The automotive industry is in a weird spot right now. For years, it had been working toward a goal of almost exclusively introducing electric vehicles, saying that they were the future. Well, now there's a new guy in charge of pretty much the entire world, and he's not a big fan of EVs. Because of that, car companies around the globe are calibrating their EV stances. One such automaker is Honda.
The company — at least its Australian arm — says electric vehicles will help get it to its goal of becoming
carbon neutral, but it probably won't ever be as popular as hybrids, according to Australia's Drive. Honda's CEO and President Down Under, Jay Joseph, said EVs are only part of hitting this 2050 goal, but there are plenty of other avenues the Japanese automaker can go down to reach this objective.
"BEVs are not the goal, better electric vehicles are a pathway to achieving carbon neutral, not necessarily the only pathway. BEVs will continue to improve, we're working on solid-state batteries, but our goal is carbon neutral, not battery electric vehicles, Joseph told Drive. "That's just the obvious pathway in the near to mid-term, but we'll develop other technologies that help achieve that as well."
Read more: Save Your Engine: 5 Tips For Preventing And Cleaning Carbon Buildup
The Alternatives
In what must be a fit of blind optimism, Joseph said hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles — like the CR-V e:FCEV — have a lot of potential because they fix the issue of long recharges and still allow for electric-only propulsion. Unfortunately, infrastructure remains a massive hurdle for those types of vehicles, and without a major amount of investment, I don't see them ever actually happening in a big way.
There's also some conjecture by Drive that Honda could follow Porsche's lead and try its hand with synthetic fuels. Those allow ICE motors to continue being built by offsetting tailpipe emissions during production.
Of course, Honda isn't completely throwing in the towel on electric vehicles. Its 0 Series concept vehicles are slated to enter production sooner rather than later. All the whil, the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX are holding down the fort.
When it comes to hybrids, though, Honda has plenty. Right now, Honda offers hybrid versions of the Civic sedan, Civic hatchback, Accord and CR-V. It also has the Prelude coupe coming down the pipeline.
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