Interesting. Honda's core competency has long been internal combustion engines (ICE). My household has, for a long time, had a Honda car, motor scooter (110cc), and lawnmower. We don't need a generator, but if we did we would pick Honda. I was an early adopter of their Insight hybrid car, almost a quarter-century ago. That was focused on battery support for a very light ICE, not on replacing the ICE. It was effective.
I've long believed they were all in on hydrogen fuel as the next big thing, because it would preserve their internal combustion tech investment. And, I've long believed that was an existential mistake. They, working with Toyota, could have pulled it off by pouring bucketloads of upfront capital into refueling infrastructure (like Tesla did with their Supercharger network). But they didn't. Pilot projects with short-range delivery vans don't cut it.
It's about time they started working on BEV.
But: pedals? pedals with ergonomic problems? (No seat height adjustment is evident and they're far too widely spaced to let a rider get any power without rocking back and forth.)
There are plenty of decent e-bikes in this market space. Most of them leverage the existing cycling parts and service capabilities . Honda's coming late to this party.
> I've long believed they were all in on hydrogen fuel as the next big thing, because it would preserve their internal combustion tech investment.
I'm not sure about Honda specifically, but in most cases hydrogen cars are actually electric vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells (e.g. Toyota's Mirai[1]), they don’t have hydrogen combustion engines (although there are exceptions, Mazda made some prototypes about 10 years ago).
> But: pedals? pedals with ergonomic problems?
In some countries [2] pedals must be present in order to classify the vehicle as a moped. It's a regulatory requirement and I don't expect most moped riders to use pedals on a daily basis.
For a long time - maybe still 49cc "mopeds" were a thing in the UK as you could use them without a license whereas for a 49cc motorcycle you did need one. I bought one once - the pedals could be folded out if you needed and were kind of hopeless as the bike was much too heavy to be pedaled in a useful way. It was ok as a small motorcycle - top speed about 40mph.
I think now for that category they've dropped the pedal requirement but reduced the speed to 30mph.
I've long believed they were all in on hydrogen fuel as the next big thing, because it would preserve their internal combustion tech investment. And, I've long believed that was an existential mistake. They, working with Toyota, could have pulled it off by pouring bucketloads of upfront capital into refueling infrastructure (like Tesla did with their Supercharger network). But they didn't. Pilot projects with short-range delivery vans don't cut it.
It's about time they started working on BEV.
But: pedals? pedals with ergonomic problems? (No seat height adjustment is evident and they're far too widely spaced to let a rider get any power without rocking back and forth.)
There are plenty of decent e-bikes in this market space. Most of them leverage the existing cycling parts and service capabilities . Honda's coming late to this party.
We shall see.