Pivot away from EVs
reduced competitiveness in Asia
Burying corporate head in sand doesn’t take Chinese EVs away. Honda and Toyota really haven’t put the energy into a post fossil product and it shows.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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How can they pivot away from something they were barely doing? 18 months ago we went to our local Honda dealer, and the salesman spent the whole time telling us why the sole EV they had on the lot was a pile of crap and a waste of money. We'd made it clear that we were only interested in BEV due to the tax advantages and he just bad-mouthed the only option he had for making a sale.
Exactly right! Toyota much the same, entirely reliant on hybrid. Salespeople even discouraging PHEV.
Unfortunately Honda, by design, has no control over your local Honda dealer or their representatives.
It's funny with the hate against VW for not transitioning fast enough, I've seen so many times here on lemmy.
When the worlds biggest manufacturer Toyota is about 5 years behind VW.
All the Japanese manufacturers have really dropped the ball on EV. AFAIK Honda only has a single BEV model available in EU, and the range isn't very good.
While VW group has more than 10 models. Even Stelantis is doing better in this segment than any Japanese manufacturer.
VW had Dieselgate really push them, but yeah, only Nissan has made an attempt in Japan.
I don’t read about how KIA and Hyundai are losing billions on their EV projects. They put effort in.
Goddam people keep on with that dieselgate story as if it were only VW.
VW was just unlucky to be the first that were caught cheating on it. Every other diesel manufacturer did it too.
Toyota had to pay a $1.6 billion fine for the exact same thing, but nobody EVER complains about them?!
VW weren't even the worst!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal
As you can see in the chart, VW were actually among the least "offensive" models. With Chrysler and Hyundai having cars that were 3 times worse! Honda, Toyota, Ford and many others were way worse than VW.
The real problem was that the NOX emission level was set so low that nobody could make an engine that complied, effectively making diesel cars illegal.
They were the most successful in terms of vehicles sold But wasn’t it Bosch who actually built the bypass? It’s been a few years.
What I meant was that as far as I know, part of the restitution was to build EV charging and it all compounded to make a ton of business sense to pivot hard to electrification. Compare to Mercedes and BMW who are struggling a bit.
IDK if it was Bosch, if so they were obvioiusly complicit.
But more than 17 brands did it, IDK if you saw my edit that includes a wiki page on the issue. Otherwise I think you should have a look.
part of the restitution was to build EV
Yes this is true, it was an agreement with the German government. Which has led to VW being the absolute leader in sales of BEV cars in EU today. Which also makes it insane when people complain that VW didn't start soon enough, when they were way ahead of the competition already 5 years ago.
Today there are other good options from all over the world, Obviously BMW and Mercedes, but also Renault, Hyundai, Volvo (Geely), Ford. Even Stelantis has models that aren't absolute crap now (here in Europe). And Toyota came with their first BEV last year, and that is AFAIK also pretty decent. But not VW group level IMO. From VW group we also have Skoda, Audi, Cupra and Porsche.
With the VW native brand being the most popular BEV brand here in Denmark.
Renault have created an absolute gem with the new 5, looks good, drives good, reasonably cheap (relatively speaking) even has a good hot hatch option with the Alpine version.
I read an interesting article that quoted the designer on the new 5, basically electric vehicles open up a lot of possibilities when it comes to design as well which were taken away due to safety requirements on the cars, hopefully gonna get a lot more fun electrics.
Yes the sequence I mentioned those other brands is not accidental, with Renault right after BMW and Mercedes. Obviously the Renault 5 is a way cheaper car, but it's really been praised by reviewers here too, and called the most charming car available for years. For some reason though thew popularity of the Renault 5 has dropped, and for Renault the Scenic is now the most popular model here.
The current top seller here is the Skoda Elroq. While the top selling brand is VW. with the ID.4 being the #2 best selling model.
Page in Danish, but these are the most significant numbers from Denmark:
The charts should work independent of language.
https://nyheder.tv2.dk/business/2026-01-03-her-er-aarets-mest-solgte-biler
Just found a newer stat, and Renault 5 sales are just fine, so IDK what the previous article was on about? Renault 5 is the 9th most sold model car in January this year.
https://www.bilstatistik.dk/nyheder/det-nordiske-bilsalg-januar-2026/
Renault has passed all Stelantis brands, and the Fiat 500 was quite popular too, but for some reason not even available anymore?
It always comes back to the Hydrogen shit they can't seem to drop despite it never taking off after decades.
Maybe pivoting away from an entire vehicle power train segment when you only have a single US model, that's actually just a rebadged GM vehicle and has zero Honda DNA in it... is a bit short sighted.
I’m on my second Accord Hybrid (4yr leases) and it is hands down the nicest driving car I’ve ever owned. I wish they would just “finish the job” of fully electrifying the damn thing. The hybrid powertrain operates as a pure BEV 99% of the time. The ICE is only there to generate electricity for the electric drive motors and to charge the anemic little battery. Remove the ICE and fuel tank, then stuff it full of batteries and they’d have a winner. That would be especially true for the Civic as it now has the same hybrid setup and it’s the best selling car in Canada. Civics are everywhere! I don’t want a Model 3 but I’d snag a BEV Accord or Civic in a heartbeat.
Even if they're out of ideas to make it "innovative" they can go back to basics with something that doesn't spy on you, doesn't have built-in GPS, doesn't have cooling zones, doesn't have seat warmers and so on, and be the best affordable EV you can find.
Ford, GM, Stellantis, and now Honda with the multi billion dollar write offs.
Who's next?
Seems kinda weird tbh, like setting aside the morals of it for a sec, let's assume it's a purely business decision. Are they seriously so confident Trump's policies are going to persist beyond the next 2.5 years that they're scrapping everything EV? (I mean this as a genuine question)
They aren't necessarily all scrapping everything EV.
Ford for example wasn't making money on their current EVs, and they realized they weren't going to make enough money on them as designed so they started up a new program to build an EV from the ground up that can be profitable.
But they incurred billions in losses on their current offerings. Those losses do include learning though, so while the dollar losses are huge, the new EV program wouldn't have the same knowledge base to work off of if they hadn't done those first EVs.
So they're writing those losses off, in the interim looking more at hybrids, while also still pursuing their new EV platform.
It's still the wrong move IMO, they're going to fall further behind by doing this, and the learning will slow, and there's still no guarantee that the new platforms will be on time / profitable either possibly delaying things even further.
Worse than that: no car maker can survive on the US market alone, and every other market is transitioning towards EV, more or less aggressively. Pretty soon the only thing that will keep the ICE business alive are stupid policies to give them an artificial competitive advantage.
I really don't get what these CEOs have in their mind. At this stage I assume they're like big oil execs: maximize short-term revenue, and be long gone when shit hits the fan. But for cars, the end is even closer than for oil.
2.5 years from now doesn't exist for businesses, it's THIS quarter or nothing.
I saw a new Honda Prelude on the road this week and fell in love with it. Such a beautiful car and looks nothing like when it was first introduced. I had assumed that at this point it would be a full EV, or at least a plug-in hybrid... but no, it's still just a regular hybrid with a tiny battery. It's a shame they aren't trying to push the line more.
I currently drive an 08 Honda Fit and I'm looking into getting a used EV. Being happy with the Fit I was looking at Honda's EV options and it is sadly lacking.
Kia and Hyundai seem to be the big EV movers but I will admit to a large bias against them
I also have a Fit and really like it, I wish they would just make a damn electric one it would be great.
I am quite tempted by the VW e-Golf as a Fit replacement. But the battery size is too small for me living in a rural area and I'd still need an ICE.
Ah that's too bad.. yeah it's really hard to find hatchbacks these days which is strange because they were pretty popular. To get a decent hatchback now you have to buy a luxury automobile lol. They're so fun to drive too, I drive mine like the god damn Dukes of Hazzard and it's fun to see people's faces.
Just gave my 08 Fit to my niece for her first car. I couldn't find anything new to satisfactorily replace it, so I just took my wife's car and let her pick out a new one. The Fit was the overall best car I've ever had. I'd be all over a gas/eelctric hybrid Fit.