"Honda kicked things off on Thursday by halting development of the electric Acura RDX and the Honda 0 sedan and SUV, three models that were the company's first ground-up EVs - but about which very little was shared with outsiders. It continued on Friday, with Automotive News reporting that Honda was going to stop production of the Prologue, a vehicle that was essentially designed and entirely built by GM."
"By shelving EVs, Honda will fall farther behind in two of the biggest shifts sweeping the automotive industry: electric drivetrains and software-defined vehicles. The decision could backfire in a number of different ways, but there are two that I'd argue are most important."
"Many automakers have found that dropping batteries into a car originally designed for an internal combustion engine doesn't work out so well. It might shortcut the development cycle, but the resulting product ends up heavy, inefficient, and more costly to produce."
Honda halted development of three ground-up electric vehicles: the Acura RDX, Honda 0 sedan, and Honda 0 SUV, while also stopping production of the Prologue, which was designed and built by GM. The company attributes these decisions to U.S. tariffs and Chinese competition. However, Honda's fundamental problem is the absence of a coherent EV strategy. Legacy automakers like Honda mistakenly view EVs as simply vehicles with different drivetrains, attempting to retrofit batteries into combustion-engine designs. This approach produces heavy, inefficient, and costly vehicles. By shelving EVs, Honda will fall further behind in two critical automotive industry transformations: electric drivetrains and software-defined vehicles, jeopardizing its survival during the current wave of industry disruption.
Read at TechCrunch
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