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Honda is killing its EVs

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Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway is a very special case in that it has massive hydro energy resources and nobody lives there.

> massive hydro energy resources That is irrelevant unless Norway has unused capacity. If a country adds electric cars using more electric power, then what really matters is how that extra power is generated. It gets weird in Europe because adding extra load in Norway could easily mean that Poland does more generation using coal. I'm in New Zealand where the government owned generators are preventing solar installati…

Going all electric with cars would add ~10-15% of electric demand. That's a bit, but not really a deal breaker, and something Norway would easily be able to offset by adding more wind turbines.

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#712

Honda is setting itself up for failure on the second disruption sweeping the automotive industry: the software-defined vehicle (SDV), which has core capabilities that can be upgraded and improved over time. No thank you. Not sure why the author frames this as a good thing. They've been bamboozled by the automakers and have got it backwards - you're buying a vehicle that already has the capabilities, but are disabled,…

I don't think the author is saying "subscriptions are good", more like "if Honda isn't even building the capability, they're not even in the game"

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#713
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they're unprofitable and highly competitive. Ford: It recorded a loss of $1.2 billion in EBIT in the third quarter on its EVs, bringing its losses on the segment for the first three quarters of 2024 to $3.7 billion Honda: Honda to Write Off $15.7 Billion as EV Winter Arrives. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-r... https://www.barrons.com/articles/gm-stock-general-motors-inv... https://www.…

That projection won't last in a world where Brent Oil @ $100. That was only true while the petrodollars kept flowing.

It's also not representative for the whole industry. BMW is profitable with their electric cars, and 18% of their sales are fully electric.

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#714

In Shenzhen for a tech meeting. The streetscape is quieter, despite high traffic levels and I hear not only MORE birdsong, but the birds do more complex songlines. The air is clean. For sure some of this is because it's a coastal city and has fresh sea breezes, but I've been in other Chinese coastal cities in times past and the air was significantly less clean. There are social upsides for an almost-all-EV city. This…

What about the increased pollution from road dust? In Norway this has led to higher pollution levels that are directly dangerous to people and animals than back when we were all combustion vehicles. The heavier EV's are causing genuinely harmful particles simply by driving on the roads themselves.

Where did you get the idea that EVs have caused it? As far as I know the amount of road dust from EVs is within the same ballpark so the claim that it has led to overall higher pollution levels sounds inconceivable. I can't even find sources that indicate high pollution levels in Oslo besides a Bloomberg article that says the situation has actually improved in recent years. [1] On the contrary Oslo seems to be doing comparatively well according to the air quality data from iqair. [2]

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-11/why-oslo-...

[2] https://www.iqair.com/us/norway/oslo/oslo

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#715

In Shenzhen for a tech meeting. The streetscape is quieter, despite high traffic levels and I hear not only MORE birdsong, but the birds do more complex songlines. The air is clean. For sure some of this is because it's a coastal city and has fresh sea breezes, but I've been in other Chinese coastal cities in times past and the air was significantly less clean. There are social upsides for an almost-all-EV city. This…

It's not just a "rich city" effect. That's kind of the key point in the whole EV debate... once it's mainstream and infrastructure is there, it stops being a luxury signal and just becomes… normal urban life, with some pretty noticeable side benefits

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your sentiment, and I agree with you in the hypothetical universe I think you’re imagining. But in this universe, that ship has long since sailed. Cars are software. They have been so for a long time. The only difference between a Tesla and an economy car from Stellantis is whether the software is well written or not. My wife has a 2015 Jeep Cherokee. For its purpose It’s actually quite a nice vehicle, s…

I'm afraid it's exactly the opposite -- Tesla has awful software, and no self discipline about adding more bloat. There is a lot of rigorously designed software in cars where you can't see it. Jeep is no one's idea of quality in any respect though. Legacy brands do significantly improve software as the model evolves, and provide firmware updates to earlier models. The best car is probably the last one before a new pl…

I know enough about the software in BMW (NBT/OS7) and Audi (MIB2/MIB3) instrument cluster stacks to know there's at least as much complexity — if not substantially more — in many of the legacy brands. Not to mention the exponential complexity which comes from their highly modularised approach, where systems from a variety of external suppliers have to co-ordinate with each other.

By contrast, the Tesla software stack is (or appears to be based on a few minutes of research) shockingly straightforward considering its apparent complexity. Rather than being a hodge-podge of vendor software, it appears to be Qt-based software running within a Linux environment on Nvidia and/or Intel chipsets. Reviewers routinely praise the screen for being responsive and "iPad like". If there's a bloat issue, it'd be interesting to hear some specifics.

As for your quip about "decades of careful evolution in HMI and TCB design" you might have been right 20–30 years ago.

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#717
The software defined car practically boils down to this: "It's not quite done yet, but we'll ship it anyway because we can fix it in post". And then two years later, "oh we've already sold them, why spend money updating it to fix the bugs." And five years later, "oh the warranty periods gone, not our problem anymore."

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#718

"Here, Honda is setting itself up for failure on the second disruption sweeping the automotive industry: the software-defined vehicle (SDV), which has core capabilities that can be upgraded and improved over time." I'll pay triple for a non software defined vehicle that doesn't track me and can't be touched by the dealer once I purchase it. My one SDV (Tesla) is still on FSD from 2023 because the newer versions are t…

Feels like the real missing piece is user control: let people opt into updates, choose what gets enabled, and turn off data collection

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#719

I live in a top EV market, Norway. ICE cars have been planned out for years now, and something like 96% of all new cars in Norway were EV last year. Basically, if you plan on keeping selling ICE cars, you're removing yourself from the market here. There's no future for new personal ICE cars here. I figure most other countries will be the same.

We're struggling with the pollution levels from road dust now though. It's worse in most cities than it ever was with combustion engines. Yes there's lower Co2, but the dust and tire particles are actually more dangerous.

So EVs that reduce both are a double win!

EU is introducing regulations for this kind of emissions which will likely create a market for a few new techs that reduce it (reformulated tyres, modern drum brakes that capture dust, etc)

Re: Honda is killing its EVs

#720
post #247

"Here, Honda is setting itself up for failure on the second disruption sweeping the automotive industry: the software-defined vehicle (SDV), which has core capabilities that can be upgraded and improved over time." I'll pay triple for a non software defined vehicle that doesn't track me and can't be touched by the dealer once I purchase it. My one SDV (Tesla) is still on FSD from 2023 because the newer versions are t…

This. And same for phones, tvs, operating systems. I bought a perfectly fine macbook pro m1 in 2020. It has been made far, far worse, slower, bloated and less responsive by apple. I see nothing improved, everything significantly degraded. It used to be that I could airplay to our tv with a single mouse click, now it seems to work once every 5 attempts, and takes about a minute. It used to be near instantaneous. I bou…

I think a lot of people are starting to feel this
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