supersquirrelHonda is killing its EVs — and any chance of competing in the future | TechCrunch
Honda: “We have tried nothing and we’re already out of ideas!”
Oh no they tried one thing. Rebadging the EV Blazer as the Honda Prologue. I have one… It’s a Chevy through and through. Absolutely no Honda DNA whatsoever.
It’s a pitiful EV compared to the Tesla Model 3 I had before. But the Kia and Hyundai models I tried weren’t much better than the Honda. None of the legacy automakers seem to be able to make a truly good EV. They all keep legacy auto shit around that doesn’t need to be there, and it impacts the opportunities they have to differentiate and evolve.
My guy out here collecting cars like infinity stones.
Nah just bought the Model 3 back in 2018 and got rid of it after Ol’ Musky went full Nazi.
I replaced it with a Polestar 3… Which was awesome until it had A/C issues after only 54 days. And it’s been in Service for a year now with them trying to fix it unsuccessfully somehow, and my lawyer going through the hoops for it being a Lemon. Still haven’t gotten my money back yet and it will be a year at the end of this month. Through that time I had several different EVs as loaners and rentals. So I had the opportunity to effectively test drive a bunch of models for weeks at a time.
Decided to go with the Prologue on a 3 year lease in September right before the EV credits disappeared. Figured 3 years would give everyone else a chance to figure their shit out, because at this point Tesla is still one of the very few companies that seems to actually know they’re making an EV and leveraging that.
Speaking of .. why the fuck do I have to press a Start and Stop button on all these damned cars like there’s a gas engine? The things are on all the time anyway, and they know whether the key is in the car or not. It’s a pointless hold over all the legacy companies do, and it seemingly means none of these cars can do things like leave the climate control running while you shop, etc. even though there’s no reason for it. Polestar had it figured out, but none of the legacy makers seem to. They’re all just swapping the engines and gas tank with electric motors and batteries and leaving everything else the same, I can only imagine out of laziness.
The Prologue may not be as advanced as you would like relative to other EVs, but for those who leased one last year before the credit went away… they got an insane deal. Less than $400/mo with nothing down, for the Elite (top trim level) AWD. Some got them in the $200/mo range.
I’m hoping the lease buys some time in the US market, and in 3 years there are new options that are neither Tesla (the Apple of the EV world) nor Chinese companies. Polestars are expensive and I have heard about the same service issues you mentioned. And I don’t like the idea of trading one set of spyware for another.
The Rivian R2 Standard could be a compelling (cheaper) option when it arrives. Or if nothing else there should be a lot more low-mileage used EVs coming off lease around that time. They could be cheaper and still have a lot of life left.
Oh definitely. That’s why I ended up with a Prologue Elite before the credit expired, even though I’ve still had to pay for the Polestar this entire time (still am technically since the lemon stuff hasn’t been finalized yet).
My plan was for the 3 year lease to do exactly that. Be a bridge to good EV options at reasonable prices.
What’s wrong with the Kia and Hyundais? There’s an Ioniq 5 in the family, and it seems great.
There’s a lot to like, but also a lot of frustrating stuff. The paddles to change regen breaking is nice, but it doesn’t save the setting in between sessions for some fucking reason. It also doesn’t seem to save a lot of personal preference to the driver profiles, it saves mirror and seat positions, but not audio or temp/fan settings. The drive settings (snow mode, etc) doesn’t persist for some reason either. It fishtails constantly if its remotely slippery out in the winter. It feels like it’s trying to throw me off the road. And there seemingly no options to use regular cruise control and only has adaptive cruise, which I fucking hate.
Why is ACC worse than regular cruise control?
I get this actually. I don’t always trust ACC; sometimes I just want to set a speed and know the car isn’t going to mess with it, and get me rear-ended.
Makes sense. Never thought about it that way
Its personal preference. It make the drive a lot less smooth for me. It always slows down way too early and has me brake for things that I don’t need to brake for. It slammed the brakes for someone in a turn lane and people braking and moving over where I can move over a little and be fine. I don’t passively drive and notice the unnecessary slow downs constantly.
Makes sense. I guess it also depends on which manufacturer
All very annoying sounding issues.
…But to be fair, these have little to do with the actual EV drivetrain. They’re ergonomic or handling issues an ICE card would have too. Or, in the case of fishtailing, just the choice of stock tires the car comes with.
Sure that’s fair, and I can’t even say that’s because they’re a legacy car maker, but my polestar has that shit locked in. I think some of that is because they’re legacy, and some are just stupid decisions or lack of respect for the driver. I just wanted to highlight some things I personally fine “wrong” with Kias in my experience. I won’t get one again
Again, playing devil’s advocate:
it saves mirror and seat positions, but not audio or temp/fan settings
This is kind of standard for cars, isn’t it?
The drive settings (snow mode, etc) doesn’t persist for some reason either.
And this makes sense because Kia wouldn’t want the car to be unintentionally stuck in snow mode by default. Folks who don’t pay attention to settings wouldn’t know what was wrong, and it follows a golden rule of software: 99% of users will use the defaults.
It sucks that it isn’t configurable, but most everything you listed is just infotainment software issues, and part of the “car software shouldn’t be so complex and proprietary, and rely more on physical knobs” general issue. We should be able to configure stuff it like we want, but for some reason car software dev is particularly awful, and here we are.
It fishtails constantly if its remotely slippery out in the winter.
And again, I’d guess this is from stock, low-friction EV tires. Which are awful in winter. This is just a guess though.
You’re right, it is standard for cars in general, but that’s my point. I can’t say it’s the case for all modern makers, but the one reference I can go off from is polestar and it has all that shit figured out and it’s a new EV company (mostly/kind of at least). I don’t know if its the same for companies like Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, etc. There’s no reason not to change the dash settings when that’s all stored in a computer now unlike back in the day where the head unit and heat controls with separate entities entirely from the seat settings. It just seems like a hold over from how things used to be done.
I know the shit I laid out are all updatable with a software update to add toggles and I’ve heard guesses that that fishtailing is an issue with torque vectoring or something (bad tire choices could be part too, but it drives fine in snow). Its still a problem for a legacy vehicle maker that should have it more figured out than they do right now.
they had a big problem with failing ICCUs and overheating charge ports.
The biggest issue is the needless complexity they feel like they need to add to try and add value to a car that costs less than ICE to build.
The other issue is devaluation. Ioniq5’s are worth hallf after 3 years.
The other issue is devaluation. Ioniq5’s are worth hallf after 3 years.
Heh, yeah. They bought it used, and got a shockingly good deal on it.
TBH buying a new car feels pretty pointless to me, unless one is so critically short on “shopping” time that its worth the massive financial hit.
None of the legacy automakers seem to be able to make a truly good EV.
Because they are making electrified ICE cars, not thinking clean slate EV like China. 48V architecture is a must now, saves thousands per car in wiring and complexity.
Next: YASA axial hub motors, they weigh less than a brake rotor setup, and they are powerful to stop a car with just regen, no brakes needed.
real_squidsOutside of the states they have a bunch of EVs they built in China, I see them semi-regularly, so its just this one market they fucked up
I guess they don’t think it’s in their interest to spend a bunch of money convincing oil-addicted USians to buy EV’s.
Kind of makes sense, there’s a lot of other markets with way more existing demand for EVs.
The US car market is insane by most standards, that’s why it’s so hard to enter. And why many automakers left it and haven’t looked back
Such a good little car, but the interior looked like a scene out of Minority Report. Just needed a smidge less “concept car”.
I would say it didn’t look enough like the concept car they showed that was so popular it got green lit. Plus it was a few years late in terms of battery capacity at the price point they tried to sell it at. £30k+ for 35kwh was a bit of joke at the time. Renault Zoe was a cheaper and had a two thirds larger battery.
250 mile range, $26,000.
The R5 is basically the third gen Zoe when it comes to tech, such an upgrade in terms of looks.
Not accurate. They tried to setup and EV line made in USA with Biden’s battery plant investment and EV incentives. Trump killed all that so they would be left trying to sell second rate tech at much higher costs against the Chinese.
You will see a Honda Civic EV, but it will be coming from China.