Honda is killing its EVs – and any chance of competing in the future

3/15/2026 at 5:39:05 PM

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".

by jerlam

3/15/2026 at 8:46:12 PM

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!

by vrinsd

3/15/2026 at 10:41:58 PM

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by gorgeWashington

3/15/2026 at 8:53:37 PM

> 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.

by spicybbq

3/15/2026 at 11:06:23 PM

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.

by Spivak

3/16/2026 at 2:28:32 AM

A bezos car? Can we get a non oligarch car?

by whattheheckheck

3/15/2026 at 10:34:31 PM

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.

by thebruce87m

3/15/2026 at 9:16:32 PM

> Cars should be appliances, boring and reliable

Agree, but then how do you get people to change them?

by epolanski

3/16/2026 at 11:23:39 AM

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.

by Denatonium

3/15/2026 at 11:30:58 PM

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.

by GianFabien

3/15/2026 at 5:41:41 PM

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.

by tim-projects

3/16/2026 at 10:25:09 AM

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.

by aitchnyu

3/15/2026 at 6:42:31 PM

>and there are no real competitors to Honda engine bikes.

e-bikes/mopeds?

by gruez

3/15/2026 at 9:07:28 PM

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.

by SR2Z

3/16/2026 at 8:48:34 AM

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

by tim-projects

3/15/2026 at 5:15:29 PM

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

by nytesky

3/15/2026 at 8:31:36 PM

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.

by johanvts

3/15/2026 at 9:35:11 PM

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?

by twelve40

3/15/2026 at 10:37:10 PM

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.

by johanvts

3/16/2026 at 12:32:30 AM

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.

by nytesky

3/16/2026 at 6:17:32 AM

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.

by johanvts

3/15/2026 at 8:57:28 PM

> 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.

by seanmcdirmid

3/15/2026 at 5:05:45 PM

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.

by ta9000

3/15/2026 at 5:34:18 PM

> 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.

by grvbck

3/15/2026 at 11:13:15 PM

The suuply chain for repair parts is still supported by oil (freight, packaging, any plastics).

Better hope your vehicle is never damaged.

by ikr678

3/16/2026 at 12:34:31 AM

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.

by Kirby64

3/15/2026 at 8:06:59 PM

Car tires are made with synthetic rubber, which is made from oil.

by badpun

3/15/2026 at 9:50:18 PM

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.

by mindslight

3/16/2026 at 6:15:21 AM

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by K0balt

3/15/2026 at 9:23:26 PM

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.

by epolanski

3/16/2026 at 7:35:28 AM

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.

by ZeroGravitas

3/15/2026 at 9:26:41 PM

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?

by seanmcdirmid

3/16/2026 at 10:17:58 AM

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.

by epolanski

3/16/2026 at 1:18:15 AM

“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.

by steve-atx-7600

3/15/2026 at 4:33:57 PM

ICE cars are still the majority of new cars being sold and it'll still take a while for EVs to become more popular.

by mono442

3/15/2026 at 5:49:22 PM

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.

by downrightmike

3/15/2026 at 6:13:42 PM

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.

by pstuart

3/16/2026 at 7:06:52 AM

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.

by dangus

3/15/2026 at 3:06:00 PM

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.

by tim-tday

3/15/2026 at 3:57:08 PM

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by blell

3/15/2026 at 5:15:49 PM

yes, everyone knows that a human head cannot hold both information about CO2 and information about cars

by 1attice

3/16/2026 at 6:15:58 AM

Arvix coming right up

by K0balt