A girl drives alongside a bucolic coastal street at daybreak in her Honda 0 Collection Saloon, which then asks her if she needs to see a “stunning view” someplace. It is aware of her favourite shade, the names of her pals, what sort of temper she’s in and learn how to maintain her after she’s had a foul day.
For those who drive a Honda proper now, it would not do any of that. (Properly, possibly the final one, when you’re in a Civic Sort R or one thing.) And also you most likely have not ever thought that it ought to. However Honda—like a lot of the remainder of the automobile business—is banking on a future the place you want, 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 actually need out of their vehicles within the coming years, and might it truly be completed? All of that’s laborious to say.
As anticipated amid its present increase, AI was in all places at CES 2025. Residence devices, highly effective new processors and, sure, vehicles. Most of our collective expertise with AI to date, if we now have any, has most likely been restricted to utilizing ChatGPT to cheat on time period papers, sifting by means of an countless slop of pretend photos in our social media feeds and fretting for the day when it would possibly take our jobs. However traders and the tech business writ giant are bullish concerning the methods AI would possibly rework each manner we work and stay—together with, sure, how we drive.
Picture by: Honda
03 Honda 0 Saloon inside
Honda needs 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 automobiles significantly. However this household of vehicles, 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 needs to plant its flag on the “mobility” tech of the long run.
That, after all, means AI. So what does that imply within the context of a automobile? To Honda, it may be the “engine” that unlocks quite a lot of what makes the 0 Collection particular.
A ‘Private’ Contact
“Our EVs will provide ‘ultra-personal optimization’ by pondering fully concerning the buyer, and optimizing all particulars together with exact management settings for automobile dynamics,” Honda electrification government Katsushi Inoue mentioned 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 should change into.”
The “like a smartphone” half is simple sufficient to grasp. Proper now, within the U.S. not less than, only a few vehicles 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 assume they can’t solely make their vehicles higher that manner but in addition cost for a lot of completely different subscription companies alongside the way in which.
Picture by: Honda
“With the utilization of AI and massive knowledge, the automobile will study the person’s preferences similar to music, in addition to the driving force’s behaviors and tendencies whereas driving, and can make numerous solutions,” Honda mentioned 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.)
Picture by: InsideEVs
A Higher Charging Expertise
However there’s another tangible space the place Honda hopes AI will make the EV possession expertise significantly better: charging. Mainly, it hopes to lean on AI to eradicate issues like routing to chargers which can be offline, or too gradual, or jam-packed with folks or in any other case simply not viable. Proper now, any EV driver most likely 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 know-how, and analyzing knowledge obtained from the Honda 0 Collection and the in depth charging community”—on this case, the Tesla Supercharger Community it is natively appropriate with and the Ionna community Honda is a part of—”we are going to present a customized charging expertise for every particular person when it comes to discovering charging amenities and simplifying fee,” mentioned Jay Joseph, American Honda’s Vice President of Sustainability and Enterprise Growth.
No matter makes public charging higher would definitely be welcome.
Autonomous Driving
Picture by: Honda
Arguably, getting a automobile to completely and safely drive itself shall be AI’s greatest occasion 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 essentially make command selections on the street—particularly the fitting ones.
The 0 Collection vehicles will intention to come back with so-called Stage 3 automated driving help, that means a human driver can take his or her palms off the wheel and eyes off the street, whereas being able to intervene if essential. Thus far the one U.S. vehicles able to true Stage 3 driving are the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and EQS EV, however solely in California and Nevada and solely below 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 received 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 follow.
Picture 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 various kinds of bushes 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.
Picture by: Honda
“The power of our know-how is that it may well reply appropriately to irregular conditions,” mentioned Steve Frey, the Vice President for Growth Operations at Honda’s North American improvement heart. “Our AD was developed for each attainable occasion to make it usable in site visitors environments the place ‘something can occur.’”
That is a giant promise to make. It is the purpose that numerous automakers and tech corporations alike are chasing, and to imagine the 0 Collection shall be prepared to completely obtain all of that when (and if) it goes on sale in 2026 could be to imagine quite a bit. 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 truth is {that a} general-purpose SoC can’t unlock the complete potential of AI software program for the 0 Collection,” Frey mentioned. “If we will understand the complete potential of this ultra-high-performance SoC, we will run [autonomous driving], dynamics, power administration and extra on a single chip.”
Can It Be Carried out, And Do Individuals Need This?
Picture by: InsideEVs
These are massive guarantees to make at CES, a present recognized for giant guarantees. And so they signify a wholesale transformation by Honda into a brand new type of tech firm, one targeted 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 top end result has been product delays or delivery incomplete vehicles—or typically, each. It might be laborious to see an automaker with a blue-chip popularity for high quality like Honda wish to do the latter, so if it runs into points, the previous is extra doubtless, 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 business, a 12 months to 18 months could as nicely be 10 years. We’ll quickly see what Honda can ship right here, and what position 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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