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.
arstechnica.com
Honda Abandoning New EVs
- Thread starter Steven B
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arstechnica.com
yeah, we had a similar thread on the RSX forum:
electrek.co
global.honda
Honda is scrapping three of its most important EVs for the US, including the Acura RSX
Honda was set to launch three new electric vehicles in the US this year, but that will no longer happen....
electrek.co
Honda Announces Losses Associated with Reassessment of Automobile Electrification Strategy; Revision to Forecast for Consolidated Financial Results; and Future Direction | Honda Global Corporate Website
Honda Global | Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda) today announced that it has made a decision to cancel the development and market launch of three EV (electric vehicle) models that had been planned for production in North America.
global.honda
Honda is canceling its new EV launches-including the Honda 0 SUV, Honda 0 sedan, and Acura RSX-due to heavy financial losses ($5–7 billion), weak U.S. EV demand, lost tax incentives, trade war impacts, and inability to compete in China’s software-focused EV market. The company will focus on hybrids in the U.S., delay EV launches until profitability improves, and executives will take temporary pay cuts. Software-defined vehicles (SDVs) are key in China, enabling faster feature updates and lower development costs, which Honda struggles to match.
The Honda 0 SUV and Saloon were doomed by their stylists. Honda put the factory before the focus group and wasted $15+ billion on their EV manufacturing hub in Ohio. The Sony-Honda Afeela was doomed by growing old before it was released (and by being a car instead of an SUV).
I believe the Acura RSX might have been a successful electric SUV, but Honda, the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines, decided to dump all four EVs.
I wrote many letters to Honda, begging the company to bring the Honda e to the US to test the waters for EVs here. In the end, I'm glad they didn't bring the Honda e here because I consider my MINI Electric to be the best car I've owned in 60 years.
Honda knows how to make plug-in hybrids. I have a Clarity PHEV that's a very nice car--especially with gas prices now sky-high. Curiously, Honda currently makes a plug-in hybrid that nobody knows about. It's a CR-V PHEV, but when it's not running on battery power, it uses hydrogen, not gasoline. It's made in Ohio, but available only in California. Toyota sells every RAV4 plug-in, gas-electric hybrid it can make (well, they could make more but they don't). Doesn't Honda see that?
I wrote letters to many Honda executives in Torrance, California, begging for the company to sell the Honda e in North America. I suggested they could make it a limited-release car and sell/support it from select dealers (like MINI has only 2 dealers in Michigan), and its exclusivity would justify the cars rather high price. I claimed it would become the cute car anti-SUV people would want to be driving to show their ecological identities.
Only one Honda executive bothered to reply to my letter. He told me the Honda e wasn't going to be sold in the US because the US doesn't want small cars. Indeed, in 2020, when Honda started selling the Honda e in Europe and Japan, the company sold its last Honda Fit in the US.
I reacted by immedately selling my aging gen-1 Honda Insight and ordering my first non-Honda since 1986: my wonderful electric MINI Cooper SE. Unfortunately, that car took nearly a year to arrive, thanks to COVID. Then I had to wait another week while a local body shop painted and installed a scoopless hood (see my eminiman.com website for a short slide show about my opinion of fake hood scoops on electric MINIs).
I've since come to doubt I would have been as happy with the tech-focused Honda e as I am with the performance-focused MINI. Fortunately, because my MINI has been so reilable, I've needed to make the 40-mile trek to the Detroit-area MINI dealer a only a few times for regular maintenance and a couple of software updates.
Now that MINI no longer sells sporty electric cars in the US, I don't know what I will do for my next car. I don't want an SUV.
martinot
2023 MINI Cooper SE F56 LCI2
Yes, when we wanted a small extra (third) car for our family in 2022, we looked at the trio Fiat 500e, Cooper SE and Honda E. We ended up with the Mini for the superior driving handling, performance and also its energy efficiency (especially in the winter it beats both the Fiat and Honda). But they are all great small EVs.
I do think the Honda E is the best looking and fun personal design one of the trio (even if they all three are great looking small "boutique" cars). I love that the team behind the E dared to (probably) challenge Honda internally, but also the market in general, with the vision on how a good city car can be designed. I really liked their vision (even if they engineering wise probably could have done a better job)!
That said you do not need to get an SUV, but you probably need to go up in car segment size in US (seems too few of you appreciate the small A/B-segment cars like we do here in Europe, so I think Honda rep. you communicated with was probably correct). You can get many great fun to drive non-SUVs like the CLA, Model 3 or upcoming (new, based on Neue Klasse) i3.
Unfortunately, for us in Europe as well, Honda stopped selling the Honda E here about 1,5 years ago.
It seems that Honda, at least here in Europe, has almost left the EV market and gone back more to focus on their ICE cars.
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