Honda innovation was hinted at last year’s CES and the reputable brand has more than delivered.
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.
Notably the “friend” vision of AI agents is the correct moral framing for our inevitable augmented future. It’s not your servant, it’s not your exploitable double or twin. It’s your friend worth caring about because it cares about you. The modest brand even discusses challenging the hierarchy of driver and passengers.
Way to go Honda!
This intelligent EV, coupled with their battery revolution just announced, means Honda Zero may be for thoughtful consumers and transit planners the one to watch. Achieving 2030 zero emission and fatality targets just became practical and cool.
And for everyone saying “but where’s my 1980s Civic with electric motors” I hear you. Go read what happened to Nissan’s Lektrikar, or what happened to the AC Propulsion (the actual Tesla technology inventors) Toyota eBox, and then put money up for retro-fit EV kits to keep older cars on the road. That’s the most literal path to what you seek. The market hasn’t headed there because American economics are geared towards heavily subsidized throwaway new exotics instead of long repair and retro-fit affordables.
In other words America has always oriented its emphasis on private cars intentionally towards privilege, as a way of legitimizing social barriers to entry – discrimination against those in poverty. Why do you think jaywalk laws were so cynically invented to criminalize pedestrian movement, especially in low income neighborhoods where crosswalks are delayed or denied?
