[HN Gopher] Honda is killing its EVs
___________________________________________________________________
Honda is killing its EVs
Author : sylvainkalache
Score : 145 points
Date : 2026-03-15 13:38 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| tim-tday wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The wind is actually blowing towards EVs.
|
| China: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/electric-vehicle-
| sales-i... Europe: https://eleport.com/ev-sales-in-europe/ USA:
| https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/electric-vehicles/unite...
| ascorbic wrote:
| Maybe in the US, but not elsewhere. EVs are still very much in
| the ascendant in the rest of the world.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| 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.
| mono442 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That will change.
|
| And it must, environmental concerns aside nobody wants to be
| beholden to oil prices ;)
| ta9000 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| badpun wrote:
| Car tires are made with synthetic rubber, which is made from
| oil.
| mindslight wrote:
| 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.
| panzagl wrote:
| Quick google math says you get 6 tires from a barrel of oil
| vs roughly 20 gallons of gas. Unless EVs mean you change
| tires every 300 miles or so I think we're good.
| vel0city wrote:
| My ICE vehicles go through many more pounds of gasoline than
| they do tires. A set of tires is ~100lbs of material.
| 50,000mi of gas on a 30mpg vehicle is 10,000lbs of gas.
| ikr678 wrote:
| The suuply chain for repair parts is still supported by oil
| (freight, packaging, any plastics).
|
| Better hope your vehicle is never damaged.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Sure, but increasingly less so as electrification takes off.
| And using less gas means you can redirect that to the other
| derivative products such as plastic.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > freight
|
| I know the US primarily uses diesel for its trains, but have
| you ever been outside of the US before?
| WarmWash wrote:
| >Heck you can put panels on your rooftop and slow charge it
| during the day.
|
| The breakeven for this is so bad that it's only worth it for
| the gullible "wow" factor from the general public asking about
| it.
| nytesky wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| beaviskhan wrote:
| Don't forget maintenance costs in the TCO calculation
| too. Transmissions, fuel pumps, timing belts, radiators
| (mostly), fuel injectors, emissions systems, etc are all
| out of the picture in an EV. Servicing those things may
| be infrequent but is often extremely expensive.
| bdangubic wrote:
| I think this is the biggest thing that non-EV owners do
| not understand. Or perhaps they do but not the full scope
| because money is spent little by little over the years.
| the oil changes, brakes, belts, starters, alternators,
| whatevers... I have 2014 Tesla S and I literally spent
| practically nothing for 11 years. I had to put in a new
| modem, replaced 12V battery twice and that's about it.
| Still on original brakes (102k miles) because with
| regenerative breaking I hardly ever use the brakes, I
| mean there is just nothing to spend your money on (I even
| called Tesla in the beginning of my ownership and was
| like "do I need to being the car in for _something_ " to
| be met with "is something wrong with the car? no? why are
| you calling us then??!" :) ). I will never own a non-EV
| car again and neither will my kid or anyone in my family
| outside2344 wrote:
| We have blocked Chinese EVs precisely because they are 1)
| super cheap and 2) would wipe out our automakers.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Looked this up yesterday:
|
| Inflation calculator site says 45% inflation since 2011,
| USD.
| nytesky wrote:
| How is safety and quality for Chinese EVs? There was the 2008
| melamine baby formula scandal, where a toxic substance was
| deliberately introduced into baby formula for domestic
| market. Chinese food imports were curtailed across many
| countries.
|
| Capitalism over there is at another level, and cars are so
| complicated with tiny changes can have huge problems. Look at
| the immobilizer chips that Kia dropped to save $5, which
| resulted in thousands of car thefts and the whole Kia Boyz
| phenomenon.
| johanvts wrote:
| I think the fear of low-quality and dangerous corner
| cutting is a big reason Chinese evs have not been even more
| popular in the EU. However as some brands start to
| establish themselves for longer they gain trust. Also we
| have Euro N-cap tests which are pretty extensive and lots
| of Chinese cars have earned excellent scores.
| happycube wrote:
| China also picked up (from A123) and ran with LFP
| batteries which are inherently safer.
| storus wrote:
| Electric cars are way way simpler than ICE cars. It's just
| market segmentation gone wrong when EU car manufacturers
| wanted to sell these cheaper cars as premium/luxury ones
| (i.e. greed) and therefore couldn't learn the lessons from
| producing them at scale on cheaper models. China had poor
| ICE cars and bet everything on EVs, scaled their production
| up, reiterated a few times, and now Nio/Xiaomi/BYD/Zeekr
| are better than anything built in the EU.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > There was the 2008 melamine baby formula scandal
|
| That was in 2008, which was 18 years ago. Comparing China
| in 2026 to China in 2008 is like comparing Japan in 1978 to
| Japan in 1960.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Denmark has 6M people. The US has 289M _vehicles_.
| reverius42 wrote:
| And how many new EVs did China make in the last 5 years?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > I don't even think we have enough rare earth metals and
| electrical grid capacity to go even twice as fast in adoption?
|
| This is not an issue, it's the one the things that the anti-
| EV/baby boomer crowd throws out that is completely
| unsubstantiated. We have plenty of rare earths, America just
| lit their rare earth refining capacity on fire when China said
| they would do it for us at a much cheaper price. China doesn't
| have a shortage of rare earth refining capacity, and they are
| producing most of the Eavs in the world as a result. EVs mostly
| charge at night when the grid is underutilized anyways.
|
| China won the EV war a few years ago while the Japanese spent
| too much wasted time on hydrogen. Honda just doesn't have
| anything to offer that BYD already does much better. That the
| Chinese auto manufacturers will slow down EV advancements and
| refinements long enough for Honda to make a significant
| improvement is a bit ridiculous.
| randerson wrote:
| > I don't even think we have enough rare earth metals and
| electrical grid capacity to go even twice as fast in adoption
|
| I also have some concerns about our grid, but not from EVs. AI
| is already consuming more 5% of the grid, more than twice that
| of EVs (~2%), and is growing far faster. I've seen estimates as
| high as 17% of the grid by 2030. Most EVs are also charged in
| off-peak hours when there's plenty of capacity.
| jerlam wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| spicybbq wrote:
| > 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.
| Spivak wrote:
| If it doesn't have a screen or a network connection it can't
| do either of those things. I'm very eagerly awaiting the
| Slate truck for exactly this reason. A cheap barebones EV
| meant for hauling stuff and people locally.
|
| The thing can't even do OTA updates without you connecting
| your phone to the car's bluetooth.
| whattheheckheck wrote:
| A bezos car? Can we get a non oligarch car?
| linksnapzz wrote:
| Do you know of a bank willing to make a loan
| for...startup capital in the amount necessary for a mass-
| market automaker?
| phillc73 wrote:
| Try Munro: https://www.munro-ev.com/
| epolanski wrote:
| > Cars should be appliances, boring and reliable
|
| Agree, but then how do you get people to change them?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| All the updates (so far...) have added features that I actually
| like. Things like Apple Music integration and even safety
| things like cross-traffic alerts when reversing.
|
| Even today my wife left her phone on the charge pad and the car
| beeped as we walked away to alert us - a feature that didn't
| exist when we first got it.
|
| Enshittification may come, but maybe there will be an Apple-
| like benevolent dictator that keeps it mostly clean.
|
| Edit: I should say that I will never trust any "self-driving"
| at all based on cameras alone. It can't even do Autopilot
| without me intervening on most trips.
| nostrademons wrote:
| We do want software defined vehicles, we just don't want
| automatic updates or cars that require an Internet connection
| to work.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > 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.
|
| My driving experience/controls has not changed since I bought
| it 18 months ago. They added an option for Grok which I don't
| use, and the FSD is much better now. And enabled adaptive
| headlights.
|
| >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.
|
| The most recent FSD update made me recommend a model 3 or Y to
| my parents.
| tim-projects wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >and there are no real competitors to Honda engine bikes.
|
| e-bikes/mopeds?
| SR2Z wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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-
| motorcyc...
| tim-projects wrote:
| Just those 3 countries is over 3 billion people. Most of
| them can't afford cars
| delecti wrote:
| Genuine question, could many of them not charge at home?
| I own an EV and the number of charging stations near me
| is irrelevant to it because the 120V outlet in my garage
| is more than sufficient. My naive thinking is that an
| ebike is an order of magnitude smaller, so surely the
| same outlet would be even less of a limitation, right?
| (not to mention that many other countries have ~240V
| standard outlets)
|
| Maybe the answer is truly "no, that wouldn't actually be
| practical for how people in those places live" for some
| reason, but I'm genuinely curious.
| moepstar wrote:
| > Most Asian countries either have no charge stations or
| very few
|
| I think Vinfast would like to have a word with you...
| com2kid wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I was in China last year and one apartment complex I
| stayed at had a garage full of e scooters and bikes all
| plugged in to charge.
|
| The streets in China are remarkably quiet now with so
| many electric vehicles.
| coryrc wrote:
| What's wrong with following motorcycle regulations?
| hamdingers wrote:
| For the buyer: street legal electric motorcycles are
| outlandishly expensive compared to equivalent gas ones
|
| For the manufacturer: you have to compete with
| significantly cheaper illegal bikes, in an environment
| where there is virtually no enforcement of regulation, so
| being street legal is not an advantage
| Spivak wrote:
| Because e-bikes have effectively done regulatory
| arbitrage and the sky didn't fall. You want more people
| using small electric vehicles where before they would
| have used a car, you lower the burden to get one on the
| road.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| They had a ubuquitious 100cc/9hp scooter called Activa in
| India. Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki are a drop in the bucket in EV
| scooter sales and Honda's offerings are the most hilarious.
| oystersareyum wrote:
| What do you mean by "hilarious"?
| ahf8Aithaex7Nai wrote:
| Honda is launching the WN7 this year. It seems like a typical
| Honda motorcycle: not for those obsessed with specs, but
| definitely a solid and well-designed bike. If I were currently
| looking for a mid-sized electric motorcycle, this would be my
| top choice for the same reasons people choose Honda for
| gasoline-powered motorcycles.
| tim-projects wrote:
| It's $15,000 about 15x the price of a standard gas powered
| Honda motorcycle. Also completely impractical for daily life
| in Asia.
|
| No wonder I've not seen one yet
| bartvk wrote:
| Well, they just launched the Honda WN-7. It seems to be a
| commuter and fun bike. It has a limited range, so it's not a
| touring motorcycle but it does have fast-charging.
|
| I watched the reviews on YouTube, and they're all quite
| favorable.
| 0x457 wrote:
| I'm yet to see a EV bike that can be classified as a "fun
| bike". Not fun and impracticle compared to pure "inner city
| mobility vehicle" such as Renault Twizy.
| epolanski wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| 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.
| tpm wrote:
| If you want to sell cars in the EU you have no future without
| EVs. The fleet emmision fines are quite high already, will be
| much higher from 2030 and will kick in from 0g CO2/km from
| 2035, basically killing any ICE passenger vehicle. That's in
| 8,5 years.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| If you look here in Germany at the car companies, they are
| suffering quite a bit. Most of that has to do with EVs eating
| the market share of their legacy car business. VW, Mercedes,
| and BMW each make pretty decent EVs at this point of course.
| And there are a lot of even better ones coming to market soon
| from them. And they sell pretty well even. But because their
| legacy business is imploding, profits are down by very large
| double digit percentages. Despite this, the Germans are
| adjusting well. VW seems to be having some success in the
| Chinese market now (lots of China specific VW models coming out
| there). And BMW is gearing up to what looks like a massive
| range luxury EV (500 miles) that should be doing well.
|
| EV sales keep on growing world wide by juicy double digit
| percentages. Some markets less than others of course but the
| net effect is that all that legacy business keeps on shrinking
| because all that EV growth is at the cost of that legacy
| business.
|
| The main issue with Honda and other Japanese manufacturers is
| that they are hopelessly dependent on Chinese suppliers to ship
| any EVs at this point. They've dragged their heels on doing
| their own tech and at this point while they might have some
| promising things in their labs, they lack supply chains and
| factories to mass produce any of it by themselves. That's going
| to take many years to turn around. Without guarantees that
| they'll be able to match the Chinese on cost. And the EU,
| Koreans, Chinese, and even US companies like GM are picking up
| the slack and growing EV sales at their cost.
|
| Toyota seems to finally be producing a lot of EVs now to
| counter that. They've been catching up fast in the last year or
| so. But most of these EVs come with a lot of Chinese tech
| inside. Their alternative was to cede that market to
| competitors. Which seems to be what Honda is doing. I don't
| think that will end well for them.
| GianFabien wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| A screen is cheaper to design and easier to modify. That's
| the motivation for auto companies.
| fpoling wrote:
| Toyota Yaris, a small budget car has physical buttons for
| everything.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Yaris has been discontinued.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| We've had software upgrades on cars for years now.
|
| The used car market has, in many ways, usurped what used to be
| the role of the basic car used to be.
|
| As a result, you see fewer and fewer new cars sold, and
| automakers have to more intensively monetize the cars they
| have. They _must_ create ever-increasing returns to
| shareholders.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > We've had software upgrades on cars for years now.
|
| Those of us who cared enough and did not want them -- have
| not had them. it is very easy to replace an antenna with a 50
| ohm resistor
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Yeah, the only updates I want are map data for a GPS. And even
| then, go ahead and leave out the GPS and give me a dumb screen
| to attach my phone to.
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| I mean there are multiple, multiple boundaries in place for
| this reason. I'd start by saying most "in the middle of the
| night" updates target non-safety critical systems in the car
| like the IHU. The update I received last night has a build date
| of 2024 reflecting extensive validation before general
| availability in 2026. It was field tested in limited markets
| after factory validation and had staged rollouts through
| dealers before going to general OTA availability.
|
| Independently, I had to take my car into the dealer to get a
| safety critical recall installed via Ethernet that affected a
| braking system in certain edge cases and this was not
| installable OTA "in the night".
|
| While, yes, I am annoyed that the dealer price for my
| "infotainment" unit is $2k and reflects the technical specs of
| a 2016 mid tier android tablet running _Intel_ cores; I do feel
| that vehicle is far safer with its airbags, 360 camera, lane
| keeping, and AEB on net than my 1970's classic.
| ezfe wrote:
| What does any of this have to do with EVs?
| steve-atx-7600 wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| New Honda Accord hybrids do not include a spare tire. The
| manufacturers copied the idiocy.
| fpoling wrote:
| For Toyota a spare tyre became on optional extra in Europe
| even on ICE models. They charge 200-300 Euro for having it.
| lbebber wrote:
| Weird, they do here in Brazil (Hybrid Civics as well). Must
| be a cost or regulatory thing more than anything else.
| dangus wrote:
| 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.
| Denatonium wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| formerly_proven wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| There'll be a need to maintain sales if gas prices stay high.
| viccis wrote:
| >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.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| OBBB removed any fines for violating CAFE standards. They
| still exist technically, but it'd be like getting a speeding
| ticket but the fine is always $0...
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Cheap small trucks were killed by the chicken tax, not CAFE.
| BirAdam wrote:
| That's not really sufficient explanation due to vehicles
| manufactured in the USA, CA or MX being exempt, and yet
| there are no small vehicles being made and sold in the USA
| in any large volume (despite clear demand).
|
| My understanding is that this is due to fuel regulations
| being enacted by size and weight where it's simply easier
| to make bigger vehicles.
| LooseMarmoset wrote:
| CAFE killed small trucks in part, tariffs in another part,
| but US manufacturers are the real reason small trucks are
| dead.
|
| US manufacturers want margins, and they're not getting
| margins on little, efficient cars. They get enormous margins
| on gigantic trucks that start at $55,000. Have you noticed
| that all the sub $20k cars went away from all the
| manufacturers around COVID?
|
| Ford makes the Maverick, which is a small truck. They were
| priced very reasonably at release, at $19,000 or so. However,
| Ford didn't make very many of them, and the ones they did
| make got up to $15,000 over MSRP from the dealers, who
| scalped them. Why would Ford want to cannibalize their pricy
| gigantic trucks when they know that they can get their $50k
| asking price because there's nowhere else for people to go?
| mandliya wrote:
| Interesting they are actually launching EVs in India:
| https://bwautoworld.com/article/honda-starts-pan-india-test-...
| bronlund wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| As realistic as Toshiba purchasing Apple.
| odiroot wrote:
| I just hope Honda sticks to making awesome motorcycles.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _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.
| mullingitover wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| fakedang wrote:
| I have worked with the Chinese REE industry, and we've
| often bumped heads and shared ideas together with them
| and I can confidently tell you, the Chinese don't use
| anything novel that has not been established in Western
| science already. What they do have is executing rarely-
| used techniques confidently at scale, but all of that is
| already often published in the West. The only reason the
| West hasn't done it is because these techniques are less
| profitable, and, surprise, the CCP actually forces
| processors to minimize ecological damage, which further
| bumps up the costs to the point only large-scale players
| can exist making such lower profits. You'll often find
| them using some obscure process alteration that was
| published minutely in the West.
|
| As an addendum, companies in the REE Sinosphere are often
| encouraged by the CCP to exchange ideas with each other
| quite often, while Western companies often lock them
| behind proprietary patents and competition. While both
| systems have their pros and cons, the former allows for
| faster process proliferation (and a lower profit
| incentive for the innovator).
| youarentrightjr wrote:
| > the Chinese don't use anything novel that has not been
| established in Western science already
|
| Like they say: in theory, theory and practice are the
| same; in practice, they aren't.
|
| It's all well and good to have knowledge of the
| techniques, or to even have published or created them.
| But applying them successfully, working out all the
| kinks, and streamlining everything to become profitable
| doesn't happen overnight.
|
| I have no doubt alternate sources can exist, but not
| without significant time and effort.
| hangonhn wrote:
| What I mean is that since the peak of American REE in the
| 1970s and 1980s(?) a lot of the engineers who have
| working knowledge are retired. There's nothing
| theoretical we can't dig up but I think there will need
| to be a number of years for the US to catch up in terms
| of craft knowledge or "metis" (as Dan Wang likes to call
| it) and processing equipment and plants.
|
| Maybe I'm wrong. I gained my knowledge second-hand/third-
| hand from books and podcasts so I would defer to you to
| your actual experience and observations about Chinese
| REE. What is your estimate on how long it would take the
| West to catch to at least supply some of the rare earth
| components and what the real barriers might be? Would
| love to hear your take on this.
|
| Thanks for sharing your observations. I had no idea about
| the minutiae of that industry, i.e. the ecological
| control and its effects on the industry.
| fakedang wrote:
| No, you're right. China, and even India and Russia, also
| do not have the same talent problem of the West, in that
| there is an undersupply of engineers, especially in the
| geological, processing and chemical sectors. In the US,
| the average age of the chemical process engineer was
| touching 50 a few years back. The average age of a
| process safety engineer is well past 50. While Russia and
| India lose their technical talent to brain drain, the
| Chinese govt has done quite a lot in trying to reverse
| that.
|
| The real barriers are talent and the regulation vs profit
| motive balance. What I mentioned in my previous comment
| was effectively an effect of the intersection of the two
| - you can't find novel ways of processing harmful
| substances without having the technical talent to find
| these out in the first place, nor without giving them a
| free reign after deprioritizing profit.
|
| Let's take arsenic for instance, a substance that's a
| harmful byproduct arising out of most mining operations.
| We already have the technology in the West to lock away
| arsenic into glass, but a.) apart from the big ones, most
| companies are unaware of them, and b.) even if they were
| aware of it, the tech is a significant line item that
| shies investors and companies away from investing into
| it.
|
| > What is your estimate on how long it would take the
| West to catch to at least supply some of the rare earth
| components and what the real barriers might be?
|
| Never. Yes, there are a few companies still engaged in
| trying to secure REE supply (Glencore being the most
| notable), but due to Western regulatory and policy limbo,
| the answer is never. For this to change, you need
| regulators open to experimentations and a concerted
| effort by the government in trying to reestablish REE
| independence, both in extraction and in processing, but I
| have yet to see either happening. It's telling when
| frankly the US is the country in the West most likely to
| catch up still, but the gap is deeper than the Darien Gap
| .
| tmnvix wrote:
| > they have no moat beyond expertise and some tech
| advancement
|
| See my sibling comment. Their moat is the scale and
| structure of their industry. Some parts of rare earth
| processing are dependent on that.
| tmnvix wrote:
| As I understand it, some of these processes also require a
| sufficiently large industrial base to be even remotely
| economical due to a reliance on industrial 'byproduct' (for
| want of a better word). Because of this, some of these
| processes are not something that can be quickly stood up in
| isolation over a few years. It would take concerted large
| scale planning over a long time period - something the
| Chinese system of government is almost uniquely capable of.
| hangonhn wrote:
| Japan is also particularly well positioned because China had
| used rare earths against them first in 2014. Since then
| they've created basically a strategic rare earths reserve and
| done research on how to build some components without them.
| It's not an absolute solution but between this and future
| development in friendlier nations, I don't think the rare
| earth risk is as acute for Japanese automakers.
|
| I do think the original point about lower complexity vehicles
| being a threat to the suppliers has some merits though.
| Germany faces a very similar dilemma and made similar
| decisions.
| observationist wrote:
| There are also non rare earth magnets being explored. Niron -
| Iron nitride - magnets and ultrasonic compaction and other
| tech that wasn't feasible a while back are now becoming very
| practical. Japan could probably get to a dominant place with
| a solid research program, it'd give them a huge advantage for
| EVs and other motors.
| wisplike wrote:
| Dont forget about good old externally excited motors like
| what Renault uses, no rare earths needed.
| observationist wrote:
| Definitely, and new engineering around axial flux /
| pancake motors are getting really exciting. 1000 HP
| motors in a single wheel - https://yasa.com/news/yasa-
| smashes-own-unofficial-power-dens...
|
| Incredible what can be done. If Japan ever wants actual
| mecha warriors for their military, they're going to need
| motors like that.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| But isn't Japan deeply screwed if they can't drastically cut
| their dependence on oil imports?
| piva00 wrote:
| Also going to suffer a demographic crunch, having fewer jobs
| in more advanced technology would suit well with a shrunk
| labour force.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Not to mention how adverse they are to foreign workforce
| jacquesm wrote:
| Japan is the only other country besides China and Korea that
| produces magnets of high quality (higher in fact than the
| Chinese), they just don't do the volume. But there is
| absolutely no doubt that they could scale up if they wanted to.
|
| They're just more expensive, but not even that much.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| India is looking to produce 6000 tonnes of NdFeB magnets per
| year with the first batch coming out in mid 2026. This is
| great news because India has large rare earth reserves and
| are producing using the full supply chain of ore to oxide to
| magnets. 6000 tonnes is like 3% of the global supply but
| that's not bad for year one.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's super good news, do you have any info on the name of
| the manufacturer?
| dyauspitr wrote:
| IREL Limited and Sona Comstar.
|
| Trafalgar will be the first large scale NdFeB magnet
| plant looking to start production in 2027
|
| https://www.fastmarkets.com/insights/trafalgar-sets-
| sights-o...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you, I will make someone super happy with this
| news.
| mullingitover wrote:
| They _manufacture_ the magnets, but they don 't produce the
| rare earths themselves. They're still getting something like
| 60-70% of their supply from China.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's 60% to 70% down from 90%+ and dropping steadily
| every year.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/business/japan-rare-
| earth...
| bko wrote:
| Or they're unprofitable and highly competitive.
|
| Ford: It recorded a loss of $1.2 billion in EBIT in the third
| quarter on its EVs, bringing its losses on the segment for the
| first three quarters of 2024 to $3.7 billion
|
| Honda: Honda to Write Off $15.7 Billion as EV Winter Arrives.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-r...
|
| https://www.barrons.com/articles/gm-stock-general-motors-inv...
|
| https://www.barrons.com/articles/honda-to-write-off-15-7-bil...
| manoDev wrote:
| That projection won't last in a world where Brent Oil @ $100.
| That was only true while the petrodollars kept flowing.
| parl_match wrote:
| > 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.
|
| For what it's worth, this theory is blown up by hydrogen based
| vehicles, which Japan has gone heavily in on. Yes, slightly
| more parts than an EV, but not a ton. And the drivetrain is
| electric.
| mjcarden wrote:
| Is there a place somewhere in the world where Hydrogen
| powered passenger vehicles are a success? I know that the one
| Hydrogen filling station here in Australia's Capital City has
| shut down after opening with great fanfare a few years ago.
| And the approximately 20 or so Hydrogen cars it supplied are
| no longer being used.
| manoDev wrote:
| Japan is just being the usual USA vassal. Since now China
| absolutely dominates EV and batteries, they rather align
| themselves with the oil-thirsty war monger.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| [delayed]
| TrackerFF wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Not Germany.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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).
| bwestergard wrote:
| "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"
|
| How so?
|
| If every oil exporter used some of their oil revenue to
| switch to EVs, that would, all things equal, hasten the
| transition to EVs. The U.S. is not doing that.
| yndoendo wrote:
| I still find it funny when it comes to oil between the USA
| and Saudi Arabia.
|
| Saudi Arabia started moving the electrical system to
| renewables where USA is doubling down on fossil fuels.
|
| Saudi Arabia is the drug dealer that knows you don't
| consumer your own supply unless you must were the USA
| consumes the crack they sell.
|
| My next vehicle will 100% be pure EV, not Tesla.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| > the drug dealer that knows you don't consumer your own
| supply unless you must
|
| So true. There's nothing incompatible at all with: a)
| realizing that earth has gifted you with a valuable but
| limited & polluting energy source b) realizing that you'd
| be foolish to get you own country hooked on it, but it's
| not a bad business if you can get other countries hooked
| on it.
|
| Instead we get oil rich areas seemingly determined to
| show off how much of their oil they can waste.
| SupremumLimit wrote:
| 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-c...
| speedgoose wrote:
| At least it doesn't smell ICE fumes downtown. That's neat.
| expedition32 wrote:
| Most of the profits come from rich countries. And even then
| especially the more expensive cars.
|
| (Personally I am fine driving a 10 year old shit box because
| for me it is just a means of going from A to B and rather
| spend my money on other things)
| jacquesm wrote:
| My daily driver is approaching the ripe old age of 30, my
| main reason is a lack of software.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I'm what part of the world do you live to have a
| carbureted car from the late 90s?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Netherlands. And fuel injection has been a thing since
| the 1930s for Diesel and the 1950's for vehicles.
|
| Yes, it has an ECU and ooh, gollies there is software in
| that. But it's completely invisible from an interaction
| point of view, there are no screens, all the buttons just
| do what they are told, there are no 'upgrades', no bugs,
| interfaces, restarts and attempts to kill me through
| 'assistance'.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I understand the appeal. Do you use paper maps too or you
| have a smartphone on the dashboard ? That would be a bit
| cheating.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I know where I'm going :)
| antonvs wrote:
| It's interesting to see how people who grew up with
| smartphones think.
|
| It's entirely possible to get around without smartphones
| _or_ paper maps. There are road signs, written
| directions, verbal directions. The main time I used to
| use a paper map was driving long distance trips in a
| foreign country.
| bojan wrote:
| Are you doing the maintenance yourself? I guess at some
| point the yearly maintenance costs exceed the value of
| the car itself.
| pge wrote:
| Not the OP but have a 20-year-old car. The relevant
| calculation is not cost of annual repair v value of car,
| but rather annual cost vs annual cost of a new car. Even
| if you amortize the upfront cost of a new car over 20
| years, the increased insurance cost and (depending on
| where you live) property taxes plus some annual
| maintenance, at least for me, is substantially more
| expensive than annual maintenance on my current car.
| alliao wrote:
| damn it missed the whole suicidal airbag scandal too!
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I mean - how are you defining _most_?
|
| _Most_ countries are quite poor and /or have small
| populations and aren't buying many vehicles period.
|
| About ~45% of countries have smaller populations than Norway.
|
| Most countries are not the China and India, yet they make up
| almost 45% of the global population.
|
| The US and China make up about 45% of the auto market...
|
| There's a lot of European, Asian, and Latin American
| countries that have more in common with Norway than they do
| with the US or China or India.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ok, we'll replace 'most' with 'all except for Norway'.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| There is still one country that uses leaded gasoline for
| personal cars.
|
| For automobiles, the future comes very slowly.
| skissane wrote:
| > There is still one country that uses leaded gasoline for
| personal cars.
|
| That was true five years ago, but no longer-Algeria, the
| last country to allow it, banned leaded petrol in 2021 -
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58388810
| jiveturkey wrote:
| > It is _the_ top EV market.
|
| per-capita or by total volume? i ask because a sibling or
| child comment says that the number of cars sold in norway is
| pretty small (in part because the population is small). a
| quick google says 180k cars sold in norway in 2025 (we can
| round up to 100% EV) and 34M sold in China. It also says
| China has 50% EV sales. So by total volume Norway isn't close
| to the top.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Norway is a very special case in that it has massive hydro
| energy resources and nobody lives there.
| reverius42 wrote:
| > hydro energy resources
|
| What is a hydro energy resource, a river? Don't lots of
| countries have rivers?
|
| (If we're talking about hydroelectric power plants they've
| chosen to build, that's not exactly a resource -- and other
| countries could choose to build those too, right?)
| lukan wrote:
| Norway has really a lots of rivers with lots of potential
| energy of the water, since it comes from the mountains at
| high altitude (Fjords).
|
| Some big slow moving river in a flat land on the other hand
| is not helping you here.
| theappsecguy wrote:
| Building hydro energy requires a very specific geography.
| You can't just take any river and turn it into an efficient
| hydroplant.
| ascorbic wrote:
| You need both the right geography and a lack of either
| people or democracy in the place you want to build it. That
| rules out new large hydro projects in most of Europe.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Not just a river, a river plus either an elevation drop or
| a drownable valley.
|
| A river winding along a flat plain is not a hydro energy
| resource. A river in the same valley as your capital city
| is not a hydro energy resource.
| ascorbic wrote:
| More importantly it's one of the richest countries in the
| world, and has high taxes but big tax breaks for EVs.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And strongly penalizes non-EVs.
| onraglanroad wrote:
| Norway has roughly the population of the average US state. So
| I guess no-one really lives in the USA.
| kypro wrote:
| 0.1% of the population is pretty close to 0% to be fair.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Let's put it more concretely: Norway has about the same
| amount of people as Alabama.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| The crazier fact is that a hand full of cities alone in the
| US has a higher population than all of Norway.
| kimixa wrote:
| _most_ US states have a lower total population than LA
| county.
| 7thpower wrote:
| The USA has 50 states.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| And massive oil resources. As a result of this, one of the
| wealthiest sovereign wealth funds on the planet, which they
| manage well and for the good of the country.
|
| Their hydro energy company is an aluminum company company,
| they have so much slack power they export it refining
| bauxite.
|
| It is worth repeating solar panels covering an area about the
| size of NH generate enough power to supply all current entire
| US energy needs.
| Nition wrote:
| There must be more to it than this, or we'd have fantastic EV
| uptake here in New Zealand (we don't - EVs currently only
| have a 6% market share).
| walthamstow wrote:
| As other siblings have said, it's also very rich and offers
| mega tax breaks for EVs.
|
| Out of interest, do you mean 6% of cars on the road of 6%
| of new cars sold last year?
| speedgoose wrote:
| Solar and wind is cheap too, no need to attack the Middle
| East.
| designerarvid wrote:
| And lots of bad conscious from all the oil.
| boringg wrote:
| Interesting but North America has different needs for vehicles.
| Long time before our electrical systems to be able to
| compensate for that kind of whole sale change. Will be at least
| 20 years if it ever happens.
|
| I would also say that any ICE vehicle that has 0 subscription
| models, upgradable firmware, tracking software will probably
| have a value premium to it in the not distant future.
|
| FWIW downvoters - I have a PHEV - but I live in the real world
| and a likely future!
| reverius42 wrote:
| > Long time before our electrical systems to be able to
| compensate for that kind of whole sale change. Will be at
| least 20 years if it ever happens.
|
| I don't know about the whole national electric grid, but at
| my house, I didn't really have to upgrade anything and didn't
| even notice an increase in electric bill when I started
| plugging in my EV. I don't think my car is even 20% of my
| household electricity usage. I'd hope we can increase our
| national grid's capability by at least 20% in the next 20
| years. (Also, aren't datacenters causing that massive demand
| right now, whether or not the upgrades are even there yet? As
| I understand this is causing massive price increases?)
|
| > I would also say that any ICE vehicle that has 0
| subscription models, upgradable firmware, tracking software
| will probably have a value premium to it in the not distant
| future.
|
| As you kind of hint at, whether or not the vehicle is EV or
| ICE has nothing to do with whether it has subscription
| models, tracking, etc. and car manufacturers are racing
| towards both of those things in a way that makes the
| drivetrain irrelevant.
| boringg wrote:
| Two points.
|
| 1. Infra will need to upgrade in order to handle heavy
| charging in neighborhoods with wholesale change in the
| fleet. It would change our electrical use model
| considerably in terms of times of use -- and we would be
| adding all the energy used from gas powered cars to the
| electrical grid - which is somewhat significant.
|
| 2. While you are correct technically -- I think what I am
| implying is older cars (ICE) will be the ones without all
| the tracking and software - whereas all EVs will have that
| embedded as they are all relatively new. There is no world
| where they remove that from new car production.
| eigencoder wrote:
| Just gotta hope that slate auto is successful!
| linkregister wrote:
| It's a myth that EV charging requires an upgrade to a 100
| amp connection. Scheduling charging to times when you're
| not using appliances will still result in a charged
| vehicle by morning.
|
| The Youtube channel Technology Connections has an
| interesting video where it describes a successful
| transition to a fully-electric house while remaining on a
| 50 amp electrical connection. (it requires a smart
| circuit breaker)
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| >Long time before our electrical systems to be able to
| compensate for that kind of whole sale change. Will be at
| least 20 years if it ever happens.
|
| There's little to no reason that the electrical grid itself
| needs to change for the sake of EV's.
|
| The biggest problem is that while slow charging (L2) in your
| own garage would be perfect for 99%+ of people in the US, and
| isn't even very expensive, that's a barrier to entry most
| people do not want to screw with. So, everyone wants DC fast
| that mimics a gas station experience, even if it's completely
| unnecessary for almost everyone's use cases.
|
| Land is limited, new builds like that are expensive, slower
| to earn returns, and make little sense with so few EVs in the
| US - which leads to a viscous cycle. It's a bit of TotC.
|
| >I would also say that any ICE vehicle that has 0
| subscription models, upgradable firmware, tracking software
| will probably have a value premium to it in the not distant
| future.
|
| Consumers do not care about this. If they did, such cars
| would not sell. No one is going to pay extra for fewer
| features.
| p1necone wrote:
| > The biggest problem is that while slow charging (L2) in
| your own garage would be perfect for 99%+ of people in the
| US, and isn't even very expensive, that's a barrier to
| entry most people do not want to screw with.
|
| I feel like this is only an opinion that people who have
| never actually used an EV have. Plugging in my car
| overnight at home every few days is infinitely more
| convenient than needing to drive somewhere to plug it in
| somewhere else. The actual charge time is irrelevant as
| long as it's not more than ~12 hrs.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > No one is going to pay extra for fewer features.
|
| Right, what people want is to pay _less_ for fewer
| features.
|
| If EVs with all their limitations are going to replace ICE
| cars for daily use, they need to be cheap. We need the Ford
| Focus or Toyota Tercel of EVs, with the same set of
| features (i.e. very few) that those cars had when they were
| introduced.
|
| Otherwise I'll just go buy a used ICE Tercel or Focus.
|
| When Tesla showed the world that an EV didn't have to look
| like a middle school science project and drive like a golf
| cart, it made sense that they went upmarket. They had to
| recover development costs. That won't work to get mass
| conversion.
| linkregister wrote:
| You can get a new Model 3 base model for $36k. A Hyundai
| Ioniq 5 MSRP is $35k. A Chevy Bolt is $30k.
|
| A non-EV Toyota Camry is $30k (hybrid and ICE).
|
| We are almost there. For buyers on a budget, the used car
| market is liquid for EVs as of now.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah I'm talking more like half that. $15K for a basic,
| no-frills hatchback type EV.
|
| I personally buy used, and pay about a quarter of that or
| less when I buy a car.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > Will be at least 20 years if it ever happens.
|
| And if 100% of EV's sold this year were electric, it would
| take ~24 years for basically all of the vehicles on the road
| were electric. (The average age of registered cars in the US
| is 12 years old).
|
| Estimates are that a 100% EV fleet would increase electricity
| demand by 20%. So that's < 1 % a year.
|
| Approximately how much demand increases due to increasing A/C
| usage in the US.
|
| And a lot less than AI/crypto is increasing demand.
|
| And that's not to mention that EV charging is a relatively
| easy demand to meet -- most EV owners charge when it's
| cheapest, so you can shape demand via price signals.
| boringg wrote:
| You can somewhat change the profile by price signals --
| however if all vehicles are EVs there is a good portion of
| that demand that is inelastic. You will also need to be
| able to handle larger volumes of demand for faster charging
| stations and that entire effort of infra.
|
| Its all doable but it is not as a simple as every plugs in
| at home. Its a large co-ordinated infrastructure effort.
|
| You also brought up some other valid issues -- right now we
| are looking at the being undersupplied for electricity
| across NA without a wholesale swap to EVs. Maybe the upside
| of the oversupply of AI is that we have a lot of stranded
| assets for electrical charging infra/generation
| afterwards..
| themafia wrote:
| That's the plan. The reality seems different:
|
| https://www.electrive.com/2025/01/09/norway-the-number-of-ne...
| paganel wrote:
| You're Norway, you don't count.
|
| > I figure most other countries will be the same.
|
| I figure you're wrong on that one.
| Yizahi wrote:
| EVs are fine and dandy, but it is a luxury class of cars for
| now and it shows really. Most other countries are far far away
| from mass deployment of EVs or restricting ICE cars. EVs can
| win if either a) the car is cheaper than the same class ICE, or
| b) operational expenses of using EV car would be cheaper.
| Neither of which is happening yet. And the car do need to have
| some advantage, since EVs already come with inherent
| disadvantage of long and inconvenient charging, small
| batteries, limited locations for charging with buggy and broken
| stations, not working apps or cards etc.
| joe_mamba wrote:
| Yeah, visiting my ex-Gf family in Norway, I realized how much
| richer Norwegians are that it's not even funny. It's not
| really a market representative of the average buyer. Same how
| neither Switzerland, Luxembourg or Monaco are.
|
| I am living in a working class neighborhood of apartment
| buildings in West-central Europe with average to below
| average earners, and there's zero EVs parked here on the
| streets, basically 90% of people have old diesel cars. Only
| when you go towards the suburbs with rich(inherited wealth)
| people living in single family homes you see everyone has an
| EV.
|
| The distinction is quite clear, do you live in a house or
| have your own parking space and possibility to install your
| own charger? Then EV 100% no brainer. Otherwise people stick
| to ICE.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I do live in a house, could easily afford an EV and have
| plenty of solar to keep it charged. And I still don't have
| one because all of these EVs feel like the worst of the
| computer world applied to automotive. The last thing I need
| is a computer on wheels and I'm old enough that I know my
| current car is likely my last. For my kids it is different,
| and I'm sure that they'll go electric at some point but I
| hope that they'll be able to do so without buying a mobile
| privacy violation instrument.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| I have a tangential question. Do you find that snow banks near
| roads are appreciably less black and disgusting now that there
| are fewer ICE vehicles on the road?
|
| Growing up in America I have memories of our roadside snowbanks
| becoming black and saturated by vehicle exhaust and it always
| felt so gross to me. The back half of winter was characterized
| by blackened, salt-saturated puddles and banks. I wonder if the
| prevalence of EVs has made things less dirty in the winter.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| isn't that at least partially caused by the rubber tire
| particles?
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| Could be! I don't know enough to say what the ratio of
| exhaust to tire particulate is on the average road.
|
| In either case it's a good physical representation of how
| much particulate we are exposed to every day. Maybe having
| it trapped in dirty snowbanks is better than having it
| getting kicked up into the air during a dryer season.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Road particles, brakes and tires dominate that massively.
|
| https://www.eiturbanmobility.eu/press-corner/nees-are-
| the-ma...
| kleiba wrote:
| _> 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 wrote:
| trick question. all three
| speedgoose wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| And what on that list is exclusive to EVs anyway? This whole
| article reads like a hit piece. It's amateurish.
| proee wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Are they killing their EVs because of vibrations?
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| lol. Their new F1 engine seems to be a mess (I'm assuming
| you're referring to that).
| storus wrote:
| Yes, precisely. /r/formula1 was not leaking here yet ;-)
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Where does that leave GM?
| slfnflctd wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| scuff3d wrote:
| But it's not really increasing anymore, and the increase has
| been almost entirely tied to subsidies. When Germany and
| America pulled back on EV subsidies, sales dropped
| significantly.
|
| The adoption curve hasn't been nearly as steep as predicted,
| and the political landscape is unstable. Other manufacturers
| are also pulling back on their EV investments.
|
| I'm not saying Honda isn't overdoing it, but a retreat from EVs
| isn't surprising.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > But it's not really increasing anymore
|
| EV's are a half trillion dollar market (20 million cars
| annually, average selling price $25K) that increased by 20%
| in 2025.
|
| That's a massive increase in a massive market.
|
| It's not the 50% per annum we were seeing earlier, but 20% of
| a big number is often more impressive than 50% of a big
| market.
| scuff3d wrote:
| It's not that simple, some markets are slowing down and
| others are accelerating.
|
| Two of Honda's biggest markets are Japan and the US. The US
| is cooling on EVs with incentives and regulation changes
| making adoption less urgent. Japan already has an extremely
| low adoption rate. So the incentives for Honda to invest
| heavily just aren't there right now.
|
| Other manufacturers are also pulling back. Ford is cutting
| way back on the Lightning for example.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| "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.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Why do you need a EV to be a software defined variable? Maybe
| just a large enough lithium battery?
| codazoda wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Actually it does do that. They sell your driving data to your
| insurance company & government.
| classichasclass wrote:
| I also recently bought a Honda hybrid. I turned off as many
| of the data sharing features as I could from the first day
| I drove it. They don't make it easy, of course.
| mperham wrote:
| > My Tesla is still on FSD from 2023 because the newer versions
| are terrible judging from the comments on the Tesla forums.
|
| I've had FSD since 2020; the latest version is noticeably
| better than 2020. I wouldn't put too much stock in forums which
| tend to skew negative.
| billfor wrote:
| 2023 is better than 2020. 2026 is not necessarily better than
| 2023. Shifting speeds abruptly in the modern FSD
| notwithstanding, what happened especially for people with HW
| 2.5/3 (circa 2018/19) is the change in behavior of adaptive
| cruise control and FSD -- you can go look it up. Essentially
| they "removed" a useful feature that let the car seemlesly
| move between the two -- I think because they didn't want to
| support the drivers "stalk" on the steering wheel anymore -
| new Teslas don't have it. So basically for me, SDV is not all
| that it's cracked up to be -- yeah and all that privacy stuff
| too...
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| You're aware this is effectively a forum?
| ryanhuff wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > software-defined vehicle (SDV)
|
| I hate that expression. It's software- _limited_ , not defined.
| porphyra wrote:
| The newer versions of FSD are soooooo much better. Don't listen
| to the "comments on the Tesla forums".
| aenis wrote:
| This. And same for phones, tvs, operating systems.
|
| I bought a perfectly fine macbook pro m1 in 2020. It has been
| made far, far worse, slower, bloated and less responsive by
| apple. I see nothing improved, everything significantly
| degraded. It used to be that I could airplay to our tv with a
| single mouse click, now it seems to work once every 5 attempts,
| and takes about a minute. It used to be near instantaneous.
|
| I bought a top of the line philips oled tv in 2020. I think I
| paid 4k for it. It has been made slower, bloated, less
| responsive by google and philips (or whatever company makes
| those tvs branded by philips).
|
| I buy a top of the line iphone every 2-3 years, and it gets
| worse.
|
| I bought a SONOS soundbar a few years ago. It used to work fine
| and produce nice sound. Now if I start my tv, and don't play
| anything for a few minutes it goes to sleep, and I need to
| restart my tv to get the sound to play.
|
| Blocking updates on anything newly purchased seems like the
| best option. Not buying anything from those absolute crap
| companies seems like the second best option, but its hard to
| find alternatives.
| getpokedagain wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You can buy affordable simple EVs in many markets. Not all EVs
| target the premium segment.
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| Damn, the Honda E looked great.
| puchatek wrote:
| Big Vintage Energy
| jumpalongjim wrote:
| Agree! But there are almost none on the roads in Europe so must
| have been costly for Honda. Price was too high.
| speedgoose wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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,
| sys_64738 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| tills13 wrote:
| Oh I mixed up Honda and Hyundai in my head and panicked for a
| second. Were they even ever trying?
| gcanyon wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| jedberg wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| They do, but for some reason haven't brought them to the van
| yet. Here's hoping!
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