Honda changes their tune on EVs

[protomech]

Honda has traditionally supported hydrogen fuel cells as the long term alternative fuel over battery electric vehicles. It looks like that's starting to change.

Honda's chief executive officer, Takanobu Ito, has told a small group of reporters at a test-drive event outside of Tokyo that, actually, there is sufficient demand for battery-powered vehicles and the automaker can no longer shun the technology as impractical or unrealistic.

Honda showed off a pair of concept electric scooters similar to the Cub at last year's Tokyo Motor Show. They showed the EV-neo again this spring, and they have announced plans to make the EV-neo available for lease in Japan starting this december.

In December 2008, Honda announced plans for an electric motorcycle within two years time. In the middle of this year, they announced plans to introduce an electric motorcycle for the Chinese market in mid 2011. It's unclear whether these are referring to the same machine, but it's clear there will soon be even more powered two-wheel (PTW) options.

[Gavin]

Bah...Honda had the beautiful and elegant Honda EV-Cub and the boring and uninspired  Honda EVE-neo Scooter...and they decide to make the EVE-Neo...

Double bah...

Exhibit A:



Beautiful and a potential new classic Honda scooter.

Exhibit B:
 


Boring and ho-hum and woefully underpowered...

Triple bah...horrid company decision making...

on top of that, Honda had a small Electric car that was INSANELY cute...every woman on campus would have wanted to buy one, any smart man that wanted to get all the women on campus to talk to him would have bought one...



It would be like riding in your very own pokemon...would have sold on the cute factor alone....but Honda will never NEVER make it or the Honda EV cub...

Gavin

[webman]

1000% agree, gavin.  The electric cub would've been a home run.

on a positive note, their myopia regarding electric bikes leaves plenty of opportunities for companies like Brammo to fill the gap.

webman