I've owned two Hondas, one car, one motorcycle, and they were both great. But Honda seems to be led by Ghosn's alter ego. Devoid of coherent purpose, Honda seems to flail at the future. Still, they do have excellent engineering and I may attend the LA Auto show this year just to see the other car makers' varied responses to Nissan's EV push.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A11QH20101102
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A11QH20101102
"We can't keep shooting down their potential, and we can't say there's no business case for it."
Under Takeo Fukui and other former CEOs, Honda had been a strong proponent of hydrogen fuel-cell cars as the best zero-emission alternative to today's combustion engine cars because they have a similar driving range of 500-600 km (310-375 miles), unlike battery EVs' limited reach.
Nissan Motor Co's Leaf, which will become the world's first mass-volume electric car when it goes on sale next month, can only be driven for 160 km (100 miles) on a full charge since packing more batteries to extend the range would make the car prohibitively expensive.
"The thing is, not everybody needs to drive 500 km a day," Ito said, echoing the argument made by Nissan and its partner, Renault SA, to sell battery EVs in big volumes around the world.