Honda: "We have tried nothing and we're already out of ideas!"
Electric Vehicles
Overview:
Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.
Related communities:
- !automotive@discuss.tchncs.de
- !avs@futurology.today
- !byd@lemmy.world
- !ebike@lemm.ee
- !energy@slrpnk.net
- !geely@lemmy.world
- !micromobility@lemmy.world
- !polestar@lemmy.ca
- !rivian@lemmy.zip
- !teslamotors@lemmy.zip
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
Oh no they tried one thing. Rebadging the EV Blazer as the Honda Prologue. I have one... It's a Chevy through and through. Absolutely no Honda DNA whatsoever.
It's a pitiful EV compared to the Tesla Model 3 I had before. But the Kia and Hyundai models I tried weren't much better than the Honda. None of the legacy automakers seem to be able to make a truly good EV. They all keep legacy auto shit around that doesn't need to be there, and it impacts the opportunities they have to differentiate and evolve.
My guy out here collecting cars like infinity stones.
Nah just bought the Model 3 back in 2018 and got rid of it after Ol' Musky went full Nazi.
I replaced it with a Polestar 3... Which was awesome until it had A/C issues after only 54 days. And it's been in Service for a year now with them trying to fix it unsuccessfully somehow, and my lawyer going through the hoops for it being a Lemon. Still haven't gotten my money back yet and it will be a year at the end of this month. Through that time I had several different EVs as loaners and rentals. So I had the opportunity to effectively test drive a bunch of models for weeks at a time.
Decided to go with the Prologue on a 3 year lease in September right before the EV credits disappeared. Figured 3 years would give everyone else a chance to figure their shit out, because at this point Tesla is still one of the very few companies that seems to actually know they're making an EV and leveraging that.
Speaking of .. why the fuck do I have to press a Start and Stop button on all these damned cars like there's a gas engine? The things are on all the time anyway, and they know whether the key is in the car or not. It's a pointless hold over all the legacy companies do, and it seemingly means none of these cars can do things like leave the climate control running while you shop, etc. even though there's no reason for it. Polestar had it figured out, but none of the legacy makers seem to. They're all just swapping the engines and gas tank with electric motors and batteries and leaving everything else the same, I can only imagine out of laziness.
In the end The Polestar was by far the closest to a Tesla, and they knew it was an EV and took advantage of what that meant for connectivity and convenience. But their corporate customer service when you have issues... Abysmal. The local Service center was awesome, even if it was 100+ miles away (I knew that when I bought it, so was Tesla when I bought my Model 3 which needed very little service over the years). But the Polestar corporate technical support team the local center had to work with clearly had no idea what was going on and at no time did they try to proactively offer a replacement or any options while it was in service for months. And Customer Support did nothing to get anything rolling for it being a lemon, requiring me to go through a specialist attorney, where Polestar took every last day to respond to each step along the way.
The Prologue may not be as advanced as you would like relative to other EVs, but for those who leased one last year before the credit went away... they got an insane deal. Less than $400/mo with nothing down, for the Elite (top trim level) AWD. Some got them in the $200/mo range.
I'm hoping the lease buys some time in the US market, and in 3 years there are new options that are neither Tesla (the Apple of the EV world) nor Chinese companies. Polestars are expensive and I have heard about the same service issues you mentioned. And I don't like the idea of trading one set of spyware for another.
The Rivian R2 Standard could be a compelling (cheaper) option when it arrives. Or if nothing else there should be a lot more low-mileage used EVs coming off lease around that time. They could be cheaper and still have a lot of life left.
What’s wrong with the Kia and Hyundais? There’s an Ioniq 5 in the family, and it seems great.
There's a lot to like, but also a lot of frustrating stuff. We have a EV9 gt line. The paddles to change regen breaking is nice, but it doesn't save the setting in between sessions for some fucking reason. It also doesn't seem to save a lot of personal preference to the driver profiles, it saves mirror and seat positions, but not audio or temp/fan settings. The drive settings (snow mode, etc) doesn't persist for some reason either. It fishtails constantly if its remotely slippery out in the winter. It feels like it's trying to throw me off the road. And there seemingly no options to use regular cruise control and only has adaptive cruise, which I fucking hate.
All very annoying sounding issues.
…But to be fair, these have little to do with the actual EV drivetrain. They’re ergonomic or handling issues an ICE card would have too. Or, in the case of fishtailing, just the choice of stock tires the car comes with.
Outside of the states they have a bunch of EVs they built in China, I see them semi-regularly, so its just this one market they fucked up
I guess they don't think it's in their interest to spend a bunch of money convincing oil-addicted USians to buy EV's. Kind of makes sense, there's a lot of other markets with way more existing demand for EVs.
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 of Tesla, Rivians, Nio or Xiaomi. Honda has yet to make significant progress in any of those domains.
Not me!
My dream car is a “dumb” EV with a tablet mount.
https://www.slate.auto/en/slatemaker?garageDrawerExperience=false
They're designed to use your own phone or tablet, running their app, so probably not all "dumb", but close to
Yeah, I know all about the Slate. It’s a very cool concept.
Also see this Scottish EV: https://www.munro-ev.com/
I wish more manufacturers would take those ideas, though.
I was pleased to read VW crowing that they were “bringing back buttons” to the dashboard.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The first company that makes a "1990 civic hatchback, but as an EV" will fucking print money. Shoot for 170-200 miles of range in a small, efficient, and affordable EV. Keep the tech simple and make it "driver focused". Once people are clamoring for those, release a "sport model" with dual motors and upgraded suspension.

$25000
Then...

dual rear hub motors, 540hp.
Renault is killing it in Europe, coming to Canada 2029.
Exactly. At least in the US we've grown "accustomed" to those features on high-end EVs because that's all we have here. Market affordable electric vehicles and they would have sold like crazy, even before gas prices skyrocketed due to Trump's pointless war...
Honda always markets themselves as being innovative, but they’re a huge disappointment in this regard.
They haven’t innovated in years (decades?). When was the last time they released a good car outside their core competency? I feel like after the new NSX failed they really stopped taking any risks.
The original two door insight was pretty innovative. That’s the last car they put any real design effort into. 50 to 70 mpg.
Back in the 80s/90s they shipped a whole suite of great cars built on the civic platform. Wish they would bring those back. Especially the Del Sol. A small EV civic line up would make a great comeback car.
Gasoline engine cars will eventually be limited to the US.
BEV will take over the world.
The US, despite the low margins has traditionally been a very influential market.
Ya, traditionally, as in, a thing of the past.
Key word being “has”. They’re going to quickly lose that status especially if the oil crisis keeps up.
Yup, china is going to gladly take all that influence. Electrification in the rest of the world isn't suddenly going to stop, it's just going to come from elsewhere.
The EU can't get enough BYD vehicles and conversely wouldn't be caught dead in a Tesla. Some EU cities, maybe countries, won't even allow our stupid ass mega-trucks either.
japan has this problem as all of its automobile companies decided to invest down the path of hydrogen (as it fit their home country/interests better) over the rest of the worlds EVs. because of it, japanese fully EVs tend to be kind of lackluster, because theyre usually second thought.
I don't understand how anyone anyone thought or thinks it could be better to use electricity to pull hydrogen from water, then turn it back into water to get electricity again, with energy losses of 40-60%. Not while you could just keep the whole chain as electricity, with losses of ~10%.
There is the theoretical advantage of storage.
There is the theoretical advantage of storage.
Storing HYDROGEN is an advantage? The thing where the atoms are so small, it diffuses through the walls? The thing that needs insanely high pressure containers? THAT should be an advantage? WTF?
Don’t forget hydrogen embrittlement which means the entire fuel system must be replaced every so many years.
It's only Toyota who went deep into hydrogen. Even then they have 1 model, the Mirai, which is horseshit even without taking the infrastructure problem into account (which should absolutely be taken into account). They sold like dozens. It was a fairly transparent anti-EV deflection. None of the other OEMs made serious foray into the tech, though some did pay it lip service (for the same reasons).
Also importantly, hydrogen doesn't suit Japan any better than anywhere else. They have zero production capability and the import route is an oil exec's fever dream
Oh no, Honda has been talking up Hydrogen just as long as Toyota. Toyota has the Mirai, Honda has the Clarity.
Both companies seem to be stuck going for it for whatever reason though. Hydrogen vehicles are literally more complicated EVs, still use a highly combustible fuel, need even more safety systems than gasoline to prevent fires and explosion at the fueling stations, and the large tanks naturally leak because hydrogen is such a damned small atom that it literally sublimates through the skin of the tank. Hydrogen fuel cells are used to generate electricity for standard electric motors. There is literally no good reason for it with battery technology advancing as it has the last decade.
Meanwhile a BEV can be slowly charged from any standard outlet, and very quickly at dedicated chargers. As quick as an 80% charge in 10 minutes from the cutting edge Chinese batteries and chargers. And that doesn't even get into people being able to charge overnight at home and rarely needing to visit a dedicated charger at all.
Hydrogen makes no sense in any situation with modern battery tech anymore. But for some reason both Toyota and Honda keep trying to beat that damned horse to oblivion.
I don't think I've seen a single hydrogen station or vehicle here in Japan.
Apparently there's ~150, for a country of 125m.
Hydrogen is only good for large scale power plants because storage and transportation are insanely expensive, I've written this many times. For mobile vehicles it will never be competitive against battery electric especially as batteries get more energy dense. Honda is disappointing, and their lack of investment in EVs just shows that their executives have short profit vision.
We have a hard enough time selling people on the idea of electric cars here in the US. I mean, you can charge those anywhere. But hydrogen??? Yeah, good luck with that.
i wish their shareholders would fire the CEO or whoever was behind this decison. I get their justification but thats how disappointed I feel
ICE cars have bright future are we seeing today with gas prices and a lot of wars for oil, right.
At this rate, Honda will become a division of BYD, Geely, or whatever.
Then Honda EVs will be as good as Chinese EVs.
Geely and Volvo already make up Polestar.
I was going to say that the prologue didn't look too bad and then saw this note lol
Honda was going to stop production of the Prologue, a vehicle that was essentially designed and entirely built by GM.
I have one. It's a Chevy through and through. No Honda DNA at all.
It's not a bad vehicle per se... But not a Honda.
Aw man, I was looking forward to seeing that infinity mirror concept on the road late at night
