A lady drives alongside a bucolic coastal highway 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 coloration, the names of her mates, what sort of temper she’s in and how you can deal with her after she’s had a foul day.
For those who drive a Honda proper now, it would not do any of that. (Nicely, perhaps the final one, if you happen to’re in a Civic Sort 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 want, and pay for, options powered by synthetic intelligence that can completely redefine the expertise of proudly owning and working a automobile.
However is that what individuals actually need out of their vehicles within the coming years, and may it really be finished? All of that’s onerous to say.
As anticipated amid its present growth, AI was all over the place at CES 2025. Residence devices, highly effective new processors and, sure, vehicles. Most of our collective expertise with AI thus far, if we’ve any, has in all probability been restricted to utilizing ChatGPT to cheat on time period papers, sifting via an infinite slop of faux pictures 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 method we work and stay—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 automobiles significantly. However this household of vehicles, that are headed to manufacturing in 2026, are extra than simply Honda’s first trendy from-the-ground-up EVs—they characterize all of the methods Honda desires 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’ll be the “engine” that unlocks a whole lot of what makes the 0 Collection particular.
A ‘Private’ Contact
“Our EVs will supply ‘ultra-personal optimization’ by pondering fully concerning the buyer, and optimizing all particulars together with exact management settings for car dynamics,” Honda electrification government Katsushi Inoue mentioned in his CES keynote speech. “Like a smartphone, numerous features of 0 Collection fashions will proceed to advance even after the acquisition. The extra it’s used, the extra customized it is going to develop into.”
The “like a smartphone” half is simple sufficient to know. Proper now, within the U.S. no less than, only a few vehicles really get higher over time with new options, with Tesla and Rivian main the best way. Most others have struggled deeply with over-the-air software program downloads past navigation system updates and perhaps 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 method but additionally cost for a lot of totally different subscription providers alongside the best way.
Photograph by: Honda
“With the utilization of AI and large information, the car will study the consumer’s preferences akin 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 once you’re having a crappy day like within the video above could sound like a tricky promote in 2025—perhaps individuals will need it, however perhaps 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 remove issues like routing to chargers which can be offline, or too gradual, or jam-packed with individuals 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 type all of that out for you.
“By incorporating [Amazon Web Services] generative AI and associated applied sciences into Honda clever know-how, and analyzing information 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’ll present a personalised charging expertise for every particular person by way of discovering charging services and simplifying fee,” mentioned 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 largest get together 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 highway—particularly the proper ones.
The 0 Collection vehicles will purpose to return with so-called Degree 3 automated driving help, that means a human driver can take his or her fingers off the wheel and eyes off the highway, whereas being able to intervene if crucial. To this point the one U.S. vehicles able to true Degree 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 principles 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 follow.
Photograph by: Honda
Honda 0 Collection Saloon Driving
So the place does AI are available? Supposedly, by studying concerning the many alternative edge circumstances and nuances concerned with driving, identical to a human can—besides higher, as a result of there can be no level in any other case. Some examples Honda gave embody “AI that may acknowledge and perceive its environment by itself,” together with various kinds of bushes alongside a highway; turning left whereas avoiding bicyclists and motorcyclists in a crowded metropolis; auto-braking when one other car cuts into the automobile’s lane; and detecting and avoiding a bit of burst tire on the highway.
Photograph by: Honda
“The power of our know-how is that it might probably reply appropriately to irregular conditions,” mentioned Steve Frey, the Vice President for Improvement Operations at Honda’s North American growth middle. “Our AD was developed for each attainable occasion to make it usable in visitors environments the place ‘something can occur.’”
That is an enormous promise to make. It is the objective that numerous automakers and tech firms alike are chasing, and to consider the 0 Collection will probably be prepared to totally obtain all of that when (and if) it goes on sale in 2026 can 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 undertaking.
“The fact 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 notice 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 Completed, And Do Individuals Need This?
Photograph by: InsideEVs
These are massive guarantees to make at CES, a present recognized for large guarantees. And so they characterize 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 lately, when “conventional” automakers and newcomers alike have tried this, the tip end result has been product delays or transport incomplete vehicles—or usually, each. It might be onerous 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 seemingly, particularly as that is Honda’s first actual foray into the reinvention of the automobile that is occurring 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 trendy automobile trade, a yr to 18 months could as properly 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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