Honda is lastly getting critical about EVs. At CES 2024, it introduced plans to launch a complete line of them known as the 0 Collection beginning in 2026, and it reviewed the primary two fashions within the collection with a pair of idea automobiles.
The 2 ideas are a van-like EV known as the House-Hub and the Saloon, which is what individuals in lots of nations exterior the U.S. name sedans. The Saloon idea is not any Honda Accord, although; its cheese-wedge form is nearly supercar-like. We’ll see if that dramatic styling carries over to the manufacturing model, which Honda says will go on sale in North America in 2026.
Honda selected the identify 0 Collection for its new EVs as a result of it represents a recent begin. To wit, these are the primary manufacturing EVs based mostly on a devoted platform that received’t be shared with inside combustion fashions. This offers extra environment friendly packaging, however one draw back is a flooring top dictated by the size of the battery pack, successfully jacking up the passenger compartment. Honda claims its platform will likely be as skinny as attainable to create a low flooring and thus sleeker, extra aerodynamic automobiles. Honda claims it can additionally apply classes realized from racing to aerodynamics.
The 0 Collection EVs will get superior driver aids based mostly on the Honda Sensing Elite system that launched in Japan in 2021 (however hasn’t but been provided within the U.S.), with a next-generation system arriving later within the 2020s. By that point, Honda additionally anticipates superior battery tech that may scale back fast-charging instances to simply 10 to fifteen minutes for a 15% to 80% cost. And people batteries will lose lower than 10% of their authentic capability after 10 years, Honda claims.
Till the 0 Collection EVs arrive, Honda will promote two electrical fashions made by Common Motors. Scheduled to go on sale later this yr, the Honda Prologue and its luxurious Acura ZDX sibling are based mostly on GM’s Ultium part set, particularly the battery pack and chassis utilized by the Chevrolet Blazer EV and Cadillac Lyriq. Nevertheless it’s unclear whether or not present manufacturing points with the Ultium EVs will have an effect on the launching timing of the Honda and Acura fashions.
The 0 Collection fashions present that Honda has had the assets to engineer its personal EVs all alongside. Nevertheless, the automaker has been extra obsessed with hybrids and hydrogen fuel-cell automobiles, retaining U.S.-market EV efforts restricted to the low-volume EV Plus, Match EV, and Readability Electrical. That angle is lastly altering.
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