Citing massive losses and a cooling market, the Japanese auto giant is backing away from an all-electric future in a huge blow to the EV industry and a sign that the road to clean cars just got a lot bumpier.
Honda will cease to exist by 2035 then. If they are willing to let the United States drag down the entire rest of the planet with them, other companies will not sit around and wait
The United States will cease to exist well before 2035.
Don’t threaten us with a good time
Honda Is Giving Up on the All-Electric Dream
I don’t think so, EU and China are going fully electric within a decade, AFAIK those 2 markets are more than half the total global market for cars. So giving up on EV, they might as wall just close down.
The move is a major setback for the EV industry
LOL no. Honda is a late adopter and is still only a minor player in the EV industry.
This may be somewhat true for USA, but USA is fucked anyway, with tariffs ruining competition, so Americans can only buy shitty cars or overpriced cars, but that would be an entirely different story. But the US market in no way represent the global EV industry.
For years, the auto industry, mesmerized by the success of Tesla, has been in an arms race to go all-electric. Now, one of its biggest players is pumping the brakes. Hard.
Since when is Honda a major BEV player? Their offers were always tentative at best. Several false starts with HEVs and PHEVs. They resorted to buying the Chevy Blazer design for their SUV. Am I missing something?
Just that most lithium is produced in China, which is why Japanese car companies were reluctant to develop EVs.
Lithium is everywhere if we just look.
I don’t hear it nearly as much as Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Ha!
That just reinforces my argument that they never were a major EV player.
I think what the article is trying to say, albeit poorly, is that Honda is a huge player in the automobile space and the fact that they’re not committing to EVs might make other car makers wary.
Well, that’s giving them the benefit of doubt. I guess “ICE automaker reticent about EVs now even more reticent” doesn’t make for a great article.
This is the correct parsing. Honda has never successfully released a BEV of their own (only rebranded one), but they did launch some major efforts to get there. So far, none have worked out, and it sounds like they’re abandoning the goal.
It is a bit strange that all of the Japanese automakers are making such a poor effort. Is there something about Japan that makes BEVs unviable? Honda and Subaru have none, Toyota only has 1, while Mazda and Nissan only have 2.
Japanese companies tend to either lead the way in terms of innovation or drag their heels.
In terms of cars, I think it’s just ignorance. They do a lot of sales in cheaper markets and to Americans, so that tints their thinking. Unfortunately, it’ll mean they’ll die out as it really looks like the likes of BYD and Xpeng are here to stay and since Japan are so determined to give up their spots, they’ll be taken.
That said, this might be what pushes them fully towards robotics.
Might also be due to very low pressure in their internal market. They have a very good public transit system, cars are not that impactful.
Which is also untrue, they’re a middling player in the auto space who have been second string in the rankings for years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_manufacturers_by_production
2020 was their best ranking where they got to 5th, in the years previously, they’re in 7th or 8th pretty much every year in the last 2 decades, and they’re 9th in 2024.
A lot of the small players are going to get squeezed out by the Chinese; and Honda, Suzuki and Mazda are very likely to need a merger with a bigger player to survive as brands
Honda has never fully bought into EVs. Since after the first-gen Insight they’ve been sitting on the side giving us half-baked hybrids and focusing on Hydrogen Fuel Cells. This is not a blow to the BEV market in any way.
It’s disappointing because Honda usually makes high quality vehicles. They could have led the charge on the electric future but are going to end up has-beens - unless they can make a HFC breakthrough that turns the whole industry on end.
More of a diagnosis of the sickness of the US market and ability to adapt than anything. Obviously Honda doesn’t have a chance to compete with BYD and Geely(an ICE company that adapted quite well) outside of it with a $50k EV while they’re doing their price wars with razor thin margins. PHEV is the primary place they can leverage their ICE supply chain.
Their loss. You are a crazy SOB if you think I’m going to buy another ICE car in 2031 when gas is already past $5/gal in 2025. A kw of power here is 11¢.
So long Honda (and Nissan with it).
Honda is a coward of a company. Do not provide them any protection and do not bail them out.
OK, I won’t.
Honda is Giving Up period
