Facing heavy losses, Honda cancels its three US-made electric vehicles

Tariffs, torn-up US emissions regs, and being uncompetitive in China are all to blame.

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[SolarMane]

They went from Hybrid Leaders to .... Hydrogen believers.
They bet the farm and much more on H2 to a sadly comical point.
Remember the Tokyo Olympics "Hydrogen Village"?
The battery tech grew mature much faster than the fuel-cell tech, and now they suffer.
And it's double-bad, as most advanced Li-ion battery advanced manufacturers are (were) japanese. Sony Energy, Panasonic, Sanyo... the stars were aligned for a Japanese-grown EV technological super power.
I'm quite surprised that this comment section is not filled with Hydrogen-bet related comments.

Japanese battery companies also bet on the wrong battery chemistry. Nearly every company outside of China spent their R&D money on expensive NMC on the expectation that longer vehicle range between charges would lead to a better product. Chinese companies bet on cheap LFP on the expectation that additional R&D would eventually lead to longer range and that their government would fill the remaining gap in range with charging infrastructure.

At the end of the day, Japan was too focused on creating singular products whereas China worked on creating an ecosystem.

 

[Ushio]

We test drove a Volvo EX30 a few weeks ago, which is a Geely platform. Loved how it drove, loved the way it looked and the small size. A really nice, unique, practical option at a good price in the US market.

The over-emphasis on the touchscreen is what got us to pass. Pretty much everything had to be done though the screen, and the controls were clunky. It didn't even have a start/stop button.

China is actually banning a lot of that stuff because of accidents so future Chinese made vehicles will have more buttons for what are considered safety or essential features.

 

[waryoldguy]

What a great time to kill off new electric vehicles! Now that oil is skyrocketing I'm sure everyone is going to love all the large, gas SUV options they have!

Well, that is a choice they made that they will have to live with. I am fine with that.
The problem is the choice they made to re-elect Mango Mussolini that I have to live with that has me ticked.

 

[Ushio]

It's actually better than that. A hybrid that gets 50 mpg is the gasoline equivalent of one car that gets 25 mpg and one car that gets a magical infinity miles per gallons, in terms of gasoline consumed per mile driven.

EVs do NOT get infinity miles per gallon, especially a big, lumbering EV like a Hummer. If you charge that bil ol elecologically friendly hummer EV off of a coal power plant, you are MUCH, MUCH worse for the environment than a high mileage hybrid.

Are EVs the eventual endgame? Obviously. You can charge them off solar and wind when the solar and wind are available. They can be a huge mobile battery that is always proximate to the person that needs the power. Eventually, they will be the cheapest option both from an energy cost and a purchase cost perspective.

But, in the USA, none of those things are true right now. Hybrids are more ecological in most cases.

Edit: I'm not complaining about the downvotes, but is my math wrong or is this just a sacred cow?

The math is wrong it's been shown time and time again the least efficient EV powered by the dirtiest coal power station is still better than the most efficient ICE engine.

 

[Zizy]

I don't think that Chinese customers don't care about efficiency; it's more that every brand is offering plenty of range, so it's just not the differentiator it is for USDM.
Comparing consumer tastes in different markets is always interesting. It seems that many American consumers are finally pushing back on touchscreen-everything and capacitive button BS. I also run in more curmudgeon-y circles, where we know enough about tech to not trust it infesting even AC controls and glovebox openings. But China seems to want more more more, and I'm curious about the difference.

Almost nobody cares about efficiency itself because resulting price difference is negligible, unlike with gasoline. What matters is the range. Either zero stop range for most trips, or one stop one for longer ones. Efficiency obviously helps here, but bigger battery and faster charging also help - and in the same segment, Chinese cars seem to have about the same zero stop range and lower price. Mostly because their fleets are on cheaper LFP while others often use expensive NMC.

(that said, their LFP bet was the correct one, while their Na bet didn't pan out)

 

[afidel]

If they're importing the vehicles into the US then the Ohio manufacturing facility isn't really manufacturing them.

The tarrifs also have been applied to components, so vehicles assembled in Ohio from a global supply chain are equally impacted.

 

[MrMcLargeHuge]

ohio's become such a maga brained state its fine we're loosing this, people keep voting for republicans who in turn keep cutting the state budget to the bone so much that every school is going bankrupt next year and most municipalities are wondering how to pay for the police and firefighters next year.

Now imagine if that proposed amendment to outlaw property taxes actually manages to make it to the ballot and pass. I've got kids approaching school age and we are absolutely looking at leaving the state because of how fast education is going downhill.

 

[Olletes]

ohio's become such a maga brained state its fine we're loosing this, people keep voting for republicans who in turn keep cutting the state budget to the bone so much that every school is going bankrupt next year and most municipalities are wondering how to pay for the police and firefighters next year.

From the UK but the sentiment is the same...

 

[Varste]

The most popular cars, like from geely, byd and xiaomi have hardware buttons as standard or as options

Ah interesting! Naturally most of us don't have exposure to the Chinese market and domestic vehicles. There's an author, Tycho de Feijter, who lives in China and occasionally writes articles for The Autopian on Chinese car culture, and it's always a good read.

 

[MrMcLargeHuge]

Will this cost jobs, or will they just pivot to different lines?

 

[thelongdarkteatimeof]

And the yanks take another step back to the dark ages

 

[isage]

I recently bought an Ioniq5 & (for city driving anyway) I will not go back to an ICE again. You only need to drive an EV for 5 minutes to be sold on it.
Never mind the software side, I wonder if US based companies can compete with Chinese manufacturers on the hardware side. Have a look at the specifications for this EV: Denza Z9 GT.

 

[walnut close]

It seems that many American consumers are finally pushing back on touchscreen-everything and capacitive button BS

I am way over touchscreen cars. Hate them. I basically have to have my wife do environmental controls and the like from the passenger seat, or find a parking spot to do them myself, when traveling in our Ioniq 6 - they are simply unusable for a busy driver.

 

[jhandojo]

I'm not sure Tesla will be a huge player in the not too distant future. They've already planned to mothball production of both the Model S and Model X lines, with Musk doubling down yet again on autonomy. That despite the poor performance of their robotaxi fleet. And their Cybertruck is seen as a huge flop. And none of that even touches on their plummeting sales numbers worldwide.

And as a current Tesla owner, I'll be hard pressed to buy another one for a number of reasons. I'm already leaning towards a Rivian as my next EV.

I'm in the same situation.. and Rivian just announced a possible sub $50K model of their R2.. looks like JG also just wrote about it.. this is going to get a hard look from me

https://meincmagazine.com/cars/2026/03/rivian-reveals-pricing-and-trim-details-for-its-r2-suv/

 

[Egocrata]

It looks as if the US EV market is going to be Hyuadai/Kia, Tesla, and a few niche players pretty soon.

It could have been Volkswagen, too, but so far they refuse to bring any of the cars I'd actually buy or can afford.

No, I don't want a giant ass SUV.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

Test drove the latest gen Nio ES6 last summer while in Shanghai. Software wise - 1) it's able to navigate in and out of very complex and crowded underground parking lot automatically from its parking space; 2) has all the popular music and video apps onboard that can play music at any time and play video when car is parked; 3) very accurate voice recognition in both Chinese and English so you can tell the car what you want to do, such as playing music, navigate to locations, etc.; 4) have AI assistant in car that understands your gestures and its surroundings - e.g., while traveling on road, point towards a building and ask what it is and the AI told me it's a high end condo complex called xyz and people see living there as a great sign of success (at the same time the screen temporarily displayed the complex's front gate with its name on it).

See, all day every day, Ars readers leave comments on every article I write about cars saying they absolutely don't want any of this in their cars.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

GM, Ford, Honda, Tesla, etc are fumbling.

Toyota barely done any production. Their money is going toward battery production that makes sense, not these stepping stone disasters. Their longterm strategy has been cautious and wait until it can be reliable and longlasting.

GM sold just shy of 170,000 EVs in the US last year, the idea that it is somehow giving up on EVs doesn't match the facts.

https://investor.gm.com/static-files/23adce96-ea26-4a6e-82dd-68a0042df51c

 

[Oldmanalex]

We have two hybrids, an older Accord which just delivered 38 mpg over the rather brutal winter, and will deliver 48+ mpg in the summer, and a Niro PHEV, which is delivering (ignoring electricity) 210 mpg over its lifetime. I expect that the economic own goal we are committing will push my auto fuel bill up by $15-25/month, but most people are going to be hurting a great deal more than that. And next winter's heating bill is going to really hurt all of us.

 

[clackerd]

Although Honda says that “striving for carbon neutrality” is a “responsibility Honda… must fulfill for the future,” it seems that responsibility only applies when being forced by a government.

GET EM DR GITLIN

 

[Oldmanalex]

20-30% pay cuts... in their bonuses/stock options probably...

anywho, too bad, that SUV looked like something I would be interested in. I'm still not a fan of hybrid crap, dual technologies implies higher probability of A failure and higher bills due to extra complexities involved, great for their profits, not so great for anyone else.

We have found our hybrids to be completely mechanically reliable. Take a middle sized four-banger, and run it intermittently at near optimal rpm, and never stress it at the high end of the curve, and it will last forever. Even 100 years ago building highly reliable electric motors was a walk in the park. Combine the two, with no undue stress on either side, and one probably sees an overall improvement in reliability. It is simply a matter of looking at the world as it actually is.

 

[jezra]

Chinese customers don’t care about efficiency

I care about efficiency because I get gouged by the murderous PG&E corporation. If I was paying $0.08/kWh I would be far less focused on efficiency.

 

[Oldmanalex]

See, all day every day, Ars readers leave comments on every article I write about cars saying they absolutely don't want any of this in their cars.

I wonder what their wives say, (for the 50% of Ars readership that has managed not to repel all women).

 

[clackerd]

We have found our hybrids to be completely mechanically reliable. Take a middle sized four-banger, and run it intermittently at near optimal rpm, and never stress it at the high end of the curve, and it will last forever. Even 100 years ago building highly reliable electric motors was a walk in the park. Combine the two, with no undue stress on either side, and one probably sees an overall improvement in reliability. It is simply a matter of looking at the world as it actually is.

My issue with plug-in hybrids is you get half the EV benefits and keep the ICE maintenance

 

[yakinabe]

They went from Hybrid Leaders to .... Hydrogen believers.
They bet the farm and much more on H2 to a sadly comical point.

Only because the Japanese government heavily invested in and incentivized development of hydrogen technology. Presumably they thought they'd never get all apartments, condos and private parking lots to install chargers.

 

[Travis Butler]

It is called an example.

No, it’s called false equivalence.

You rail about the failures in infotainment and use them to claim incompetence in engineering software, without offering any kind of proof.

Do you really want a TED talk on how many software-based "recalls" have needed issued last year due to all manner of low-level problems in cars...because car companies fundamentally are shown to be incompetent at software

…and no, this isn’t evidence. The article throws around lots of vague generalizations about “recalls”, but not once does it list a specific recall, identify a safety issue, or even state an actual problem that was fixed. Just lots of generic scary-sounding figures - and without any specific cites, I’m highly suspicious of their numbers.

Defining things by software sounds great...until you have car companies more inept at software production than Microsoft--designing software and firmware that controls hundreds of millions of 2-ton vehicles that move fast enough to kill people if they don't work right. Microsoft's inability to get spellcheck to work in New Outlook after 3 years of people complaining--is tame by comparison.

More false equivalence. Sheesh.

Since you seem to need the hint, we’re not talking about infotainment. We’re not talking about Outlook. We’re talking about engineering software, the kind of thing that runs MRI machines and factory automation and fly-by-wire airplanes.

 

[afidel]

Has it? You got a link?

For background, I'm a mechanical engineer that does power electronics for a living (not in cars)

MPGe is how many miles a car goes in 33kwh, which is the THERMAL energy in 1 gallon of gasoline. Fine. But the gas car has to do the thermal-to-mechanical conversion onboard in the engine, which, at steady state for a car engine is something like 25%. Not great, but you can't get around carnot efficiency.

If you assume that the average carbon cost of electrical generation is in line with a good combined cycle natural gas plant (renewables are less, coal is more) then you're dealing with a carnot efficiency of something like 45%. But, that isn't taken into account in the MPGe numbers, which is electrical energy versus thermal energy. Transmission losses are another 7% average, and charging losses are about 5%. That's all pretty good. 33kWh/.45/.93/.95 worth of thermal energy input from natural gas to get it. so, 83 kWh worth, or 300 megajoules.

The carbon generated by burning 1 gallon of gasoline is 8.887 Kg

Natural gas, burned is 55 kJ/G, so to charge one "equivalent gallon" worth of electricity, you have to burn 5.454 kilograms of natural gas. Burning one kg of methane yields 2.75 kg of Co2, so 15kg of carbon emissions to charge the equivalent battery.

So, if you assume you are on average charging from a natural gas power plant, and all you care about are carbon emissions, you need to take the stated MPGe of the EV and multiply it by 8.887/15.

A Hummer EV gets 53 MPGe. That means, purely looking at carbon cost and assuming natural gas power plants, the carbon cost of the Hummer EV is equvalent to a hybrid getting 31mpg.

A toyota highlander hybrid (roughly equivalent) gets 35mpg combined.

If you don't love that comparison because a hummer ev is the second dumbest brick on wheels, an ionic 5 gets about 100 mpge. That's about the same as if a hybrid that got 59 miles per gallon.

A prius gets 57 miles per gallon.

EVs are great, don't get me wrong. But they aren't one weird trick that saves the planet from carbon emissions. EVs paired with solar gets closer, but that's not where we are in this country right now. If we were talking China, the math would be different.

I'd love to be wrong here.

From here
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars

MIT’s report shows how much these stats can swing based on a few key factors. For example, when the researchers used the average carbon intensity of America’s power grid, they found that a fully electric vehicle emits about 25 percent less carbon than a comparable hybrid car. But if they ran the numbers assuming the EV would charge up in hydropower-heavy Washington State, they found it would emit 61 percent less carbon than the hybrid. When they did the math for coal-heavy West Virginia, the EV actually created more carbon emissions than the hybrid, but still less than the gasoline car.

So, specifically hybrid vs pure EV, from the dirtiest power plant, not so much?

https://www.ucs.org/resources/ev-emissions-tool-faq

Put in any EV you wish into any zip code and compare to an equivalent hybrid, you'll find the EV wins every time.

 

[ergonomicBagel]

Hyundai/Kia has a lot of good choices and are working on more.

They're unfortunately a non-starter until they can prove they will consistently build a line of vehicles without some huge, critical flaw that isn't immediately apparent. (and this is for both gas and electric options)

Which is a shame, I feel like I'm half watching the class clown screw around in class - having seen some of his work and knowing if he just applied himself... and half watching my fellow consumer play minesweeper buying them.

 

[solomonrex]

It looks as if the US EV market is going to be Hyuadai/Kia, Tesla, and a few niche players pretty soon.

I think you're a little behind. Early adopters have been burned by unforced errors repeatedly, including Kia/Hyundai customers - their flagship cars have had charging components burn out. Tesla's struggles are enormous and that's why they pivoted after CyberTruck's flop.

Toyota just issued a Highlander EV and other mainstream EVs, Ford is doubling down on an affordable EV, GM has compelling products for a suddenly declining market. BMW has a very compelling new product blitz on the way.

I think Toyota/Lexus, with their reputation, they'll walk into market leadership very easily now. I don't think Tesla is hopeless, but without a change at the top, it's definitely not succeeding with consumer car sales. They just ended S/X and have announced robotaxies and androids. If successful, car consumer sales will not last long.

 

[sdean7855]

The last thing I want is a Software Defined Vehicle.

I have a 2003 VW Jetta diesel; I just clocked a third of a million miles on it. The most complicated thing on it is the key fob that locks and unlocks. Everything is downhill from there. Augustine's law number I forget says anything that isn't in a design won't break. So many things to break in the cars today. After the warranty expires, golly you're on your own.

 

[iim]

That's 2-4 weeks of pay they give up. It's a nice signal but they don't leave that much money on the table.

That’s true, but Honda’s CEO makes less than $3 million annually in good times. GM pays over $29 million.

It begs the question though, is the CEO running GM really worth 10 times the pay of Honda’s CEO?

 

[MisterBaxter]

We test drove a Volvo EX30 a few weeks ago, which is a Geely platform. Loved how it drove, loved the way it looked and the small size. A really nice, unique, practical option at a good price in the US market.

The over-emphasis on the touchscreen is what got us to pass. Pretty much everything had to be done though the screen, and the controls were clunky. It didn't even have a start/stop button.

[warning: European perspective]

That's interesting! I had a diesel V40 for the last 10 years, and liked it, so I looked at Volvo when I wanted to go EV. The EX30 is the closest thing they have, and it's just too damn big. Too wide, too high a riding position (though shorter, weirdly). I walked around one in the showroom while waiting for a service, and noped out based on that, so I never looked inside. Looking at the website, yeah that's too touchscreeny as well. And going all-in on the "glued an iPad to the dash" look too.

I ended up going with a Mini Cooper SE, which has a physical start twisty knob thing, a physical gear selector, buttons for warning lights, front and rear window heating... and an "experiences" toggle which is a waste of a good button space, but you can't win them all. Climate controls are on the bottom edges of the giant circular touchscreen, which is meh, but the Volvo looks worse.

 

[Rick C.]

But, but, every auto industry analyst told me the old guard titans of industry would come crush any EV startups just as soon as they flipped the switch!

Oh, it turns out they don’t have software people, motor people, battery people, or anyone who can start up a new product line in less than 15 years? Who could have guessed?

Plenty of EEs out there needing a job.

 

[sdean7855]

ohio's become such a maga brained state its fine we're loosing this, people keep voting for republicans who in turn keep cutting the state budget to the bone so much that every school is going bankrupt next year and most municipalities are wondering how to pay for the police and firefighters next year.

There's a shaggy dog story about a peasant and his donkey. Winters coming on and he needs to buy clothing and shoes for his kids...cutting the story short... he decides to cut back on the donkeys hay to free up the money he needs. Time goes on donkey works just as hard as ever and by spring donkey s getting nothing but pulling just as hard as ever. The crops almost in, when the donkey falls over dead. Farmer: damn just when I had that donkey working for nothing, he up and dies on. me.

 

[Rick C.]

Hyundai/Kia has a lot of good choices and are working on more.

Can't trust them and all of their recent debacles.

 

[rm0659]

Surprising to see Toyota and Honda both fumble the EV market.

They could have DOMINATED the US market by simply just making EV versions of their sedans and compact cars.

Biggest fumble I can see. US domestic manufacturers were always going to be dumb, but to see those two act a fool too?

Shocking.

just "making ev versions" of current vehicles is a recipe for disaster.
sounds great in theory but the only way to make evs for a profit is to start from scratch.

 

[some guy in San Diego]

The Equinox is basically the same size as those examples, it's about 6" longer than the mach-e/ev6/model 3.

And the Optiq is very slightly smaller than the Equinox.