Back in 2021, Acura‘s people proclaimed that the luxury Honda brand would skip investing in new hybrid cars and leap straight into an all-EV strategy, kicked off by what’s now known as the ZDX. Those plans have now officially shifted, as confirmed today. Expect new hybrid developments and longer-running internal combustion models from Acura in the near-term, after all.
“We’re not just dipping our toe in the water with electric at Acura, we are jumping all in. And that’s not just because we need to. It’s because we want to. Acura is really focused on performance, and electrification is one of the greatest ways we can augment that performance,” said Emile Korkor, Assistant VP of Acura National Sales, in a December 2021 interview with Automotive News.
Today, the story’s a little different.
At a Honda executive roundtable in Monterey, American Honda CEO Kazuhiro Takizawa said, “We will max production of ICE and hybrid models to meet the needs of our customers in North America. This means extending key ICE models and adding hybrid products. Our strategy to invest in flexible production in our EV hub in Ohio is proving very smart. This will enable us to make ICE, hybrid, and EV models on the same production lines, and adjust production fluidly based on customer demands.”
Takizawa-san acknowledged that the brand had previously committed to a complete EV pivot, and said what everybody’s been realizing in the current state of the American electric car infrastructure: “…looking at the customer demand, it’s not realistic.” He also expressed frustration at policy, which, of course, has made compliance a moving target for automakers, especially in the last year.
The company’s not planning to abandon EV initiatives altogether. After all, it just revealed its brand new battery-electric RSX prototype this very week. Takizawa-san elaborated on that too: “We are also participating in Ionna [an EV infrastructure initiative]. Without charging, we cannot sell BEVs. Without BEVs, charging stations cannot be profitable enough. But I’m sure gradually these pain points will be solved and the customer will have a much better experience in EV life. We’re also participating in making our effort to solve the pain points of the customer on that side of the infrastructure.”
Our Editor-In-Chief, Kyle Cheromcha, who was at the meeting, asked: “… from a consumer standpoint, you see something like the Civic Hybrid as a huge seller, and I think people wonder, what’s so hard about putting that powertrain in the Integra? So what is the actual blocker there?”
Takizawa-san replied: “It’s not that easy. When you change the powertrain, with crash tests and all those things we have to start from scratch. [Our engineers] say it’s quite difficult [Laughs]. But of course, it’s not impossible, and we have that technology, so it’s just a matter of lead time and development of the models. To have a new vehicle, we usually need four years or more. [With] this lead time, we need to wait. Once we made our decision, it still takes several years. So it’s just a matter of time.”
Regarding collaborations on near-future hybrid tech, like how Honda linked up with GM to create the Chevy Blazer and Honda Prologue, Takizawa was confident that his company would not pursue such relationships and go it alone. “In terms of hybrids, we believe that we have the expertise more than anybody,” he said.
I can’t say I’m surprised that Acura’s pivoting away from an all-EV-everything plan. But today’s comments were the first definitive confirmation we’ve heard that hybrids and ICE cars will continue to be important pieces of Honda and Acura’s strategy for the next few years at least.
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