A lady drives alongside a bucolic coastal street at daybreak in her Honda 0 Collection Saloon, which then asks her if she desires to see a “stunning view” someplace. It is aware of her favourite colour, the names of her pals, what sort of temper she’s in and the way to maintain her after she’s had a foul day.
When you drive a Honda proper now, it does not do any of that. (Nicely, possibly the final one, should you’re in a Civic Kind R or one thing.) And also you in all probability have not ever thought that it ought to. However Honda—like a lot of the remainder of the automobile trade—is banking on a future the place you will have, and pay for, options powered by synthetic intelligence that may completely redefine the expertise of proudly owning and working a automobile.
However is that what folks really need out of their automobiles within the coming years, and might it truly be completed? All of that’s arduous to say.
As anticipated amid its present growth, AI was in every single place at CES 2025. House devices, highly effective new processors and, sure, automobiles. Most of our collective expertise with AI up to now, if we now have any, has in all probability been restricted to utilizing ChatGPT to cheat on time period papers, sifting by way of an limitless slop of faux photographs in our social media feeds and fretting for the day when it would possibly take our jobs. However buyers and the tech trade writ giant are bullish concerning the methods AI would possibly rework each approach we work and dwell—together with, sure, how we drive.
Photograph by: Honda
03 Honda 0 Saloon inside
Honda desires in on this too. The 0 Collection Saloon and SUV could have made waves for slick, wedge-like designs that boldly present the world that Honda is lastly taking electrical autos significantly. However this household of automobiles, that are headed to manufacturing in 2026, are extra than simply Honda’s first fashionable from-the-ground-up EVs—they signify all of the methods Honda desires to plant its flag on the “mobility” tech of the longer term.
That, after all, means AI. So what does that imply within the context of a automobile? To Honda, it should be the “engine” that unlocks a variety of what makes the 0 Collection particular.
A ‘Private’ Contact
“Our EVs will supply ‘ultra-personal optimization’ by pondering utterly concerning the buyer, and optimizing all particulars together with exact management settings for automobile dynamics,” Honda electrification government Katsushi Inoue stated in his CES keynote speech. “Like a smartphone, numerous capabilities of 0 Collection fashions will proceed to advance even after the acquisition. The extra it’s used, the extra customized it would grow to be.”
The “like a smartphone” half is simple sufficient to grasp. Proper now, within the U.S. at the very least, only a few automobiles actually get higher over time with new options, with Tesla and Rivian main the way in which. Most others have struggled deeply with over-the-air software program downloads past navigation system updates and possibly bug fixes. However all of them wish to get there as a result of they suppose they cannot solely make their automobiles higher that approach but in addition cost for a lot of completely different subscription companies alongside the way in which.
Photograph by: Honda
“With the utilization of AI and massive knowledge, the automobile will be taught the consumer’s preferences akin to music, in addition to the driving force’s behaviors and tendencies whereas driving, and can make numerous ideas,” Honda stated on the 0 Collection web site.
Now, the AI private assistant that understands while you’re having a crappy day like within the video above could sound like a tricky promote in 2025—possibly folks will need it, however possibly they will not. (We do have a loneliness epidemic throughout almost the entire world.)
Photograph by: InsideEVs
A Higher Charging Expertise
However there’s yet one more tangible space the place Honda hopes AI will make the EV possession expertise a lot better: charging. Mainly, it hopes to lean on AI to eradicate issues like routing to chargers which might be offline, or too gradual, or jam-packed with folks or in any other case simply not viable. Proper now, any EV driver in all probability leans on a hodgepodge of apps like ABRP, PlugShare or Tesla’s app to determine that out. Sooner or later, a 0 Collection Honda will kind all of that out for you.
“By incorporating [Amazon Web Services] generative AI and associated applied sciences into Honda clever expertise, and analyzing knowledge obtained from the Honda 0 Collection and the intensive charging community”—on this case, the Tesla Supercharger Community it is natively appropriate with and the Ionna community Honda is a part of—”we’ll present a personalised charging expertise for every particular person when it comes to discovering charging amenities and simplifying fee,” stated Jay Joseph, American Honda’s Vice President of Sustainability and Enterprise Improvement.
No matter makes public charging higher will surely be welcome.
Autonomous Driving
Photograph by: Honda
Arguably, getting a automobile to totally and safely drive itself will probably be AI’s greatest celebration trick within the 0 Collection. Tesla, after all, is leaning on AI too to make Full Self-Driving a actuality (maybe, as many critics say, to a fault.) However each automaker will want a point of superior synthetic intelligence to actually make command selections on the street—particularly the precise ones.
The 0 Collection automobiles will intention to return with so-called Stage 3 automated driving help, that means a human driver can take his or her arms off the wheel and eyes off the street, whereas being able to intervene if obligatory. Thus far the one U.S. automobiles able to true Stage 3 driving are the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and EQS EV, however solely in California and Nevada and solely underneath very particular circumstances. (Maybe pushed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the incoming Trump administration is searching for to modernize and federalize the foundations round autonomous automobile testing.)
However Honda bought there first in Japan with the Legend sedan in 2021, though that system was additionally restricted to below-highway speeds and not particularly spectacular in apply.
Photograph by: Honda
Honda 0 Collection Saloon Driving
So the place does AI are available? Supposedly, by studying concerning the many various edge circumstances and nuances concerned with driving, identical to a human can—besides higher, as a result of there could be no level in any other case. Some examples Honda gave embrace “AI that may acknowledge and perceive its environment by itself,” together with several types of timber alongside a street; turning left whereas avoiding bicyclists and motorcyclists in a crowded metropolis; auto-braking when one other automobile cuts into the automobile’s lane; and detecting and avoiding a chunk of burst tire on the street.
Photograph by: Honda
“The power of our expertise is that it could reply appropriately to irregular conditions,” stated Steve Frey, the Vice President for Improvement Operations at Honda’s North American improvement heart. “Our AD was developed for each doable occasion to make it usable in site visitors environments the place ‘something can occur.’”
That is an enormous promise to make. It is the aim that numerous automakers and tech firms alike are chasing, and to imagine the 0 Collection will probably be prepared to totally obtain all of that when (and if) it goes on sale in 2026 could be to imagine so much. However the automobile will include some potent {hardware}: a “system on a chip” (SoC) from Japanese tech firm Renesas that is tailor-made particularly to this challenge.
“The fact is {that a} general-purpose SoC can’t unlock the complete potential of AI software program for the 0 Collection,” Frey stated. “If we are able to notice the complete potential of this ultra-high-performance SoC, we are able to run [autonomous driving], dynamics, power administration and extra on a single chip.”
Can It Be Performed, And Do Individuals Need This?
Photograph by: InsideEVs
These are massive guarantees to make at CES, a present identified for giant guarantees. And so they signify a wholesale transformation by Honda into a brand new sort of tech firm, one centered extra on delivering automated driving and customized app experiences than high-revving engines.
Extra not too long ago, when “conventional” automakers and newcomers alike have tried this, the tip outcome has been product delays or delivery incomplete automobiles—or typically, each. It might be arduous to see an automaker with a blue-chip status for high quality like Honda wish to do the latter, so if it runs into points, the previous is extra probably, particularly as that is Honda’s first actual foray into the reinvention of the automobile that is taking place proper now. And what’s extra, the far-off guarantees of AI have, as I write this in 2025, stayed largely conceptual.
However the 0 Collection is due out within the first half of 2026. Within the fashionable automobile trade, a 12 months to 18 months could as effectively be 10 years. We’ll quickly see what Honda can ship right here, and what function AI will actually play in it. And one factor is for sure: the AI-in-car wars are simply getting began.
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