Yeah, Honda is in a completely different boat than even Toyota. At least Toyota went all in on hybridization for decades now, where about half of their vehicles sold in North America have some sort of electrification, including some plug-in hybrids and full BEVs. Even though most of those are regular hybrids entirely powered by gasoline (and where electric charging only comes from regenerative braking), that’s a robust global supply chain of batteries and electric motors that they’ve locked down, including for maintenance of the existing fleet, and can easily shift towards increasing pure BEV production (which it seems like they’re doing).
Honda seems to have no plan for the future and can’t seem to pivot. They’re only at about 25% hybrid sales and don’t have their own EV models even in the pipeline. Their core brand identity is lost.
Honda had some interesting hybrids for a while, but they didn’t get good gas mileage like Toyota’s. It was strange. The CR-Z was a hybrid two seater, but the big ass Insight four door got about ten more miles to the gallon. The original two seater Insight was a banger though at like 50-something mpg. They should bring that back.
Yeah, Honda is in a completely different boat than even Toyota. At least Toyota went all in on hybridization for decades now, where about half of their vehicles sold in North America have some sort of electrification, including some plug-in hybrids and full BEVs. Even though most of those are regular hybrids entirely powered by gasoline (and where electric charging only comes from regenerative braking), that’s a robust global supply chain of batteries and electric motors that they’ve locked down, including for maintenance of the existing fleet, and can easily shift towards increasing pure BEV production (which it seems like they’re doing).
Honda seems to have no plan for the future and can’t seem to pivot. They’re only at about 25% hybrid sales and don’t have their own EV models even in the pipeline. Their core brand identity is lost.
Honda had some interesting hybrids for a while, but they didn’t get good gas mileage like Toyota’s. It was strange. The CR-Z was a hybrid two seater, but the big ass Insight four door got about ten more miles to the gallon. The original two seater Insight was a banger though at like 50-something mpg. They should bring that back.
The problem is Honda does not have a pipeline of raw materials to make batteries to be cost competitive with the Chinese.
Ironic that Honda is getting killed by market perturbation similar to the way they entered the world markets with the awesome original civic.