Honda says making cheap electric vehicles is too hard, ends deal with GM | Hacker News Reader

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

arstechnica.com

22 pointswarrenm30 comments

  > Each company remains committed to affordability in the EV market [...]  so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV

Yeah... not in any way that would matter, but still. They are committed. And this is what counts.

“supposed to develop a new platform for use in lower-cost EVs for North America, South America, and China, with cars appearing in 2027”

Are we looking at 2030 for delivery now?

Affordable electric vehicles still seem to be years away.

Except China already has them.

Unfortunately, Americans drive bigger cars, which need bigger batteries.

My understanding was that Chinese consumers (generally) prefer cars with much longer wheel-bases than American consumers. While it is true that SUVs popular in the US may be taller than a long-wheel-base sedan, I am not sure the GVWR is that different between the two. Besides, the batteries are the biggest source of weight in an electric car by a lot,

What I can see as being a difference maker is the need (real or imagined) of a lot of American consumers to tow something. Towing _does_ require a lot more energy and thus batteries.

They only buy them because they’re conditioned to buy them with cheap gas prices and advertising.

Yugos existed as affordable vehicles, too. Doesn't mean they are built to the safety standards required by US Law or any more reliable than your average power tool found at Harbor Freight.

GM can't deliver the batteries so Honda looking for new supplier.

Honda is an engine company that sold cars to sell engines, living in a world where engines are going away. If you didn’t try to become a battery company within the last decade, you’re SOL.

The Chinese car manufacturers are going to eat these companies alive.

I'm sure the government will slap tariffs on cars made in China, and then the Chinese manufacturers will just move to Mexico to take advantage of NAFTA.

Fairly sure those EV subsidies already do that and they're locked to US only.

I'm afraid of them buying up US companies and workers, the way they've bought up much of Hollywood and gaming. Our system of capitalism means they get to use our own weapons against us.

NAFTA was terminated by Trump, and then re-established and more or less the same form but with his own signature on it, as USMCA. You know, to put the US first. There is a joke that he originally demanded that the M (for Mexico) be put last, but that would have made the initialism a bit too on the nose.

Not with pure chancers like Weltmeister- they make crappy cheap EV's. BYD/Geely/Haval do make an attempt at quality at least.

Been waiting for 20 years for China to stomp on the big auto manufacturers. Yet, Chinese people still want "US" cars.

China should have been ahead of everybody on EVs. The fact that they are not speaks volumes.

When there is an actual minimum level of guaranteed quality that must be met, Chinese manufacturing tends to fail hard.

Here in Helsinki, Finland I see way more Chinese EVs than I see western EVs combined. Now if you ask a random Helsinkian (is that a word?) about this they'd say I was wrong, but what they don't realize is most of the public transportation here runs on Chinese EV busses. And you see way more of those local blue busses than you see other EVs.

“It’s impossible to make cheap EVs like Chinese companies have dozens of examples of.”

Up to the survivability requirements of the west, it may not be.

"If it was easy everyone would do it"

On a side note, so chevy is discontinuing the Bolt, despite its success?

The car and the road make up one technology. If only we could get the car builders and road builders to work together. Things would be much less complicated.

We know how to do overhead cables. There are some experiments with electrified rails in the road, some wireless charging ideas. You don't even have to install it everywhere, as long as you can easily make it to the next charging system.

What we now have is battery transportation systems.

>If only we could get the car builders and road builders to work together.

So like, public transportation?

It has it's place but people would rather go without cloths than without car.

I mean simple cooperation. Have a screen with some information on it. No need for route planners to reverse engineer road planning. We know where the roads are.

I for example don't consider traffic signs ecstatically pleasing. The US has 10 placards for every mile or 40 million. The Netherlands has 22 for each km or 3 million.

The picture here is completely normal: https://www.autoweek.nl/autonieuws/artikel/langverwachte-nie...

I love the second (50) sign in case you've missed the first one. What marvel of engineering! Tax money well spend!

I'm suddenly getting visions of the Super Mario Bros Movie.

Personally I think we need to start transitioning away from cars altogether. Trains and trams all the way baby!

While we're at it, why not transportation by pipe and warp zone?

Elon Musk is already working on the pipe part. Climate change is working on the tornados for the warp whistle.

Maybe transition away from private car ownership. Public transport for 80% of cases, car share for remaining 20%

I can understand private cars in some circumstances, usually in the middle of nowhere or farms. But definitely not where kids are riding their bikes to school or city centers. We don't have to get rid of them, just stop letting them ruin everything.

> I'm suddenly getting visions of the Super Mario Bros Movie.

My work here is done.

> Personally I think we need to start transitioning away from cars altogether. Trains and trams all the way baby!

Without the giant battery a car is almost an empty shell, like a people shipping container with windows. Perhaps we ca fit them on rails and link them together like a human centipede.

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