The Honda 0 Series Makes A Lot Of Promises

Tochigi, Japan. A space that is integral to the very core of Honda. Tochigi is where Honda made every original NSX, using specially trained workers and a manufacturing process more unique than Honda’s other cars to get the Ferrari-fighting mid-engined sports car on the road. It’s also a stone’s throw away from the Motegi Mobility Park, formerly known as Twin Ring Motegi if you grew up playing Gran Turismo; a Honda-made racetrack made to generate more interest in motorsport in Japan. Tochigi is hallowed ground for Honda, so it’s only natural that the brand would fly several global journalists there to evaluate the first results of its self-developed EV program: the Honda 0 Series.

This is a really big deal for Honda. The world’s cars are quickly electrifying, yet Honda has been slow to get its own EVs on the market. Until now, it’s relied on lease-only science experiments like the Fit EV or stopgaps like the GM-Ultium-based Honda Prologue to satisfy customer cravings for electric vehicles. Other swings, like the compact Honda E in Europe, also didn’t take off quite as expected.

This car, however, is a new frontier for the automaker. Honda showed off two radical concepts at this year’s CES, with plans to put them both in production in Japan and the United States. Honda’s already radically reconfigured its Ohio-based U.S. manufacturing operations to accommodate the electric-razor-styled EV sedan, and it’s staking a lot of the brand’s future on producing it, and future variants of Honda’s new self-developed EVs. High-range, efficient, lightweight, modern, and with no compromises; no more games, but a real EV that can take on the best.

Well, Is Honda’s new self-developed EV good? Did its investment in an all-new platform pay off? I went to Japan to find out for myself, but I’m not sure anyone knows the answer yet, including Honda.

What Is It?
Honda has several EV programs going on at once. In Europe and China, there’s the E:N architecture that already has a few models on European and Chinese roads, like the Honda E: NY1. But that model will likely never come to North America. For the U.S., as well as Japan (and Europe, again), we’ll be getting the Honda 0 Series. This is a new model line based on a platform that Honda insists is as much hardware-oriented, as is the software itself.