the mail.

The excuses just get worse from there, including an accusation of racial overtones that was denied by employees who said they just wanted to get paid and be treated fairly.

Jim Farley Would Like To See The Revised USMCA Become Fairer To Companies Building In The United States

There is a quirk of the current trade environment wherein companies that abide by President Trump’s first term United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement are somewhat disadvantaged relative to countries like the UK with flat tariffs. It’s hard to keep track of all of this because it seems to change every day, but the basic premise is that if you put a duty on imports that’s set at 10% for a vehicle, but charge 25% for parts brought into build a car in the United States, that could negate a lot of the advantages of building a car here.

Per the Detroit Free Press, Ford CEO Jim Farley addressed this concern:

“Really, our priority is to be able to import parts, build as much as we can in our country, but import parts to make the vehicles as affordable as possible,” Farley said.

[…]

“So what we’ll be looking for in the new negotiation is really making sure that if a vehicle is imported from Mexico and Canada, that it’s done as a level playing field, No. 1,” Farley said. “So, if you’re not compliant with USMCA, it should be very expensive to do that.”

Farley added, “We also want access to affordable parts, so we can make even more in the U.S., which is our plan, but be able to import parts without punitive tariffs,” Farley said.

Supply chains take years to move and Farley’s point is correct, that previously companies like Audi could skirt the USMCA and still import cars at a reasonably cheap price. If some version of the USMCA is to stay in place (whether as a trio of bilateral deals or one big deal), it doesn’t make sense to tariff those who follow the guidelines in a way that makes following them unecessary.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

We are short basically the entire staff today, which means I gotta lock in. Why is my lock-in music the Icelandic jazz-pop performer Laufey? I don’t know, but I smirk every time I hear the “Blah blah blah” line in “From the start.”

The Big Question

What was the best Honda Accord?

Top photo: Honda