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Honda is killing its EVs

• tim-tday 7mo ago
  The wind is just blowing back towards internal combustion for the moment. A couple years and they will shift again. Killing the whole research project would be dumb. Killing current models makes some sense.
  • outside2344 7mo ago
    The wind is actually blowing towards EVs. China: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/electric-vehicle-sales-in-china/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/electric-vehicle-sales-i... Europe: https://eleport.com/ev-sales-in-europe/ https://eleport.com/ev-sales-in-europe/ USA: https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/electric-vehicles/united-states https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/electric-vehicles/unite...
  • ascorbic 7mo ago
    Maybe in the US, but not elsewhere. EVs are still very much in the ascendant in the rest of the world.
  • seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
    Only in the US. The rest of the world, especially the undeveloped and developing world, is currently undergoing a car ownership boom due to cheap Chinese EVs.
    • twoodfin 7mo ago
      How are those Chinese EV makers doing financially, anyway? https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2025/11/china-electric-cars-market/684887/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2025/11/china-elec...
      • seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
        Better than American car producers. Why do you ask?
• blell 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • 1attice 7mo ago
    yes, everyone knows that a human head cannot hold both information about CO2 and information about cars
    • K0balt 7mo ago
      Arvix coming right up
• mono442 7mo ago
  ICE cars are still the majority of new cars being sold and it'll still take a while for EVs to become more popular.
  • downrightmike 7mo ago
    The biggest EV car is Tesla and they aren't good and tesla isn't a car company, its a finance comapny. Like Intel lost its edge because it became finance first engineering almost never. And no one wants a >$20k car. Disposable energy oil or not, manufacturers went nuts in 2020, and just kept pushing prices up and can't figure out why cars aren't selling.
    • pstuart 7mo ago
      BYD Auto is the worlds biggest, and their cars are affordable and their battery tech is evolving rapidly -- just recently announced batteries that can effectively recharge in the same time it takes to fill up one's gas tank. They are an unstoppable force and we ignore them at our own peril.
  • jopsen 7mo ago
    That will change. And it must, environmental concerns aside nobody wants to be beholden to oil prices ;)
• ta9000 7mo ago
  Ironically, Trump attacking Iran and closing the Strait is a boon to China and EV makers. Once the car is produced, aside from lubricants, it’s completely independent of oil. Heck you can put panels on your rooftop and slow charge it during the day.
  • grvbck 7mo ago
    > you can put panels on your rooftop and slow charge it during the day The real Mad Max will be roaming the apocalyptic wasteland in a Kia EV5.
    • ferongr 7mo ago
      Until the ICCU fails, at which point you're toast.
      • ta9000 7mo ago
        That was an EV6 issue, is it still present on the EV5?
        • ferongr 7mo ago
          All 800V eGMP Hyundai/Kia cars suffer from ICCU issues.
  • badpun 7mo ago
    Car tires are made with synthetic rubber, which is made from oil.
    • mindslight 7mo ago
      With where the Trumpists want to take us, tires made out of carved stone will suffice. Non-EVs will be retrofitted with a hole in the floor for your feet.
      • 7mo ago
• nytesky 7mo ago
  Honda is an engine company at its heart. It makes very reliable, long lived engines. They refine technology not really invent it (maybe invented VTEC). The transition to EV will be very gradual, I don’t even think we have enough rare earth metals and electrical grid capacity to go even twice as fast in adoption? Honda is waiting for the standards and technology to settle out and become commodity technology, then they implement and iterate to a refined and reliable product. It doesn’t seem like a winner take all market for EV? What would be the most? Perhaps I am ignorant on that part of market dynamics. *edit for typos
  • johanvts 7mo ago
    Once EVs are economically attractive the transition can be very fast. I live in Denmark so I have seen it, it took 7 years to go from ~5% to 90+% of new cars sold. Both EU and US are now relying on trade barriers to keep Chinese EVs away from consumers.
    • twelve40 7mo ago
      well China debate aside, where are they? i've been dabbling in electrics for over a decade now, on the lower range they are still 30% more expensive than gas cars. Surely someone, anyone outside of China could have done one cheaper by now? Leaf came out 16 years ago and they still can't get it under $30k?
      • johanvts 7mo ago
        I assume you are coming from a US perspective, because smaller economical EVs are available in europe and dominate in asia. America car companies have managed to make a 50k+ truck the average new car purchase. They aren’t going to kill that golden calf voluntarily. Instead they have managed to lock out the competition. Why Musk elected to build another truck instead of the promised model 2 is beyond me. Besides, with EVs you really have to consider total cost, they are still slightly more expensive to buy in the EU as well, but you quickly make it back on fuel.
        • 7mo ago
• jerlam 7mo ago
  Do people really want "software defined vehicles"? People keep repeating how Tesla keeps upgrading their software, but I don't really want my car to change every time I step into it. The person I know who loves FSD has soured on updates since the last one changed how the car handles simple things like intersections, and it's added a lot more stress. Cars should be appliances, boring and reliable, not something to amaze and delight you. Especially since the latter usually changes into "sell ads and your personal information".
  • vrinsd 7mo ago
    1000% agree. Sadly, this view is considered antiquated and anti-technology by a younger generation of people who think what we see in sci-fi shows should be reality (good or bad). And if you don't get that vision then you're some dumb luddite who should be banished from society. What's kind of remarkable is the onslaught of vehicles, many EV, which have critical functionality issues that are being ignored, but they have WiFi + hotspot on board! And if you want to do basic things with your own vehicle, like get the climate control ready before you leave on a trip you now need an app, a smartphone, and Internet connection and a subscription...to do things that could easily be done via some local BLE or WiFi connection. I see a lot of car companies rush to make "immersive" driving experiences while neglecting the basics. The Ioniq 5 / EV6 have ICCU issues that are not addressed which can leave the car stranded and the replacement parts have the same mysterious failure modes, the Jaguar I-Pace had numerous failures including a UI that would lag for basic things like changing air conditioning settings, the last generation Leaf (just prior to the current re-design) has battery issues that have forced people to do lemon-law buy backs, the Ford Mach E has a Tesla-style iPad center display that can't be turned off at night so it's a distraction (among other issues with the poor concept), but it has OTA so awesome!
    • gorgeWashington 7mo ago
      [dead]
  • spicybbq 7mo ago
    > Do people really want "software defined vehicles"? Absolutely, the sooner the better. The truth is, auto companies can track you, show you ads, and otherwise jerk you around without going all the way to having a "software defined vehicle." You just get a worse user experience.
• tim-projects 7mo ago
  This doesn't mention motorcycles > For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 (FY2025), motorcycles accounted for about 17% of total revenue, while cars made up around 65%. I wonder what the plan is for motorcycles, where in much of Asia cars aren't really viable and there are no real competitors to Honda engine bikes.
  • gruez 7mo ago
    >and there are no real competitors to Honda engine bikes. e-bikes/mopeds?
    • SR2Z 7mo ago
      Yeah, e-bikes with thumb throttles are so good that the only reason they haven't already supplanted motorcycles is that there are ten bajillion old unkillable motorcycle engines in use. It's a shame that US law doesn't have a nice in-between that would slot these bikes between proper e-bikes and motorcycles.
      • tim-projects 7mo ago
        Ebikes definitely aren't a viable alternative in Asia yet. Most Asian countries either have no charge stations or very few. Range doesn't compare with gas motorcycles. Hundreds of millions of motorcycles are still in active use with no real incentive to change
        • decimalenough 7mo ago
          Nope, they're increasingly viable. Nearly 10M electric scooters/bikes were sold last year, with the top three players being China, India and Vietnam. https://www.motorcyclesdata.com/2026/03/11/electric-motorcycles-market/ https://www.motorcyclesdata.com/2026/03/11/electric-motorcyc...
          • tim-projects 7mo ago
            Just those 3 countries is over 3 billion people. Most of them can't afford cars
• epolanski 7mo ago
  I hate those narratives that if you don't jump on EVs, your future is doomed. The last 5 years just don't show it. The EV market is still small and infrastructure missing in most of the world. Toyota played it safe and made bank when everybody was saying they were doomed. German automakers went hard on EVs. VW group sold 1 million fully electric vehicles in 2025, they will probably overtake Tesla in a couple of years for the biggest non-Chinese EV automaker by sales, but is it paying off financially? At the same time german premium brands have a very hard time differentiating when Chinese cars offer similar quality at half the price even after tariffs.
  • seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
    Is your point that the western car companies are doomed no matter how aggressively they jump into EVs now, and that Chinese EV producers have too much of a lead for them to recover, or that they have time to catch up later and can take it slow for now? China is already selling EVs to countries that haven’t even had many cars before, like Nepal. Is 75% of the world car market just going to be there’s because western auto manufacturers overfixated on their own very mature car markets?
    • epolanski 7mo ago
      I think they can catch up later, spin off some electric project to build know-how without going all-in releasing so many models. Mercedes-Benz sells 9 different fully electric models and that ignores their trucks and vans. BMW sells 9 different fully electric models across their BMW/Mini/Rolls Royce brands. Volkswagen sells more than *30*. I don't think western automakers can compete in any case unless they can either differentiate their offering or significantly lower the cost of core components like batteries.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • ZeroGravitas 7mo ago
    The EU regulations are in many ways built to prevent this kind of free riding, for the sensible reasons that if everyone free rides, aiming for excess profits on the short term, the transition doesn't happen and the Chinese eat your whole market.
• GianFabien 7mo ago
  Smart doorbells and thermostats that upgraded in the night often became a nuisance or an expensive brick. But a faulty software upgrade on a car can kill you and others. Car company execs need to take a chill pill followed by a reality serum. Monetizing subscription based basic features and delivering in-car advertising is the absolutely worst way to go. As consumers we need to stop buying into the bells, whistles and trinkets and demand essential and safe transportation.
  • sigmoid10 7mo ago
    Consumers have very little power in this space. Have you tried buying a non-premium car with physical buttons instead of touchscreens in recent years? There used to be hardly any option because carmakers all somehow decided this was the way forward, even though science clearly said it was making cars less safe. So if you needed a car and didn't have a ton of money, you could merely accept it. Only now that safety ratings started to include usability of key vehicle controls car makers decided to turn around again.
    • eldaisfish 7mo ago
      A screen is cheaper to design and easier to modify. That’s the motivation for auto companies.
    • fpoling 7mo ago
      Toyota Yaris, a small budget car has physical buttons for everything.
      • BirAdam 7mo ago
        Yaris has been discontinued.
        • rasz 7mo ago
          Not to mention Toyota already screwed with to the point people deliberately avoid gen2. gr yaris adas cant be permanently disabled.
• steve-atx-7600 7mo ago
  “Many automakers have found that dropping batteries into a car originally designed for an internal combustion engine”. Reminds me of idiotic hybrid variants of Subaru and Honda vehicles that don’t have spare tires because the battery was slapped into the existing vehicle platform as an afterthought. Eg. Subaru forester hybrid. Car bought by educated, practical folks.
  • raegis 7mo ago
    New Honda Accord hybrids do not include a spare tire. The manufacturers copied the idiocy.
    • fpoling 7mo ago
      For Toyota a spare tyre became on optional extra in Europe even on ICE models. They charge 200-300 Euro for having it.
    • lbebber 7mo ago
      Weird, they do here in Brazil (Hybrid Civics as well). Must be a cost or regulatory thing more than anything else.
• dangus 7mo ago
  I don’t think the title is hyperbole. Toyota isn’t giving up on their long term EV R&D plans. Just look at Nissan, which is broke as a joke, but they still put a new Leaf model on the market. Lately there’s been a vibe that the EV experiment has died off, but that really isn’t true looking at industry reporting. There is stalling that seems related to subsidy expiration and/or scale back, but we could argue that subsidies expiring is happening because the subsidies aren’t needed to sell vehicles anymore. 20% of new vehicles sold globally are EVs. Critical mass has been achieved, and not just in China (20% of vehicles sold in Europe are EVs). This is also an admission that Honda is just giving up on Acura completely. That $50k two row luxury SUV buyer that is such an industry staple buyer for the US auto industry is going to be buying Rivian R2s instead of an EV Acura MDX.
  • antonvs 7mo ago
    > Lately there’s been a vibe that the EV experiment has died off, but that really isn’t true looking at industry reporting. The oil industry spends a lot of money on astroturf.
• Denatonium 7mo ago
  Calling the Prologue "Honda's EV" feels like a huge stretch. The Prologue was a rebadged GM vehicle that served strictly as a compliance car for meeting CAFE standards. Now that the CAFE standards have been rendered toothless, there's no longer a need for that deal.
  • decimalenough 7mo ago
    It was "Honda's EV" in the sense that it was the only EV with a Honda badge you could actually buy. The three canned models mentioned in the article never even made it into the market.
    • giobox 7mo ago
      Europeans and the Japanese were able to buy the Honda e for a few years - this article wrongly states another unreleased model as Honda's first ground up EV. There's a few other EVs Honda produced in 90s as well, but e probably in running for first ground up new EV platform that made it to market as mass produced Honda product. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_e
      • formerly_proven 7mo ago
        The Honda e was a massively compromised vehicle due to the tiny ~29 kWh net battery and high energy consumption. It was released in 2020 but in terms of utility it's really much more like an early 2010s EV.
  • lenerdenator 7mo ago
    There'll be a need to maintain sales if gas prices stay high.
  • viccis 7mo ago
    >Now that the CAFE standards have been rendered toothless Can you elaborate on this? I'd love to have a cheap small truck like they used to make, but CAFE largely killed those.
• mandliya 7mo ago
  Interesting they are actually launching EVs in India: https://bwautoworld.com/article/honda-starts-pan-india-test-run-for-its-first-upcoming-electric-suv-597761 https://bwautoworld.com/article/honda-starts-pan-india-test-...
• bronlund 7mo ago
  I think this is a smart move, the EV boom is soon coming to and end. There is just not possible to make enough batteries or to deliver enough power, for all of us to drive electric. Is it possible to deliver and store electricity in a more efficient way perhaps? Rumor has it that it does, but not in a way you can put a meter on :)
  • mitthrowaway2 7mo ago
    Yeah, it's impossible. Also, China is making them too cheap to compete with, and in such quantity that they're basically dumping them and flooding the market. We have to enact laws and trade barriers to keep them out, or else we'll be drowning in them. Plus don't forget it's impossible to make that many EVs in the first place.
    • mempko 7mo ago
      You are right. We don't need more EVs. Lets get rid of cars completely and built cheap electrified public transport. Make ICE cars illiegal. Going all EV won't help the environment. Going all public transport would.
      • celsoazevedo 7mo ago
        Even in places where public transportation is very good, no bus goes everywhere or all the time, and trains are still limited to very specific routes. Need to go to the supermarket to buy food for your whole family? Not very practical on a bus. Live in rough area and come home from work late at night? Perhaps a car is safer. And so on. And this is in a city, it's even worse in rural areas. Even as someone that loves electric vehicles and uses public transportation a lot, it's hard to get behind these extreme "let's ban X and go all on Y" views. It ignores how things work in the real world.
• jmclnx 7mo ago
  Worldwide ? Seems so from the article. But my guess is maybe Honda will wait for Tesla or another US based auto company with EVs to fail and buy that company. Seems that is how large companies do "innovation" these days.
  • speedgoose 7mo ago
    As realistic as Toshiba purchasing Apple.
  • small_model 7mo ago
    Haha, this you "Blockbuster is waiting till Netflix fails and buy that. Nokia is waiting for Apple to fail and just buy that."
• odiroot 7mo ago
  I just hope Honda sticks to making awesome motorcycles.
  • carefree-bob 7mo ago
    Honda is the world's largest engine maker: yachts, airplanes, ships, lawnmowers, cars, motorcycles, heavy equipment. They will be fine. Also, please ignore these announcements. CEOs are trend-following children and their declarations of future behavior should be heavily discounted. Honda will follow the market, as will all the other automakers. This is all sturm and drang. When an automaker says "We will transition to all EV by 2030" then ignore them. When an automaker says "We will not sell any EVs" then ignore them. It's like a child saying "I will grow up to be an astronaut". Just pat them on the head and go about your day. Focus on what they are bringing to market at any point in time, everything else is foolish talk.
• kazinator 7mo ago
  > The large battery in an EV makes it easier to feed powerful computers, and it allows things like over-the-air updates to happen when the car is parked and “off.” I don't want anything of the sort as a consumer, so auto makers who don't "get" it either are fine by me. Nay, heroes.
  • einr 7mo ago
    Also, lol, "the large battery in an EV makes it easier to feed powerful computers". Do they not think an internal combustion engine can power a few ARM chips? What could the total power consumption of all the computer equipment in a car be, like 30-50 watts? 200 horsepower is 147 kW. Even the point about running computers when the car is off seems wildly uninformed: a 12 V starter battery in an ICE car is about 70 Ah. That’s 840 Wh. So you can run a 5 W computer (that does nothing but periodically wake up to look for and download updates and such) for 168 hours. (Of course, any competent implementation will not let electronics run the battery flat, but it still seems like way more than enough)
• mullingitover 7mo ago
  I'm convinced that the Japanese government is terrified of EVs because all the small and medium-sized businesses which support the Japanese auto industry will be absolutely gutted when vehicles contain drastically fewer parts. That, and Japan is deeply screwed if they go all-in on EVs and then China decides they shouldn't be allowed access to any more rare earths.
  • jasonwatkinspdx 7mo ago
    > China decides they shouldn't be allowed access to any more rare earths This is a common misunderstanding. There are plenty of alternative locations to mine rare earth minerals, particularly Australia. China cornered the market because it's a high pollution low margin business. If geopolitical concerns cut off access to Chinese sources, alternatives will be developed.
    • putlake 7mo ago
      Mining isn't the only bottleneck with rare earths. There also the processing, which is an industry China has monopolized through sustained investments over decades. They have also improved processing efficiency through investments in technology. It's going to take a while for anyone else to catch up.
      • seanmcdirmid 7mo ago
        > There also the processing, which is an industry China has monopolized through sustained investments over decades. I don't think this is the right way to characterize it. China invested when other countries didn't, but they didn't monopolize the market, they have no moat beyond expertise and some tech advancement that could be replicated easily enough. The only moat they have is related perseverance and other countries simply not wanting to put the work in.
        • hangonhn 7mo ago
          I think they do have a moat because they dominate the supply chain not just in the raw material and processing but also in some of the actual technical experience, i.e. the experience of running such processing facilities, and also a monopoly on making the equipment that you need to build such a facility. They put export controls on those equipment and restricted their citizens who work in the rare earths industry from traveling aboard. Basically, if we want to replicate what they did, we will have to do it mostly from scratch -- Japan and Australia has done some of the work already so it's not totally from scratch. It's obviously not impossible but it could take almost a decade for us to do that. That said, I don't think this should be enough for Japan to stop investing in EVs. If Japanese car makers are really worried about this then they can build their plants in the US and leverage any deal the US has with China on real earths. They've already starting importing Japanese cars made in India and the US back to Japan so that's an established practice. Then once they've secured their own supplies they can make the EVs in Japan too. I think OP's point about the suppliers have more merit as a reason why Japan might not want to develop EVs.
• TrackerFF 7mo ago
  I live in a top EV market, Norway. ICE cars have been planned out for years now, and something like 96% of all new cars in Norway were EV last year. Basically, if you plan on keeping selling ICE cars, you're removing yourself from the market here. There's no future for new personal ICE cars here. I figure most other countries will be the same.
  • kleiba 7mo ago
    Not Germany.
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  • jacquesm 7mo ago
    > I live in a top EV market, Norway. It is the top EV market. > I figure most other countries will be the same. Most other countries are not Norway, it is a very wealthy, tiny market (150 K vehicles/year) with lots of hydro and not representative of the typical vehicle market in Western Europe and definitely not representative of the situation in the rest of the world. EVs are the future, there is no doubt about that. But that future will not arrive everywhere at the same point in time and Norway is very far ahead of the rest of the world due to a fairly unique set of circumstances: exporting your own oil and gas to be able to have a 'clean' (and up to recently heavily subsidized) transportation network is in a way just a gigantic bookkeeping trick.
    • lukan 7mo ago
      No, it is a real invewtment in the right direction. The oil states in the middle east could have made such investments, too. Lots of EV powered by solar panels paid for with oil dollar. But they did not (in a significant way).
    • SupremumLimit 7mo ago
      Sure, but there is also China where over half of new vehicle sales are EVs. Denmark is at 70%, Sweden, Iceland, Finland and the Netherlands are all above 50%, a bunch of other countries in the EU are at one third EVs. In India, 5% of sales are EVs but that is double of the year before and all the big car manufacturers in India are now offering EVs. Even Australia is at 14% after stalling on EVs for years. So change is unfolding quite quickly compared to previous years. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ev-share-new-car-sales-by-country-2019-vs-2025/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ev-share-new-car-sales-by-c...
• kleiba 7mo ago
  > Consumers, mostly those who buy EVs from the likes of Tesla, Rivian, and BYD, have grown accustomed to the frequent updates, slick infotainment software, and advanced driver-assistance systems. Guess which three items out of that list I do not want.
  • travismark 7mo ago
    trick question. all three
    • speedgoose 7mo ago
      You don’t like active safety features ? Even if you think you are great and better than most, don’t you think it would be neat that the other drivers you share the roads with have active safety features ? So they don’t crash into you or run over your kids?
      • phainopepla2 7mo ago
        I am convinced that some safety features (such as lane assist, for example), actually make roads less safe on net, because they allow or encourage drivers to be less engaged in the act of driving. But then, if it were up to me we'd all be driving manual transmissions.
        • speedgoose 7mo ago
          I see what you mean but some features are great. The ones that stops automatically to not run over cyclists and pedestrians for example. Also why manual transmissions for everyone ? It’s kinda slow and cumbersome. It’s fun to pretend play being a good pilot, but that’s obsolete.
          • phainopepla2 7mo ago
            My main argument for manual transmissions would be that because it requires both hands to be engaged it leaves less availability for the right hand to pick up their phone. The number of people I see holding and staring at their phone while driving down my residential street is shocking. I also think it just connects you to the act of driving more, which I'm convinced (without evidence, just a hunch) makes you a safer driving
• proee 7mo ago
  Could it be that the EVs they were planning were just out of touch with what the market wants? Their zero vehicles look butt-ugly in my opinion. They look like concept cars that are great for show, but no serious buyer would consider them for a daily driver.
• storus 7mo ago
  Are they killing their EVs because of vibrations?
  • celsoazevedo 7mo ago
    lol. Their new F1 engine seems to be a mess (I'm assuming you're referring to that).
    • storus 7mo ago
      Yes, precisely. /r/formula1 was not leaking here yet ;-)
  • leokennis 7mo ago
    Honda seems to love pulling out of things just when they are about to succeed. Both in F1 and apparently now also in EV's.
• bryanlarsen 7mo ago
  OTOH, it really looks like Toyota is Goldilocks. Most companies invested too much too early and had to write off a substantial amount, but Toyota is rolling into 2027 with a small but nice selection of EV's. Over 25% of vehicles sold world-wide were electric in 2025, and that percentage is steadily increasing. So VW & Ford were "too hot", Honda is looking like "too cold" and Toyota might be the "just right" of the three bears.
  • neogodless 7mo ago
    Where does that leave GM?
    • sanex 7mo ago
      Quietly making some of the highest rated EVs right now.
      • bryanlarsen 7mo ago
        After writing off $7B. So they were early. But likely better early than late. VW is an even better example. They wrote off many billions, but they're now the biggest seller of EV's in Europe.
  • slfnflctd 7mo ago
    Observers and technologists have also consistently failed to appreciate the continuing value proposition of hybrids, and Toyota makes some of the best, top selling models.
    • bityard 7mo ago
      Hybrids are just amazing and SHOULD have mostly replaced ICE-only a long time ago. I'm going to cry the day the midwestern winter road salt takes my Prius away from me.
    • bryanlarsen 7mo ago
      My biggest peeve with hybrids is that it gives consumers the mistaken impression that they're going to have to replace the batteries in their EV. Most hybrids aren't liquid-cooled (although that is changing), and the smaller size means that a hybrid puts a lot more cycles per mile on the battery than an EV does. Which in practice means that a hybrid battery lasts about 100,000 miles whereas an EV lasts about 250,000 miles. A Prius is an amazing car; a 300,000 mile Prius is often still in good shape and worth the expense to replace the battery in. Which means you might put 3 batteries in a Prius and then look at how expensive it would be to replace the battery in an EV 3 times and choke. But very few people are going to spend the significant dollars it costs to replace the battery in a 250,000 mile Tesla so in practice that's an expense you'll never have.
• MarkusWandel 7mo ago
  My Honda family car has a CVT and electric parking brakes. "Driver's Car" mattered more when the low-price option was a stickshift and cars weren't so heavy.
• billfor 7mo ago
  "Here, Honda is setting itself up for failure on the second disruption sweeping the automotive industry: the software-defined vehicle (SDV), which has core capabilities that can be upgraded and improved over time." I'll pay triple for a non software defined vehicle that doesn't track me and can't be touched by the dealer once I purchase it. My one SDV (Tesla) is still on FSD from 2023 because the newer versions are terrible judging from the comments on the Tesla forums.
  • ryanhuff 7mo ago
    FSD is great for me, although I mostly use it on the highways. But 90% of my driving is FSD now. It can be more conservative for my tastes with street driving
  • otikik 7mo ago
    > software-defined vehicle (SDV) I hate that expression. It's software-limited, not defined.
  • zitterbewegung 7mo ago
    Why do you need a EV to be a software defined variable? Maybe just a large enough lithium battery?
  • muskstinks 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • codazoda 7mo ago
    I just got a Honda Hybrid. It doesn’t phone home or do updates automatically, as far as I can tell, and I love this.
    • simulator5g 7mo ago
      Actually it does do that. They sell your driving data to your insurance company & government.
      • 7mo ago
• getpokedagain 7mo ago
  The software designed car and continued price growth of automobiles is going to push them out of price range for consumers. Maybe Honda just wants to go out of a dying industry on good terms.
  • speedgoose 7mo ago
    You can buy affordable simple EVs in many markets. Not all EVs target the premium segment.
• GardenLetter27 7mo ago
  Damn, the Honda E looked great.
  • puchatek 7mo ago
    Big Vintage Energy
  • jumpalongjim 7mo ago
    Agree! But there are almost none on the roads in Europe so must have been costly for Honda. Price was too high.
    • bzzzt 7mo ago
      Not surprised. It's almost as expensive as a Tesla Model 3 in the Netherlands.
• speedgoose 7mo ago
  I expected better from the company that entered the EV market with an impressive aquarium simulator in its Honda E. Time will tell, but I think it’s a long term mistake.
  • jumpalongjim 7mo ago
    I love the Honda E and it's not mentioned in the article for some reason. However it must certainly have been a costly flop; they are so rare on the roads in the UK,
    • speedgoose 7mo ago
      They are rare in Norway too. Too expensive, worse than a BMW i3, never updated with a better battery. I don’t know why they didn’t try to do better.
• sys_64738 7mo ago
  Anything you need to plug into a power source is doomed to fail. EVs are simply not designed properly which is why hybrids are the best of both world. A Camry hybrid has some genius technology as the EV part is used at low speed and ICE at higher speed. That is the perfect balance and you see why it's a success for them. Toyota make the best hybrid vehicles. Honda makes hybrids too so they're not throwing all their EV technology into the e-waste bin.
  • darknavi 7mo ago
    > Anything you need to plug into a power source is doomed to fail. Totally disagree. One of the reasons I drive an EV is so I _can_ plug it in and never go to a gas station again. What a useless exercise and waste of my time, especially for a penny-pincher like me who would wait in like for 20 minutes at Costco for gas.
    • sys_64738 7mo ago
      Plugging it in is why it is so awful. It takes ages to charge it and you don't get very much range for a full charge. Battery technology is so incredibly poor right now and EV manufacturers are just plain dumb until they make the body of the car harness the sun's rays.
      • darknavi 7mo ago
        For me it likely won't matter 98% of the time. I charge at home and already cap out my existing circuit and it's plenty fast for me (around 10% of range per hour). For those not with an overnihht charging parking spot I can see the appeal though.
      • cyberax 7mo ago
        > until they make the body of the car harness the sun's rays. The surface area of a car usable for solar panels is about 3 square meters. At the absolute best, when the stars align just right, you're going to get about 1 kW of power out of these panels. In other words, barely enough to offset the auxiliary systems in the car (cooling pumps, lights, computers, etc.)
• tills13 7mo ago
  Oh I mixed up Honda and Hyundai in my head and panicked for a second. Were they even ever trying?
• gcanyon 7mo ago
  EVs are going to be an extinction-level event for carmakers. As the buggy-makers failed to transition to making cars, and thus ceased to be, so too will automakers fail to transition to EVs, and thus end their viability as vehicle manufacturers.
  • gensym 7mo ago
    Right? Have any of the execs making these decisions ever ridden in an EV? They are so much better that the experience I've seen is no one will ever go back to preferring ICE after spending time with an EV. My family currently has 2 ICE vehicles (one is a PHEV). I really doubt we'll buy another. The week I spent renting an EV (an Ioniq 5, so not even a high-end one) convinced me. Enjoyable to drive. Having to figure out where/how to charge it was sufficient to chase away the fears around that.
    • simonbarker87 7mo ago
      I had an EV for 6 months about 2 years ago and went back to an ICE car happily, it will be a long time before I try again
  • cheema33 7mo ago
    > EVs are going to be an extinction-level event for carmakers. Agreed. It is exceptionally rare for a consumer to purchase one EV and then buy ICE as their next vehicle. I have owned EVs for more than 10 years. There is no going back.
    • strix_varius 7mo ago
      It's not though: https://www.wardsauto.com/news/consumers-turn-back-to-ice-EY-survey-2025/807862/ https://www.wardsauto.com/news/consumers-turn-back-to-ice-EY...
• jedberg 7mo ago
  This is so unfortunate. I was never a van guy, but my wife insisted we get a van, so I got the Honda. And honestly? I kinda love it. It drives like a car but holds eight people (or four people and a whole bunch of luggage). The way we use the van, 90% of our drives are under 20 miles round trip. The rest are longer road trips. I've been waiting eight years for Honda to make an electric or even a plug-in hybrid where the gas motor just charge the battery. It would be perfect for my family. I guess that's not happening now.
  • zubiaur 7mo ago
    They have quite decent hybrids now. I’m surprised that they haven’t released a plug-in one, since their architecture seems perfect for it. Maybe battery supply constraints. They are also developing a v6 hybrid, which should replace the j series in the Odyssey.
    • jedberg 7mo ago
      They do, but for some reason haven't brought them to the van yet. Here's hoping!
  • gorfian_robot 7mo ago
    the new sienna's are all hybrid and get 36mpg. best you are gonna do.
  • strix_varius 7mo ago
    > I guess that's not happening now. They're still going with their hybrids of course. I have a Honda Hybrid CR-V and love the drivetrain. We're waiting until Honda moves that drivetrain into the Odyssey (which is the van we want... probably what you have, hah)
• alliao 7mo ago
  To be honest, I have every faith in Honda. It took them a long time to arrive at hybrid, but they were never about first to market, but they were always adamant about controlling the entire technology stack.. made their own transmission and everything. And engineering doesn't faze them, Honda just nonchalantly displayed a reusable rocket like it was too easy... EV is a little bit like AI nowadays, not much moat and possibly not challenging enough for Honda R&D so why not. I'll always be on the look out for Honda's next take on EV.
  • lastofthemojito 7mo ago
    > It took them a long time to arrive at hybrid The Honda Insight went on sale in 1999. They were 2 years behind Toyota's Prius but at least 5 years ahead of everybody else.
• dbg31415 7mo ago
  > It makes really good engines, and that's starting to matter less and less. Maybe. But here's the thing... most cars today feel completely lifeless. Honda knows how to build an engine and wrap it in a car that actually makes you feel something. That still matters. Anyone here driven an S2000? It's still the best car I've ever owned. Light, raw, grippy, and genuinely fun -- every drive felt like an event, not just transportation. (And it was still an affordable car!) They killed it around 2010. I've never found anything that captures that same feeling since, at any price point. So yeah -- Honda will always have a place in my heart. When they want to, they build something truly special. Here's one of their marketing films they can use to find inspiration again. * Failure: The Secret to Success - A Honda Documentary - YouTube // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOVig5H7UbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOVig5H7UbM
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• rob74 7mo ago
  > When developed as an original product, EVs offer automakers a chance to rethink the automobile, and in the process, make it cheaper. That does not bode well for German car makers either I'm afraid. Take BMW for instance: they started off with two "pure" EV models, the i3 (a compact car) and the i8 (a sports car). Both of them promising, but neither a particular bestseller. So they switched to offering electric drive as an alternative to IC engines in several (most?) "regular" models. But I agree with TechCrunch that this is more of a cop-out than a winning strategy... > Consumers, mostly those who buy EVs from the likes of Tesla, Rivian, and BYD, have grown accustomed to the frequent updates, slick infotainment software, and advanced driver-assistance systems. Honda has yet to make significant progress in any of those domains. Here's an idea: what about making an EV free from this enshittification? One where you can decide yourself when to install an update, like in the "olden days" a few years ago? One that doesn't pretend to have an "autopilot" which isn't really one? I think there would be a market for such an EV.
• chmorgan_ 7mo ago
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• throw7 7mo ago
  I'm not anti-EV... I don't have charging capability at my apartment or work. On occasion, I do 300 mile trips (adirondacks/nyc). Skeptical of winter performance. I have no interest in "frequent updates, slick infotainment software, and advanced driver-assistance systems". Frankly, no spare tire is a no starter for me also.
  • alistairSH 7mo ago
    Similar boat here. No charging at home without expensive install, work is a commercial charger, and frequent trips into WV, which seems to be a dead zone for chargers. Plus occasional towing. I’d love an EV, but they aren’t there yet.
  • gorfian_robot 7mo ago
    BYD just released a car that charges 250mi of range in 5min for exactly this reason.
    • MiiMe19 7mo ago
      Or instead of paying money for a car that still fills up slower than a gas one, has all the extra issues that come with EVs, and hope that there is charging infrastructure in my area, I could just buy any ice car made in the last 35+ years.
      • DangitBobby 7mo ago
        Extra issues? Or "different" issues? The jury is still out on whether ICEVs or EVs are better overall, but despite being a less mature technology my EV is the best car I've owned so far. Seems to me that EVs win pretty easily in the long run.
• fivedicks 7mo ago
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  • cindyllm 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • cryptoegorophy 7mo ago
    You mean drones?
• small_model 7mo ago
  All the legacy automakers that haven't fully moved to EV's PROFITABLY will go defacto bankrupt within a few years, there will be some mergers to stay alive but it's game over. Tesla and China companies will own auto, with Tesla capturing most the profit, similar to Apple vs Android phones. Autonomy will further accelerate this.
  • thelastgallon 7mo ago
    Spot on, except for the part about Tesla. Tesla shut down production of Model S & X. Coming up next: 3 and Y. Also, Tesla has YOY decreasing revenue and sales. Pretty soon, they will go pre-revenue and embrace what they are: A NFT traded on the stock market for bragging rights.
    • cryptoegorophy 7mo ago
      Where did you get “ Coming up next: 3 and Y” from?
      • small_model 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        • defrost 7mo ago
          >they got it from their EDS infected mind. Edit out the cheap swipes please. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • small_model 7mo ago
      I'll just leave his here, "Tesla achieved a record-breaking third quarter in 2025 (Q3 2025), delivering 497,099 vehicles". It's expected that to be exceeded most quarters going forward
      • noncoml 7mo ago
• rkagerer 7mo ago
  Honda is setting itself up for failure on the second disruption sweeping the automotive industry: the software-defined vehicle (SDV), which has core capabilities that can be upgraded and improved over time. No thank you. Not sure why the author frames this as a good thing. They've been bamboozled by the automakers and have got it backwards - you're buying a vehicle that already has the capabilities, but are disabled, then paying rent (or a fee) to turn them on. I'm much more likely to buy from a manufacturer that doesn't play these games.
  • cyanydeez 7mo ago
    It's techcrunch. The angle of software-everything has to be there. Why honda is killing EVs is directly related to just how damn cheap Chinese EVs have become and how stupid Americans are when it comes to EV efficiency. Who the hell wants large vehicles for EV when the best solutions are small efficient vehicles with long drive times. Americans distort the market and margins, and Honda was never in the large SUV game.
    • stackghost 7mo ago
      Americans in most of their country are besieged by massive SUVs and pickups. Driving a tiny little Japanese/Chinese import in, say, Oklahoma is asking to get literally run over.
      • Loughla 7mo ago
        I get the trucks and SUV's where you need them. I live in a rural area and without ground clearance and 4x4, I literally wouldn't be able to visit my parents. But my daily driver is a Honda Civic. Because 75% of my driving is done on paved roads that are well maintained (except in the winter). What kills me are the MASSIVE vehicles in the suburbs though. Why do you need a 3 ton suburban to drive around 2 kids on very clear, very well maintained streets? Why would you buy a 4x4 truck when the most off road you'll do is driving over wet leaves on your cul-de-sac in the fall?
        • 7mo ago
• thelastgallon 7mo ago
  They timed it perfectly when oil is $100+/barrel. Sane countries are thinking about their reliance on oil.
• dmix 7mo ago
  It's okay when legacy companies die. That can be a good thing. Having the same few companies around for 100yrs isn't always a benefit for the world.
• dzonga 7mo ago
  I think Japanese automakers by sticking to ICE vehicles have admitted defeat - that they no longer have the engineering prowess to compete. they dominated in the era of small engines. with EVs - the Chinese have run away with the stick & sadly no one is catching up. I wish the Japanese made good EVs - Germans are the only ones besides the Chinese making decent EVs
  • underlipton 7mo ago
    It may not necessarily be the catastrophic move it seems to be, on reflection. 2030s Japan will not be 1970s Japan. Their labor force is different, the culture is different, the world is different. It might be better to not waste time and money chasing the, "We USED to make amazing cars," phantom, and instead push forward into whatever comes next.
  • jesterson 7mo ago
    > they no longer have the engineering prowess to compete That's not nearly the case. They have made one of best EVs back in years, but decided to focus on hybrids. And that makes total sense.
    • mayama 7mo ago
      To compete in EV, one has to compete also in battery manufacturing. Increasingly Japan is unable to keep up with China and even Korean manufacturers. Panasonic is still in the race due to their decades lead, but its market is largely shrinking. Once China took over batteries, it would have been unlikely for Japan to take the EV market, just like Sony. Same with most American EV manufacturers who are unable to compete, even with closed off large American auto market, that Japan has no access to. As rapidly shrinking Tesla marketshare world wide suggests, competing with Chinese makers is hard.
      • ehnto 7mo ago
        They can purchase the battery technology, just as many manufacturers already do. I hate to be a luddite, but they also don't need to be pioneers to succeed here. They need cars that meet their customers needs, just like not every ICE car needs to have an F1 racing engine in it.
• gorfian_robot 7mo ago
  Big Fucking Mistake. They should come together with BYD.
• dev1ycan 7mo ago
  Japanese auto companies are so incredibly corrupt it's hilarious. Toyota has clear ties with terrorist organizations plus intentionally going out of their way to kill EVs with the whole hydrogen scam. And Honda right here trying to "kill" EVs as well. The moment a battery without lithium comes out, legacy car engines are dead for good.
• underlipton 7mo ago
  Consumers, mostly those who buy EVs from the likes of Tesla, Rivian, and BYD, have grown accustomed to the frequent updates, slick infotainment software, and advanced driver-assistance systems. Honda has yet to make significant progress in any of those domains. "Grown accustomed to" is a funny way of saying "begrudgingly put up with because the alternative is buying a new car, but really they would rather not have to deal with that crap at all."
• ggm-at-algebras 7mo ago
  In Shenzhen for a tech meeting. The streetscape is quieter, despite high traffic levels and I hear not only MORE birdsong, but the birds do more complex songlines. The air is clean. For sure some of this is because it's a coastal city and has fresh sea breezes, but I've been in other Chinese coastal cities in times past and the air was significantly less clean. There are social upsides for an almost-all-EV city. This is an 18m person city. It's not exclusively wealthy people, its just a city with a very high local EV population and it shows.
  • krustyburger 7mo ago
    Surely you don’t think birds have evolved to sing more complex songs in the time since mass EV adoption?
    • 0_____0 7mo ago
      Birds adapt their song to ambient noise conditions. This paper [1] studies the Pearl River Delta (where Shenzhen is) as a natural experiment. It shows spectral changes in the target species correlating to background noise levels. I haven't looked hard enough to make sure there isn't a study that does find complexity changes but it's certainly clear that noise can affect bird song behavior generally. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989421002456 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235198942...
  • toast0 7mo ago
    > I hear not only MORE birdsong, but the birds do more complex songlines. Do the local mockingbirds sing the song of the car alarm? That one is pretty complex.
  • tlogan 7mo ago
    We must not be visiting the same city.
  • jesterson 7mo ago
    >almost-all-EV city. Shenzhen is not nearly "almost-all EV" city. There is a lot of wealthy people and almost none of them drives EV. You can see all expensive cars are ICE (blue plates). Modern ICE cars emit almost no sound or emissions. Its not 70s with black smoke coming from exhaust pipes. You can take any densely populated city with almost none EV vehicles (say Tokyo) and you can hear birds and air would be very clean.
• nonford150 7mo ago
  I almost pulled the trigger on a Prologue; so glad I had second thoughts. Even though it was essentially a GM product, I've only ever owned Hondas, so I thought "Well, at least I can get service at my Honda dealer". Charging in the US (other than at home) is still the biggest issue for me. I do lots of traveling, and waiting 30-45 minutes to charge even at a Level 3 charger is a PITA. If I had a J std charger, then it's even longer. This makes my monthly 8 hour trips one-way another 2 hours - this sucks. Sorry - I'll keep my 2005 Honda Element with 445K miles. Another engine would be cheaper than less than a year of car payments. And it's pretty much indestructible.
  • kgermino 7mo ago
    It does depend on what car you get. A RWD Ioniq5 can do about 3 hours on the highway with 20 minute stops (though the stops are a lot longer at the more-available Tesla chargers). There’s other good roadtrip friendly options out there too, but ya with monthly drives like that you’re really limiting your options and ICE cars still make a lot of sense
• troyvit 7mo ago
  > By shelving EVs, Honda will fall farther behind in two of the biggest shifts sweeping the automotive industry: electric drivetrains [...] Ugh that sucks > [...] and software-defined vehicles. Take my money! I'll suffer with gas for that.
• jmspring 7mo ago
  I have a 2016 Tacoma I bought in 2015. It has ~114k miles, so ~11k miles/year. Gas is 16-18gal/mi. It's paid off. There is no math, outside of major repairs (it's maintained regularly) where any Hybrid or EV makes sense for the next 10+ years. Maintenance ~ 250 a year; Tires ~12-1300 every 3 years (more due to age than wear). So - 11k/year w/ fuel at $5/gal and 16mi/gal - $3.4k in fuel, 600/year in maintenance and tires. So $4k/year in rough cost (excluding insurance). Still high, but I've lived in rural areas the last 10 years. A new vehicle makes no sense. Unless I went a budget used Prius (with a good hybrid battery system). No plan to make changes.
  • pix128 7mo ago
    okay? others are in the market for a car
    • eddythompson80 7mo ago
      Weird, why didn’t they buy a car in 2016?
  • robocat 7mo ago
    > Unless I went a budget used Prius Take care - the Hybrid battery can be expensive to replace and they do eventually fail. Note that Toyota changed from NiMH to LiIon 2017/18. I recently had to wreck an old Toyota Hybrid because replacing the dead battery was going to cost 2/3 of the value of the vehicle. Context: New Zealand.
    • pbmonster 7mo ago
      > Take care - the Hybrid battery can be expensive to replace and they do eventually fail. That is true, but median mileage at replacement for the old NiMH batteries is 150k miles (240k km), and the lithium cells have a median mileage at replacement of over 200k miles (320k km) - even though those cars are now 10 years old, not enough of them have reached that mileages, so exact data is still not available. And don't get me wrong, those cars are bullet proof. Median total mileage of the car could be a bit higher than 150k miles, especially after the car was sold to a third world country. But for most intents and purposes, those batteries (especially the lithium cells) have about the same median lifetime than the car itself.
• jleyank 7mo ago
  My cars last 8+ years. My tablets last 3+ years. I’ll pass on a software defined car unless they swap out the whole logic and display unit before the warranty runs out. Otherwise I’ve got dead hardware in the cabin. They did this to the Leaf. Or assume you have to provide a current model iPad or android tablet to run their software. That would keep the hardware functional if they kept the software working. And I don’t trust the vendors to try to drive resale by eol’ing the logic/software. They’ll drive everybody to leases to avoid this and battery life concerns.
• Sophistifunk 7mo ago
  This isn't reporting, it's propaganda.
• bpiroman 7mo ago
  What is wrong with the japanese automotive industry shifting to 100% EV!? Seems like some kind of seppuku...
  • cheema33 7mo ago
    > What is wrong with the japanese automotive industry shifting to 100% EV!? Seems like some kind of seppuku The writing is on the wall. ICE vehicles sales are declining worldwide. The direction is very clear to anybody paying attention.
• haxtormoogle 7mo ago
  Remember when cars were just a simple, no computers, maybe a transistor or two. why do cars have to cost the same price as a new house? give me a simple 1960's vw bug please.
• joewhale 7mo ago
  I just leased a Prologue
• pclowes 7mo ago
  Everyone is saying EVs are the future but most EVs cannot compete with many of Honda’s offerings. Eg. I need to move 6 people and significant gear (skiing, camping, biking etc) long remote distances. There is no EV that can do that really. And the ones that come close are easily $20-30k higher than an Odyssey. Plus the durability of large EVs is far from proven while the 300k mile club of Odyssey owners is large. I need Suburban/Minivan functionality out of a proven OEM at a competitive price point. (I also need to see my friends with Rivians etc not having to schedule their vacation around charger availability. Have seen this waste hours and hours of time)
  • rossjudson 7mo ago
    So an EV is not for you! You just might be one of the unlucky 1% for whom that is true. Congratulate yourself on visiting nature while simultaneously messing it up. And enjoy the fuel prices.
    • pclowes 7mo ago
      If you are visiting nature in any vehicle you are messing it up. Gas prices are pretty much trivial unless you: - drive a lot (which in that case you’re really messing up nature regardless of ICE vs EV) - own a fleet - are really tight on finances (not buying a new car anyway)
    • strix_varius 7mo ago
      > So an EV is not for you! You just might be one of the unlucky 1% for whom that is true. Given the data on the trend of EV sales (https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/global-ev-sales-fall-again-february-2026-03-13/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/global...) this is a pretty big claim to make. I live in an old, pre-automobile neighborhood. Like other such old, walkable, sidewalk-and-park-and-corner-store neighborhoods in the US, it's one of the most attractive parts of my city. However, almost nobody here could feasibly own a fully electric car. Most houses don't have driveways or garages. People park ad-hoc on the street. Most families own one car, and that car needs to be able to go long distances because it's both the local vehicle and the road tripper. My wife and I would buy an EV if we could. We know the exact one. But it's not feasible for us, or for our neighbors. Far from being "1%" this situation is quite common. So we have a Honda hybrid instead. The Toyota strategy from 2022 has aged brilliantly: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/29/toyota-ceo-stands-by-electrified-vehicle-strategy-amid-criticism.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/29/toyota-ceo-stands-by-electri... However, the EV maximalist strategy from the same era has aged like milk.
• leftytak 7mo ago
  Eva are great until you have the replace the battery. Then you’ll finally realize the real cost of owning an EV. Once people realize that, then the game is over. Honda is just forecasting the future more accurately than other automakers.
  • NewJazz 7mo ago
    How often do batteries get replaced in EVs? 10 year old cars have ~85% SOH typically. Sometimes more.
  • tlapinsk 7mo ago
    What time horizon are you basing this on? It seems like most EVs will retain 70-85% capacity after a decade. There likely isn’t data for anything beyond 12-15 years but I’m not sure that’ll matter given most people own cars ~7-8 years. https://evelectriccars.com/electric-car-battery-lifespan/ https://evelectriccars.com/electric-car-battery-lifespan/
  • TheDong 7mo ago
    Gas cars are great until you realize you have to replace the gas. Then you'll realize the cost of owning a gas car. Once people realize they're literally burning the expensive gas they put in their vehicle, the game is over. Also, gas is a limited resource which after you burn never ever comes back, so it is expected to get more expensive, while all the rare earth metals in batteries can be recycled into new batteries because when you use the battery, you aren't actually burning it away into nothing. You can even recharge it.
• yanhangyhy 7mo ago
  I once put together a comparison of Chinese and Japanese industries on a forum while answering a question. What’s happening with Honda is probably just the beginning — the bigger signs of decline aren’t limited to the auto industry. Japan’s space program, for example, has had several launch failures in a row, it has been mostly absent in the current AI wave, and there was even recent news about a so-called Japanese AI model that turned out to be built directly on top of DeepSeek. Japanese society has long been romanticized in the West, but once you start noticing certain details, a different side becomes visible. A simple example: about a century ago, the average height of Japanese men and women was actually higher than that of Chinese and Koreans, but later the growth basically stalled, and in some periods even declined. It’s not that Japan is poor. It feels more like there are strong, invisible social expectations — women are not supposed to grow too tall, men don’t seem comfortable standing out physically, and people live within a very tight set of unwritten rules about what you should and shouldn’t do. This is the same kind of thing people notice when they joke that Japan still uses Yahoo or fax machines. That discipline creates stability, and from the outside it can look orderly and even admirable. But when you look more closely, it can also feel restrictive, even a bit unsettling. It’s hard to believe that this kind of social atmosphere wouldn’t affect corporate culture as well. In that sense, it may help explain why Japan, which once dominated the global auto industry, hesitated for so long on electric vehicles and ended up being overtaken by China in the new wave of technology. Another thing is that Japan can be very unrealistic. You can see this in their movies, anime, and literature — there’s this strong belief in the power of belief itself, like if you just believe hard enough, things will work out. That mindset shows up in real issues too, like rare earth supply, military readiness, and national strategy. Japan might actually be one of the countries with the strongest information bubbles in the world. From top to bottom, people tend to believe what they want to believe, even when reality says otherwise. And when reality does show up, the reaction is often to pull back quickly and say the problem isn’t real. You could already see this mentality during World War II, especially with the attack on Pearl Harbor. After that, Japan’s postwar industrial success made the illusion even stronger. If a company messes up, they apologize, and everyone forgives them. Toyota is number one in the world and will always be number one — no need to worry. That kind of thinking is exactly why Japanese industry has been declining for a long time without people really feeling a sense of crisis. You can even see Germans openly complaining about their country’s problems, but you don’t see that very often in Japan. As long as they still have Excel, Word, and loppy disk ,or some japan made code editor, everything feels fine, so there’s no need to feel anxious. And if there were ever a war over China and Taiwan, most people in Japan might even think: as long as we take action, China will definitely lose.It’s just like the recent Iran war. many japanese people believe that China will collapse first, because China is too dependent on Middle Eastern oil, even though the real data shows that Japan is actually more dependent. (write by me and translated by GPT)
• dbacar 7mo ago
  I can imagine Honda executives thinking that they can wait out the awkward transition period and, when motors and batteries are fully sorted, simply swap out the fossil fuel bits. How hard could it be? The article loses its credibility once it imagines a multi-billion, multi-country company executives thinking this way :).
• rdtsc 7mo ago
  > Here, Honda is setting itself up for failure on the second disruption sweeping the automotive industry: the software-defined vehicle (SDV), which has core capabilities that can be upgraded and improved over time. Hells yeah, Honda went to the top of my list all of the sudden. SDVs coded by vibe coding bros are just not for me.
• enahs-sf 7mo ago
  Here’s hoping they make another s2000
• aetherspawn 7mo ago
  Guys, cars are specifically designed to work for their entire life in areas where there is no coverage. Thus, there are plenty of EVs, probably all of them, where you can just open the telematics box and pull the SIM card. Then the software will never update, and the car will just stay in whatever state it’s currently in. The moment you do this things will stop working: for example phone app, but your car will be more or less unshittified. And yes, there should probably be a law that makes this easier for the consumer to do for example mandating a plastic hatch or something. But connected cars are not the end of the world and if we normalise disconnecting cars (make an online list or something of cars that are confirmed to work fine afterwards) then we’ve basically solved the issue. Remember, EVs are not the problem, and this kind of stuff will be mainstream/common knowledge once adoption rates are higher.
  • dzhiurgis 7mo ago
    > The moment you do this things will stop working: for example phone app Probably untrue with Tesla. I have mine integrated via BLE to home assistant for solar charging. App works via BLE using same protocol. Your biggest struggle would be avoiding to update the native app, but I guess nothing is stopping you from developing your own implementation.
    • aetherspawn 7mo ago
      Yes the Tesla BLE seems to be one of the better ones and works in the middle of nowhere even without cell reception, so it probably would still work with the SIM pulled on the car side.
  • sehansen 7mo ago
    Don't many of them have soldered SIMs or pure-SW eSIMs now?
• 28304283409234 7mo ago
  Honda did not invent ICE cars. They do not need to invent EVs. I reckon they will wait until the dust settles and then leapfrog all the rest. As they have done so in the past. Of course, I drive a Honda that I will be buried in. So I may be biased.
• RataNova 7mo ago
  Honestly this feels less like Honda "killing EVs" and more like Honda admitting it never really committed in the first place
• haritha-j 7mo ago
  The software defined car practically boils down to this: "It's not quite done yet, but we'll ship it anyway because we can fix it in post". And then two years later, "oh we've already sold them, why spend money updating it to fix the bugs." And five years later, "oh the warranty periods gone, not our problem anymore."
• haritha-j 7mo ago
  > SDVs don’t have to be EVs, but they tend to go hand in hand. The large battery in an EV makes it easier to feed powerful computers, and it allows things like over-the-air updates to happen when the car is parked and “off.” Could Honda make a fossil fuel SDV? Sure, but it’s unlikely to for the same reason it’s backing away from EVs: The old way of doing things is easier and more profitable, for now. So can a $300 dollar iPad. Large EV scale batteries are needed to feed powerful computers? What are they on about?
• jvillasante 7mo ago
  That article reads like a 5 years old wrote it. In particular the part that says "software-defined vehicles is sweeping the automobile industry" and going further by saying "this is what consumers want and expect". Yeah, if you're 5 and you want to keep paying subscriptions for a car you already bought! Not to mention software failures, over the air updates, hacking, etc These tech writers (or bros) need to be replaced by AI or something, total disconnection with reality and what a car is for most people (e.g. it's not a computer and it should be mostly about reliability than anything else).
• rbanffy 7mo ago
  Is this a global direction or just the US market? If it's only US, this might make sense - they might just want to cut their losses and wait for a scenario where they could better compete in the US. If this is a global direction, it sounds suicidal.
• etempleton 7mo ago
  I think what people want out of an EV is the Honda Civic and CRV. Nice practical, reliable low cost EVs that don’t feel cheap or weird. The Tesla model 3 and Y are so close. But there is weirdness to it that a lot of consumers aren’t really interested in an that is before you factor in the polarizing nature of Elon himself. Maybe we aren’t there yet. The Model 3 and Y are probably still too expensive without incentives.
  • haunter 7mo ago
    The new Renault 5 EV is basically this
• SayThatSh 7mo ago
  As much as I love tech in my cars, I’ve found that the more you add, the more will eventually fail. If you really must integrate more software, make it free and guarantee X years of support. If that means a more expensive car, so be it let the market decide if it’s worthwhile. Subscriptions hide the cost and inflate the popularity of vehicles that otherwise may not have been purchased.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• ashergill 7mo ago
  > I can imagine Honda executives thinking that they can wait out the awkward transition period and, when motors and batteries are fully sorted, simply swap out the fossil fuel bits. I don't know, this actually sounds like a really good strategy. Jaguar, Ford, Porsche and others have spent a lot of money (and arguably brand capital) trying to get in early and developing EVs with too many trade-offs and limitations. Why not wait until you can develop a _really good_ 500-mile-plus, reliable, daily driver EV, if you feel you can get away with waiting? And most users surely don't care about the whole software-defined-vehicle thing.
• lunias 7mo ago
  I want repairable, affordable, light-weight vehicles with as little software as possible.
• poopdick 7mo ago
  [dead]
• AtlasBarfed 7mo ago
  It increasingly looks like legacy auto should have pursued (and still can, there is a LOT of runway for it) PHEV architectures for a 10 year cycle. Well to be honest government should have put a hard deadline of 10 years for PHEVs over 20 years ago (10 years after the Prius/Insight was released) for all consumer platforms or pay a $5000 new car tax. PHEVs with 50 miles of range would effectively make almost all day-to-day driving electrified, at least in "consumer" transportation, wouldn't require special recharging equipment beyond a 110V outlet, removes range anxiety, would alleviate urban air pollution. Of course nothing will be done in this administration. But to the point of the article, oil and transportation dependence, even with extensive shale oil production, remains a national security risk that PHEVs and alt energy can mitigate.