A lady 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 coloration, the names of her buddies, what sort of temper she’s in and the way to maintain her after she’s had a foul day.
Should you drive a Honda proper now, it does not do any of that. (Nicely, possibly the final one, if you happen to’re in a Civic Kind 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 automotive 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 automotive.
However is that what individuals actually need out of their vehicles within the coming years, and may it truly be performed? All of that’s onerous 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, vehicles. Most of our collective expertise with AI up to now, if we’ve got any, has most likely been restricted to utilizing ChatGPT to cheat on time period papers, sifting by an limitless slop of pretend photographs 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 in regards to the methods AI would possibly remodel each approach we work and dwell—together with, sure, how we drive.
Photograph by: Honda
03 Honda 0 Saloon inside
Honda needs in on this too. The 0 Collection Saloon and SUV might 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 symbolize all of the methods Honda needs to plant its flag on the “mobility” tech of the longer term.
That, in fact, means AI. So what does that imply within the context of a automotive? To Honda, it may 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 considering utterly in regards to the buyer, and optimizing all particulars together with exact management settings for automobile dynamics,” Honda electrification govt Katsushi Inoue mentioned in his CES keynote speech. “Like a smartphone, varied capabilities of 0 Collection fashions will proceed to advance even after the acquisition. The extra it’s used, the extra customized it’s going to change into.”
The “like a smartphone” half is straightforward sufficient to grasp. Proper now, within the U.S. at the very least, only a few vehicles really 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 can’t solely make their vehicles higher that approach but in addition cost for a lot of completely different subscription providers alongside the way in which.
Photograph by: Honda
“With the utilization of AI and large information, the automobile will study the consumer’s preferences resembling music, in addition to the motive force’s behaviors and tendencies whereas driving, and can make varied options,” Honda mentioned on the 0 Collection web site.
Now, the AI private assistant that understands whenever you’re having a crappy day like within the video above might sound like a troublesome promote in 2025—possibly individuals 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 get rid of issues like routing to chargers which might be offline, or too sluggish, or jam-packed with individuals 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 information obtained from the Honda 0 Collection and the in depth charging community”—on this case, the Tesla Supercharger Community it is natively suitable 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 cost,” mentioned Jay Joseph, American Honda’s Vice President of Sustainability and Enterprise Growth.
No matter makes public charging higher will surely be welcome.
Autonomous Driving
Photograph by: Honda
Arguably, getting a automotive to completely and safely drive itself will probably be AI’s greatest celebration trick within the 0 Collection. Tesla, in fact, 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 some extent of superior synthetic intelligence to essentially make command selections on the street—particularly the precise ones.
The 0 Collection vehicles will intention to come back with so-called Stage 3 automated driving help, which means a human driver can take his or her arms off the wheel and eyes off the street, whereas being able to intervene if essential. Up to now 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 beneath very particular circumstances. (Maybe pushed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the incoming Trump administration is looking for to modernize and federalize the principles round autonomous automotive 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 in? Supposedly, by studying in regards to the many alternative edge instances 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 embrace “AI that may acknowledge and perceive its environment by itself,” together with several types 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 automotive’s lane; and detecting and avoiding a bit of burst tire on the street.
Photograph by: Honda
“The energy of our know-how is that it could possibly 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 potential occasion to make it usable in 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 will probably be prepared to completely obtain all of that when (and if) it goes on sale in 2026 can be to imagine lots. However the automotive will include some potent {hardware}: a “system on a chip” (SoC) from Japanese tech firm Renesas that is tailor-made particularly to this venture.
“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 are able to understand 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 Accomplished, And Do Folks Need This?
Photograph by: InsideEVs
These are huge guarantees to make at CES, a present recognized for giant guarantees. They usually symbolize 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 lately, when “conventional” automakers and newcomers alike have tried this, the top end result has been product delays or transport incomplete vehicles—or usually, each. It would 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 doubtless, particularly as that is Honda’s first actual foray into the reinvention of the automotive 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 automotive business, a yr to 18 months might as nicely 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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