Honda innovation was hinted at last year’s CES:
And the reputable brand has more than delivered in 2025.
Their new Zero EV as reported by Verge is amazeballs in both looks and trustworthy innovations in engineering.
Honda says Honda Zero embodies three principles: “thin, light, and wise.” At CES, Honda executives said they were focused on showing off the “wise” principle.
That includes a new, in-house-developed operating system called Asimo OS, named after the company’s Asimo humanoid robot from the early 2000s that was designed for “people’s daily lives.”
Honda retired Asimo in 2018 to focus on “more practical” applications. But the company retained a lot of information from the more than 33.26 million steps the robot took over its lifetime about some of the stumbling blocks and safety issues a fully autonomous robot would have to overcome. When Honda unveiled Asimo in 2000, it was widely heralded as both a beloved friend (which once played soccer with President Barack Obama and could autonomously recognize a human wave as well as moving objects) and a symbol of Japanese technological advancement.
That little robot didn’t just take 33.26 million steps, it was learning how not to fall flat on its face, which turns out to be pretty dang important when you’re building self-driving cars.
And more notably the ‘friend’ vision of AI agents isn’t just feel-good marketing. That’s the correct moral framing for our inevitable augmented future. It’s not your servant, it’s not your exploitable dislocated double or twin working in depths hidden and unknown to you. It’s your verifiable friend worth caring about because it cares about you, in the same way trust works with “true” friends today.
Way to go Honda!
This intelligent EV, coupled with their battery revolution just announced, means Honda Zero is far more than another pretty face in the EV crowd. For thoughtful consumers and transit planners, this might be the one to watch. Finally – 2030 zero emission and fatality targets that don’t feel like creepy technologist-white-supremacist fan fiction.
And for everyone saying ‘but where’s my 1980s Civic with electric motors’ I hear you.
Here’s the deal: Go look at what happened with GM’s Electrovette and Electrovair programs.
Then read about Nissan’s Lektrikar, or the AC Propulsion (the actual Tesla technology inventors) Toyota eBox. Then put some serious money up for retro-fit electric kits to keep older combustion cars on the road but instead powered by modern (solid-state) batteries. That’s the most literal path to what you seek.
Why hasn’t the market gone there? Simple. American economics are geared towards heavily subsidized throwaway big new exotics instead of long repair and retro-fit sensibly designed affordables.
In other words, this is bigger than just old and new car concepts. America always intentionally oriented towards an emphasis on the high-cost-of-maintenance private carriage because it inherently required lots of privilege, as a way of legitimizing literal social barriers to entry (no money, no movement, like the days of royalty and horse drawn carriages). Since the Model T (and Ford’s overt hate speech that put his extremist racist pamphlet on the seat of every new car) it’s been a not very secret strategy of market-manipulated discrimination against those historically pushed into poverty.
For those wondering why we’re talking social history in a piece about a fancy new EV, hang onto your hat…
Why do you think jaywalk laws were so cynically invented? Here’s a hint: it wasn’t about safety. It was about criminalizing pedestrian movement, especially in low income neighborhoods where crosswalks are delayed or denied.
This Honda Zero piece brilliantly highlights the deep paradox in American automotive innovation. While Honda is making remarkable strides with their AI-driven EV and Asimo OS implementation, we can’t ignore how this fits into the broader pattern of automotive privilege the article astutely identifies.
Looking at your point about a historical trajectory from the Model T through to modern EVs, what’s fascinating is how even “democratizing” innovations often reinforce existing barriers. Ford’s $5 workday concealed racist social engineering plans cynically masked as progress, and we need to honestly examine how even groundbreaking EVs like the Honda Zero might perpetuate systems of exclusion. The article’s connection between jaywalking laws and intentional criminalization of pedestrian movement is particularly revealing as it shows how automotive privilege isn’t just about the cars themselves, but about the entire infrastructure of movement control.
The parallel between Asimo’s millions of steps learning not to fall and our stumbling attempts at transportation equity is almost poetic. While Honda’s “friend not servant” AI framing is refreshing, we must ensure this new wave of automotive innovation doesn’t repeat historical patterns where technological advancement becomes another tool for social stratification.
The article’s reference to the AC Propulsion eBox and retrofit EV kits points to an alternative path – one where innovation could genuinely democratize mobility rather than reinforcing existing barriers. It’s a powerful reminder that the technical capability for more equitable transportation solutions has existed for decades; what’s been lacking is the political will to prioritize accessibility over privilege.