Honda will focus on hybrids for now before an eventual switch to full electric vehicles in the future. Conventional hybrids – such as the e:HEV variants of the the City, Civic, HR-V and CR-V sold here – require no charging in exchange for improved fuel economy, and this is described as a ‘more practical solution’.
“Now we’re preparing a comprehensive electrification strategy following the global direction. Finally, we’ll come back to a 100% BEV world, but we’ll decide country by country depending on the situation and demand. In Malaysia, at this moment we’re focusing on hybrid as a more practical solution first. At a certain time, we’ll come back to full electric,” Honda Malaysia MD and CEO Hironobu Yoshimura said at yesterday’s launch of the new CR-V.
Honda and Toyota were hybrid pioneers globally and also in Malaysia, where a tax-free window for CBU hybrids saw good response in the early 2010s. Later, the European premium brands started offering plug-in hybrids here, but PHEVs have never been a big thing with T&H and all hybrid offerings thus far have been of the conventional self-charging variety.
We’re now in the age of EVs, and Japan isn’t in the forefront of this movement, even though Nissan was a pioneer with the Leaf before electric cars burst into the mainstream scene. Both the Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV were sold in Malaysia before anyone ever heard of Tesla.
Back to Honda. One of the best ICE makers in the car world, so far they only have the cute but low range Honda e, the e:Ny1 (basically a HR-V EV), and more recently, the Prologue SUV jointly developed with GM to show for, but more are coming soon. Very soon in fact, as Honda is set to debut a new EV series of models for global markets at CES in January 2024. Also debuting in early 2024 are electric crossovers for the China market.
Click on the links to read more about the upcoming Honda EVs.
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Not to sound bad or anything, but this will result in Honda losing it’s customers that wanted to try out EVs to other brands. I mean it’s not that Honda don’t have an EV to sell, just bring in the ENY1 instead of losing the sales to other brand. I want to remain Honda but there is no choice for me to do so in Malaysia.
Why are you so obsessed with EV tho? Lmao
In fact Honda Malaysia being contradicted in his statement. “Switch to EV” later reaffirms “the existence of EV”. As long as U can charge at home won’t be an issue. The charging network will only be improving for sure
A big slap to their own CEO
https://paultan.org/2023/12/15/honda-en1-ev-production-starts-in-thailand-electric-hr-v-is-1st-ckd-japanese-bev-there-on-sale-q1-2024/
What are you even talking about?
6 years down the road, the EV battery starts to deteriorate, you want to foot the cost of replacing the battery that is 80% of the car purchased value?
I guess it’s the same thing about Nokia and smartphones. Smartphone could not last for days while plain vanilla Nokia hp only needs to charge every few days, even weeks?. Yet…
aka WE ARE DAMN BEHIND IN EV TECH
Also aka Malaysia way behind in charging infrastructure.
If Honda himself were still around, he would have produced an Electric Honda that would rival Tesla and BYD.
What we really need are more affordable mass market practical Electric cars. Not Iphone on wheels like Tesla or luxury cars like i7, iX, EQS, Ioniq 5, Seal or toy cars like Mini EV, Wuling Mini EV.
I believe Malaysia is long way of creating adequate charging facility; therefore, a Plug-In (PHEV) would be a better choice (at least with min EV range of 60km) for the transition where the world is heading. -2C-
Dinosaur’s brain always shout EV EV EV! But don’t know how to think rationally. They think the world is revolve around them. Change can be done like magic.
Honda Malaysia need to realize that EV is having tax advantage right now, and it doesn’t need heavy investment with CBU.