Honda says making cheap electric vehicles is too hard, ends deal with GM

So, like all the others, while China will produce cheap eCars. Look, I don't want to predict the future, but if I only have 20-30k for a new car, I simply physically can't buy a 60k SUV. You can't jump into a saturated market of other car companies, who almost all seam to want only expensive eCars and expect a good outcome. There's only so much money in the pockets of people and only so much people are willing to pay for a used eCar, if it needs expensive battery replacement soon. Not going to happen. Build cheaper cars or fail.

Not to mention not everyone has a garage or nearby charging spot to charge an ev.

Perhaps dealing with infrastructure first would be interesting...
- Then again, I don't have a gas station in my backyard either...
  
  Shopping centers/grocery stores need more charging stations, that's the most realistic place to go to charge when you don't have the capacity to do it at home.
- Planning on a 1-to-1 swap between traditional cars and EVs is the crassest mistake. It would take a paradigm shift that emphasizes remote work, carpooling and carsharing in order to make private transportation really sustainable.
- Good point. It's a sort of chicken egg problem. Lack of ev and no investment for infrastructure, resulting in even less ev.
  
  Here in Germany, in my local town, they build hydrogen fuel stations instead of charging stations. Very strange.
- You can't have infrastructure without the cars, and you can't have the cars without the infrastructure. The solution to this catch-22 is to force the infrastructure to catch up.
- Or maybe instead of blocking everything on the theory a complete charging solution will magically appear despite no demand, we can go ahead with the 59% of the population living in a house, and can decide to install a charger. Maybe we can go ahead with charger networks we already have, already allowing most road trips and getting better continuously. And we can use all that demand, all that money to keep building out a better and better charging solution.
  
  FYI - buddy of mine has an EV at a townhouse with no opportunity to charge, and just goes to a supercharger once a week to top off. It may be inconvenient, but it’s not onerous
- Charging infrastructure is getting better. I've had an EV without home charging for three years now and I've managed just fine. Overall it's no more inconvenient than having to go to a gas station.
I hope to see more cheap cars by 2025 when VW starts doing their id1 and id2. The rest of the manufacturers need to follow suit or lose out of the massive market for mini and micros.

Personally I did get a used EV. It had driven less than 200km in total, but I got it at about 70% of the normal price. The battery is fine. The used market isn't just for worn out cars. People sell almost new cars for a variety of reasons, so it's worth looking at the used market already. The batteries in modern cars are generally better than their reputation. I wouldn't want to get a 7-10 year old EV, but anything newer is just fine.
- Used / 200km
  
  Bwahahaha that's not used. That's new. Talk to us again when you pick up a car with 50 000 on it.
Electric cars don't normally need a battery replacement during the car's lifetime. If the battery needs to be replaced, the car has usually already been running longer than most ICE cars ever would. The used market for EVs used to be pretty dire, with little supply and awful pricing. But it's slowly getting better. But of course the fact remains, that there is currently a lot of demand for cheap EVs and little supply. The Chinese are gearing up to eat up that part of the market.
- What?
  
  Show me a battery that goes 200k - 300k.
  
  Just because the average consumer is an idiot and replaces cars long before then doesn't mean the vehicles can't go that far.
  
  Every car my family has owned for the last 30 years has gone at least 200k, some 300k+. My current 2005 vehicle is at 270k, and I expect many more years from it, barring an accident. Our newest vehicle is from 2016, and is approaching 100k. An electric vehicle would be needing a battery soon, while all mine needs is an oil change, and perhaps a timing belt for $50 (to be fair, I'll probably spend $250 and replace the water pump, idlers, and primary belt while I'm there. Last time was 100k miles ago).
Why does it have to be new? Whats wrong with a nearly new car that is only a couple of years old? Warranty, at least in Europe covers the major components like body shell and battery for 7 to 10 years now.

Part of reducing the impact of cars to the environment is making them last longer and EVs have the opportunity to be fully refurbished at what would have been the end of their normal lifespan to better than new. Replacing the battery pack for a more modern and denser version, replacing the motor for a more efficient and powerful one, even replace the entertainment unit with a more modern one. Sure, this is expensive but you are basically getting a new car for considerably less than a new car.

While I personally think Musk can eat a bag of dicks, the ability to upcycle early Teslas using Tesla parts is very welcome. It needs to be legally mandated that manufacturers have to offer this and end the cycle of scrapping cars.
- What you described is already done with ICE vehicles. Engines and transmissions are rebuilt all the time. Even cars that are totaled are typically given a second life.
  
  Ultimately it's the vehicle's body and frame that determine when it's at the end of it's life. You're not going to put a new battery in a tesla with a rusted out frame.
  
  Arguably the lifespan could be worse for EVs since replacing the batteries is so expensive (more than a typical engine rebuild) that many probably won't be willing to put that much money into an old vehicle.
- Don't manufacturers charge something close to the price of a new car to exchange the battery?
  
  Like they based the entire business model around the smartphone model of making them "disposable" so you keep buying new ones
20-30K?! Holy crap. I've never spent more than 10K on a car. But then I've never bought a new car...
- You guys drive? 💀 My rollerblades were only $200 and the ball bearings are in great shape.
- you'll spent 10k minumum on replacing a battery on a used tesla
- my car wasn't even 2K
- There's always one smug dunger driver in the comments.
  
  Let people have nice things, OK?

As trade with North America and China degraded that was one of the worst casualties.

China has a booming market for small EVs. It is not an understatement to say they are years ahead of us in that regard.

What is it North America? Because you said I'm not allowed to have public transit and now I'm not even allowed to have the type of car I want.

Oh boy do I love freedom.

Oil companies invented a psyop in North America centered around male insecurity with their masculinity. That's why the best selling vehicle in North America is a massive gas guzzling pickup truck that the average person can't come close to affording but drives anyway.
- They've also targeted maternal instincts. You can't get a mother to look at a car unless the hood is taller than someone else's child.
- I like when people drive lifted pickups without a speck of dirt in the bed. I call those vehicles the Pedestrian Killer 9000
- Emissions regulations apply differently to vehicles of different sizes.
- Remember Hummers? I swear it was mostly moms who'd buy it
- It also makes up for their obviously small penis as well. Use to be muscle cars.
You don't sound like you're from NA, but here in the US we have trucks that are colloquially known as "Child Killers" because when you're driving them, you literally can't see what's in front of you. They are all over the roads, and make for an extremely bad experience for people in smaller vehicles, people on bikes, and pedestrians. Not to mention, they're often driven by people that lean heavily into road rage.
- Avoid Dodge Ram drivers, especially.
  
  https://www.thedrive.com/news/38238/ram-2500-drivers-have-the-most-duis-more-than-twice-the-national-average-report
Imho, the problem is that North American roads are not safe for small vehicles. If you're a suburbanite who spends an hour in your car every day on expressways full of trucks and SUVs, you don't generally want to be in a slow, tiny, short, vulnerable vehicle where you're beneath the consideration and sightline and possibly wheels of traffic.
- Seriously, in Texas even a full size 4-door sedan feels small compared to all he lifted oversized pickups all over.
- Ever seen a honey badger?
- There's also the matter of snow in a large part of the country. Any car with less than 6" of ground clearance is going to get stuck all the time. AWD or 4wd saves a you a lot of grief too.
- No
Making a cheap car isn't rocket science, but Americans unfortunately get all this cheap credit and blow it on luxury SUVs/crossovers
- Because Americans spend WAY more time in their cars than most other countries and I'll be fucked if Im spending an hour+ each day in a cheap econo-car.
they make them in Vietnam too but nobody cares because they're still expensive and they suck ass
Having spent a lot of time in China, I have not seen a huge uptake on electric vehicles because they don't have the infrastructure or charging stations for it. That said, I haven't been there in the last three years or so but I don't expect that to be changed radically.
- I know that the Chinese government has spent a lot of money trying to entice people to buy electric cars by allowing civilians to use the coveted green parking pass that is good anywhere if their vehicle is electric.
  
  This led to some major expansion of their electric vehicle brands. I don't know what kind of percentage change it is but it's big enough to shake up their automotive industry.
  
  Although it seems a bit of a weird move to me considering how good their public transport is.
- I expect with the amount they're investing in FCEVs that EVs will only last another decade-ish.

Crazy to see how far behind Japanese car manufacturers are getting these days. Japan disrupted the auto market and made small, fuel efficient, cars popular. Now Honda and Toyota are starting to feel like 70’s Detroit.

Meanwhile Hyundai and Kia are absolutely smashing it (in Europe and Asia) with their cheap, reliable cars
- can't really agree with the "reliable" part but yea, they are affordable.
- Meanwhile Hyundai and Kia are absolutely smashing it (in Europe and Asia) with their cheap, reliable cars
  
  And easy to steal
  
  Edit: Downvote me all you want, I got mine stolen this year in Bulgaria, and if you check the news there's a lot of Tucsons stolen like every week. Along with the recent callback of models that risk getting on fire, Hyundai has a pretty shit reputation lately and I wouldn't buy one again even it was free.
- Hyundai knowingly left an easy exploit to hotwire their cars in for several years. The redesigned a few cars to try to rebrand after fixing it, but they cut corners there too, and now they're in the middle of recalling the Tuscan for exploding batteries.
  
  Sorry, Hyundai isn't a role model here.
- But a Hyundai isn't going to easily go 200k miles with easy to source parts (have Hyundai cars in my family).
  
  Hyundai and Kia are disposable cars. Not a model I can get behind.
  
  Tradeoffs, it's always tradeoffs.
- Kia and Hyundai are the most stolen cars in North America due to missing basic security measures like steering wheel locks and the ability to spoof the key fob with a cell phone. You could also take a Hyundai or Kia that is near it's fob and just drive off in it. There was no proximity shut off until a recent OTA update, and it didn't work on every model
  
  They're cheap in NA and they're likely to stay that way until they add proper security measures. In response, both State Farm and Allstate have raised insurance rates on Hyundai and Kia made after 2015. They're cheaper because they cut corners, and the end customer foots the bill on the insurance side
- Prius anyone? Still a better approach than a full electric.
Last I looked into it, Toyota was still supposed to have some of the most efficient combustion engines out there, with something crazy like 40%(?) thermal efficiency.
- As far as I know Mazda are the highest with their gas engines that have diesel compression ratio.
I mean I drive a Prius Prime and I love it. I'm surprised they're not pushing harder on PHEVs. I just put 900km onto the darn thing on a road trip - a few evening charging sessions (the motel had a charging station across the street) for like $3 total plus $35CAD of gas for the whole trip.

We did nothing and tried everything!

That's a bummer. Was interested to see what a Honda EV with ultium cells would be like. A sub-$30k EV is what a lot of people are looking for, judging from my experience buying a Bolt. Hope they can figure out the unit-economics

Citroen ec3 is 20k although you're not likely to see in the US I suspect.
I somehow lucked into finding a 2023 Bolt EV at MSRP last year, and got a really good trade-in offer on top of that. It’s been such a great car.
- The one dealership that didn't have a markup near us sold out immediately and we ended paying a slight markup at another place, but after all the incentives and trade-in it was a steal.
  
  We love our EUV, I don't think I'll go back to an ICE car after seeing how convenient home charging is and one-pedal driving is great.

I'm a little sad about this - the planned Honda looked nice, the range would have been fine for us (we usually take our pickup on longer road trips anyway), and I was hoping to replace our Mazda 3 with one if it drove nicely and all that. I admit that I had some concerns about the GM underpinnings, though - my experience with American brands is rough, and our experience with GM is the roughest.

We plan to hit the auto shows next year to get an idea of what we want to look at more closely.

I dunno, my Chevy bolt has been a solid
- GM had their chances with us. My wife and I each brought a GM into the relationship; they both developed serious transmission problems - among other random issues...and both had much less than 100k miles. They need to show years of reliability before I'd buy another one.
The previously announced cars are still releasing.
- Oh thanks. I missed that. Still have the GM influence concern though!

GM has blamed the Ultium bottleneck on an unspecified "automation equipment supplier."

Rockwell Automation has entered the chat.

Rockwell is like Comcast. You have no opinion on them or a blind raging hostile opinion of them.

Edit: on a serious note the systems engineering folks have been telling this before my parents were born. This should not have been a shock to anyone. Diversity in components means greater ability to withstanding changes, the tradeoff is you are going to run less efficiently even in good times.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

"After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV," said Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe in an interview with Bloomberg.

In July, GM had to idle BrightDrop's production line in Canada due to a shortage of battery cells, and Kelly Blue Book's sales data for the first three quarters of 2023 show that just 6,920 Ultium-based EVs (which include the Chevrolet Blazer and Silverado EV, as well as the Hummer, Lyriq, and BrightDrop van) were delivered to customers.

GM had said it was ending Bolt production this year at its plant in Orion Township, Michigan, so that it could retool and start building electric trucks beginning in 2024.

The Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX are a pair of electric crossovers that use the same platform as the Cadillac Lyriq and Chevrolet Blazer, and both are still happening.

They'll even feature Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which GM has controversially chosen to eliminate from its cars from model year 2024 onward.

And Honda even announced another collaboration with GM earlier today—in 2026, it wants to start operating a robotaxi service in Japan using the Cruise Origin, an autonomous electric vehicle developed by the GM-backed AV company.

The original article contains 606 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I want to talk about trains.

How about trains but we only use electricity to power them, and let's say put overhead electric fuel lines over them. Trams. I wanna see more trams. Solves most of the issues EV's have with batteries.

Conclusion: my next car will be an affordable Chinese car.

Can you import and legally drive those on US roads? I really don't want to buy a fucking SUV for my next car, but that's basically the entire electric car market in this country.
- The US will probably ban it for geopolitical reasons.
  
  I'm in Europe, BYD already is in this market.

Fossil fuel mafia dumped a large bribe into Honda's bank account?

Idk, even if you made almost everything out of aluminum , thats like $2000 for the raw metal for the frame and body, 8k for a 80kwh battery, about 5.5k for a 166HP emrax 228 motor off the shelf... with no transmission, the most expensive components combined are less than 20k. I dont see how even a 35k EV would not be profitable with some sensible off the shelf components.

China does it lol

I love everyone in this thread who is talking about how expensive EVs are while ignoring they can buy a cheap 15 year old ice car and save thousands 🤣🤣🤣

Isn't the whole point of an EV that they don't have ICEs?

If I've got my heart set on a steak for dinner tonight, the fact that sausages are much cheaper isn't really relevant information.
- Isn't the whole point of an EV that they don't have ICEs?
  
  Honestly this is the first time on Lemmy I've felt like I was on reddit with such stupid argument logic.
- You can want what you want. Doesn't mean it's a smart or only choice. You are going to spend more money in most cases and you won't make up the money for at least 6 or 7 years (at least in the states) unless you drive a ton.
- Then don't complain that the steak is too expensive and eat your damn sausage.
i drive a 1st gen Yaris that is literally older than me. not the best for climate change, but it was 1500€ and uses less than 6L/100km. super cheap to drive. if an electric car was available at that price, and had a possibility of driving 10-20 more years, i would've bought it on the spot.
- Lol a used car is far more environmentally conscience than a new EV.