Tariffs, torn-up US emissions regs, and being uncompetitive in China are all to blame.
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Facing heavy losses, Honda cancels its three US-made electric vehicles
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Oh so close...
Your car is full of software-driven devices, the only question is where that software runs.
Does your headlight unit have its own software stack, or is it just a dumb appliance for software running in a central location? The former makes the unit more expensive and needs software support from the company that builds the headlight unit. The latter makes the unit cheaper and more commodity-priced.
Companies that went down the former route end up with some nasty problems:
1) Their hardware is more expensive
2) They are locked in to suppliers
3) If there is a bug in the unit, they are now reliant on the hardware component manufacturer to fix it.
4) They now have lots of subsystems on the vehicle, each with software written by (or for) the component manufacturer.
5) If the component manufacturer is incompetent on software development, they'll farm it out to a third party, which makes fixing bugs and adding features even nastier
And the manufacturer now has to have a way to update the embedded software modules scattered throughout the car. Without a valid OTA process that encompasses all these unrelated embedded software systems, it becomes much likely that a bug fix in one of these unit will need the owner to take the vehicle to a Stealership, at a non-trivial cost, and its usually a cost the vehicle manufacturer has to eat.
Alternatively the manufacturer can centralize all this software in one place, which makes updates OTA-able, and greatly increases the ability to add features and fix bugs.
And they can buy cheaper components and aren't held hostage by component manufacturers, some of whom will be amazing incompetent at embedded software development.
Software driven vehicle design generally provides lower manufacturing costs and quicker development cycles, that's why manufacturers are being forced down that route.
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My old ICE car just finally gave it up after 14 years, jumped into a Hyundai Ioniq 5 last month. It's been so great. There's a Kia model also getting cancelled, and Ioniq 6.
So the US EV market is crazy right now! It's sad to see the options shrinking. China and the EU will jump ahead of the US in that regard soon I guess.
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Software defined vehicle = Subscribe to use what you bought.
Just look at the TV market.
Just look at the TV market.
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I just want an EV that acts like an analog car. Hard buttons and analog gauges. Remove all the fluff that no one ever uses like the 10 different driving modes.
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The "heavy losses" are the write downs in the capital value of EV production. Honda has an operating profit, the losses are paper losses for money they've already spent.
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Same here. I have a '23 Model X. Best car I've ever owned. I'd probably buy a new Tesla X every five years. But there's no way I'm going to downgrade to a Y. The problem is that there isn't a replacement for the X, in the market today. You can't get luxury and self-driving and power in one vehicle. Without the X and the S, you need to pick two.
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Seeing a lot of comments against software defined cars. While Iunderstand the sentiment there's other aspects of the Chinese approach that are allowing them to massively improve their cars at a much faster rate than was traditionally possible.
A good example of this is software controlled suspension leading to huge improvements in ride and handling. The MG (yes the old Morris Garages brand from the UK that got sold there years ago) sub-brand IM is a really good example of this.
Here in Australia they've launched a car at around Model 3 pricing with a software controlled chassis that is frankly confounding the motoring journalists here, it's apparently that good. As a group the Australian motoring press has been very China-skeptical too so for them to say this was very interesting.
https://www.whichcar.com.au/features/ims-game-changing-digital-chassis-explained
Cars like this are what are setting the Chinese expectations around software controlled cars.
A good example of this is software controlled suspension leading to huge improvements in ride and handling. The MG (yes the old Morris Garages brand from the UK that got sold there years ago) sub-brand IM is a really good example of this.
Here in Australia they've launched a car at around Model 3 pricing with a software controlled chassis that is frankly confounding the motoring journalists here, it's apparently that good. As a group the Australian motoring press has been very China-skeptical too so for them to say this was very interesting.
https://www.whichcar.com.au/features/ims-game-changing-digital-chassis-explained
Cars like this are what are setting the Chinese expectations around software controlled cars.
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Excellent point. Buying when gas has been high for a few months provides great discounts on trucks and large suv's. Maybe one of those troubked gm 6. 2L engines. Yummy. Weekend warrior and road trips! And I don't care about gas mileage, because why daily a truck when you can drive cars.
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I've already sold my last gas car, a Honda Civic and now only have EVs.
I'm laughing as the gas prices go up and definitely would never buy another gas car. I really do like Honda and Toyota but my cars going forward have to be electric.
I find it sad that these brilliant engineers cannot engineer an EV. I personally converted my Honda CRX into an EV in a month in my own garage. Got it fully legalized. It has 200 miles range. If I can do it, why can't Honda?
I'm laughing as the gas prices go up and definitely would never buy another gas car. I really do like Honda and Toyota but my cars going forward have to be electric.
I find it sad that these brilliant engineers cannot engineer an EV. I personally converted my Honda CRX into an EV in a month in my own garage. Got it fully legalized. It has 200 miles range. If I can do it, why can't Honda?
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The president and vice president of the board are having their bonuses zeroed this year, well. Net impact is at near a 25% income hit on the year for them.
Honda Investor Statement
Scroll to the bottom.
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GM had everything they're gushing about decades ago, even rear steer.
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Sorry but that's nothing like what the IM offers, you're making a mistake based on assuming you know more than car journalists who have both experienced it and investigated it.
GM cars with the tech you're describing are familiar to Australian divers and car journos having been on the market here and while that was good it was never class leading. This is a completely new level of active suspension technology that reads the road and reacts predictively before the bump or divot is hit.
In an affordable level of cars that are already on the market.
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Strangely my local area has had more charging stations built than ever before. I hope with EVs being cut from our markets they won't sit there losing money and then charging stations become toxic for investors.
Oh well, it could be worse. We could be facing oil supply shocks while performing this own goa.... Oh... oh no...
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The 2003 Silverado was the first GM with rear steering, though it was an upgrade and not standard like the Hummer and Silverado EVs today. Cadillacs have had active magnetic ride suspensions since 2002 and most GM vehicles offer it as an option now.
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You can't get self driving in a Tesla either. Or luxury. You're describing a Rivian or Cadillac.
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Detroit will keep making pickup trucks for the domestic market that nobody else wants.
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When my Prius battery was in good condition I would regularly drive a hundred miles in town (rideshare/delivery) with mileage above 55 mpg. Toyota may have done things differently if one of the biggest markets wasn't busy sh*itting the bed five of the past 9 years.
Also hydrogen was always rather silly, but several governments were pushing it. Maybe if you have to have an ICE and ethanol or biodiesel won't work for some reason it could be useful but hydrogen is difficult to transport. I think the energy companies liked the idea because it would come from a station like gas, not be pumped directly to a house or manufactured at home. Whether home production/delivery is feasible or not, I think people still remember the Hindenburg and wouldn't want it.
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People wallowing in new truck/SUV money have little reason beyond sentiment to care about or even notice fuel economy. The average American ICE SUV driver spends about three grand a year on fuel and near that for insurance. 40% of buyers earn over $100K/year. They could spend thrice their current fuel cost with little impact.
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Ah, now there's some marketing that hits me. Everything's aspirational! But what isn't when it comes to ads? It's also not useful for me because I'm so darn far out of market coverage. Still, I wouldn't mind the high-rise workout, shiny car, and outdoor fitness-related things!
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But it's not.
I have owned my 2022 Nissan Leaf for just over 4 years now. In that time I have never lived anywhere that I could charge at home or at work. I have been entirely dependent upon the public charger network.
And it works.
The script of "Go charge at a public charger every couple of weeks" is no different than "Go get gas at the gas station every couple of weeks".
Please stop it with the claim that charging is some unique and horrible burden.
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BYD and Geely have just prototyped extremely fast charging (7 minutes) based on “Megawatt Flash Charging” and new battery tech. It uses higher voltages, denser batteries and large battery caching at the charging stations themselves to enable them to draw from the grid gradually and discharge to the car very quickly. Geely is proposing to build out its own charging network to support this, rather than relying on 3rd parties.
None of this will happen in the United States.
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They're already under near-complete surveillance by their government anyway, soo...might as well have some fun with all the spyware I guess?
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Here in Aus market we have massive variety in terms of makes and models available and the Chinese cars are priced quite similar to other manufacturers, they’re roughly market price minus a few grand, their not half the price of their competitors.
The Ford Ranger EV is $70k compared to the BYD shark at 60k.
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The GT trim of the EV6 is dead, but the EV6 is not. At least not yet.
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I think re-making the Acura RSX from a two-door sports coupe (formerly the Honda/Acura Integra) into an EV SUV was a nonstarter to begin with and tone deaf when it comes to people who have known and loved Honda-Acura as a brand for years.
That said, one of Honda's greatest difficulties of the 21st century has been how slow they have been in realizing they're not just a car company; automakers are now software companies as well. My 2016 Honda Civic and 2019 Honda Clarity were/are painful reminders of this in that while functional, the interfaces are slow, and lacking in features that my 2019 and 2024 Hyundais have been excellent in. The Hyundais were designed with the car in mind, while the Hondas seem like an afterthought. Combined with the poor Hondalink app (buggy connectivity and just recently, removal and deprecation of features), when in comparison both of my Hyundais BlueLink interfaces overcame their difficulties and just became better, and it seems like they really need some work on this front.
That said, one of Honda's greatest difficulties of the 21st century has been how slow they have been in realizing they're not just a car company; automakers are now software companies as well. My 2016 Honda Civic and 2019 Honda Clarity were/are painful reminders of this in that while functional, the interfaces are slow, and lacking in features that my 2019 and 2024 Hyundais have been excellent in. The Hyundais were designed with the car in mind, while the Hondas seem like an afterthought. Combined with the poor Hondalink app (buggy connectivity and just recently, removal and deprecation of features), when in comparison both of my Hyundais BlueLink interfaces overcame their difficulties and just became better, and it seems like they really need some work on this front.
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I think it is unsurprising.
The Japanese government has had a thing about hydrogen for years and Toyota have put a lot of effort into FCVs that has been, basically, wasted. Honda got off to a bad start by bringing out the Honda e. It was an excellent city car, and we had one. Lots of automation, very good ADAS. But because of the battery technology around 2020, the range was too small except as a second car. Honda obviously lavished an awful lot of love on the e just as BMW did on the i3, but they were both dead ends.
Meanwhile Tesla focussed on the, basically, sports car market leaving the rest of the industry to make use of how well the SUV/crossover shape adapts to skateboard batteries.
Honda and Toyota are left in an awkward hole in the middle.
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I think Trump and Bibi must have heard you and decided that they could make that possible. 1973 all over again. I remember people complaining in the 70s how the headroom in new Volvos had suddenly disappeared as aerodynamics suddenly acquired importance.
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None of that article was about rear wheel steering as a major feature.
It was about the suspension/ride/handling being controlled at a greater and more effective level.
As I already said, Australian journalists know GM products and this impresses them far more and is something new. Not just a rehash of an old system.
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What's confusing about where you can charge? If the answer to this 95% of the time isn't "in my garage, carport, or driveway" and you live in the US, then an EV probably is not for you.
Otherwise, an Ioniq 5 can charge at the overwhelming majority of DC fast chargers in the US, and basically all public L2 chargers. 2025 and newer are native NACS (so V3 and newer Tesla Superchargers -- which is most of them -- plus some others now that NACS is the de facto standard in the US), so they plug into Tesla-style ports without an adapter, and come with adapters for CCS1 fast chargers and J1772 AC chargers. Older models are native CCS1 and need an adapter for NACS. If you use the native navigation to find a charger, it won't send you to one that doesn't work for your car. If you use another app and you've told it what you have correctly, same deal. And despite there not being blue "EV CHARGING" signs near the "GAS", "FOOD", and "LODGING" signs on the interstate, there are in fact fast charging stations along almost all major highways and many not so major ones too.
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How long are you at the public charger every couple of weeks?
Because getting gas every ten days or so takes me less than ten minutes.
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Hey Honda, bring your plans and plant for these to Canada. You've already got a highly successful one here. Maybe GM will sell you their shuttered Brightdrop EV van facility.
US Admin only wants US-built coal-powered vehicles now. Especially as no one can now afford gas because of a 'feeling' their president has.
US Admin only wants US-built coal-powered vehicles now. Especially as no one can now afford gas because of a 'feeling' their president has.
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Silly! In the US we fire the workers who had no ability to impact the decision making process (and were probably grumbling among themselves about the stupidity of said decision) and give fat bonuses to the numbskulls who did make the decision (and fire more workers to cover the bonus payments).
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Public charger? You charge at home overnight, paying a quarter or less that gas costs for the miles (even less in Trump's Iran War, and even less than that with Biden's subsidized solar at home) . So you don't waste ten minutes going out of your way.
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But hey, make it cost $10k and people who spend all day posting about how much they hate all that stuff will throw those principles right out the window.
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It's not a strawman, it's the experience of the person they replied to.
I also lived without charging at home for a few months. I needed to spend 15 minutes at the Tesla shop near my job site and spend $30 to go get the appropriate adapter, and I kept not bothering because it just didn't matter that much.
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Honda's problem isn't no factory, Honda's problem is no customers for the cars it would have to sell. Building them in Canada ain't going to fix that.
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