Honda boss says consumers ‘not ready’ for full EV shift, prefer hybrids
One of Australia’s biggest car brands is pushing back on the EV hype, warning that rapid change could outpace consumer readiness, positioning hybrids as the “bridge” to an electric future.
One of the country’s biggest car brands has thrown cold water on the electric vehicle hype, warning that most Australians aren’t ready to ditch petrol just yet.
Honda Australia says that while the company is committed to going carbon neutral by 2050, forcing an all-out EV switch could backfire if it ignores what drivers actually want.
With stricter emissions targets looming, the carmaker warns of a growing gap between government pressure and public demand.
Instead, Honda is betting on hybrids as the “bridge” to an electric future.
“Battery electric vehicles are penetrating the market, there’s a lot of noise about them. But I think in reality, hybrids are the choice for consumers,” Honda Australia director Rob Thorp said.
“Behavioural change is hard. And when you transition to a hybrid, your behaviours remain very much the same. All you’re doing is just filling up the tank less.
“Whereas battery electric vehicles, it does require a change.
“And for a lot of people, that suits them, and that’s not a problem. But we think, en masse, hybrid is still where the technology is going to be.”
The half-a-century-old brand says hybrids already make up half of its current sales.
By this time next year, Honda Australia expects around 80 per cent of its product line-up and 90 per cent of its sales to be hybrid-powered.
It comes as the car giant announced it will be launching a new CR-V and ZR-V Minor Model Change next year.
This includes expanded hybrid offerings across both nameplates, seven new grades of hybrid, and upgrades such as Honda Connect (Generation 2), with Google built-in, a digital key, remote engine immobiliser and remote power tailgate.
They also revealed they are aiming to launch their first battery electric vehicle in the Australian market towards the second half of next year.
Honda Australia say they are tapping into the current ‘back to the 90s’ nostalgia trend among younger generations, aiming to build on the brand’s legacy and heritage to appeal to a broader age range.
The business announced they would be launching the Honda Prelude, a beloved Japanese two-door sports coupe, mid-next year.
Originally launched in 1978, the Prelude earned a reputation as one of the most technologically advanced Japanese cars of its time with features like the world’s first four-wheel steering system and electric sunroof.
The reinvented Prelude will be a “specialty sports” hybrid.
When asked how Honda Australia wanted to be perceived, general manager of brand and marketing Eva Barrett summed it up in three words: “modern, innovative and exciting”.
“We are looking to reposition the brand. We have to become relevant to a much wider portion of the population,” she told News Corp.
“(Current trends) will enable us to not only tap into the 90s nostalgia, but also a whole generation who are absolutely loving the 90s right now and might not know a whole lot about Honda.
“We already are quality, reliability and trust worthy – people already know that about us. But certainly we want to be seen as exciting and modern.”
Honda was established locally in Australia in 1969, with a range of products, including cars, motorcycles, power equipment, lawnmowers, generators, and marine engines, enjoyed by millions of Australians over the last 55 years.
Newly appointed Honda Australia CEO Jay Joseph, who took on the role in April this year, said for the next 25 years the company has laid out two big initiatives: to be net zero carbon neutral and to have zero fatalities.
“They’re both aimed at the preservation of precious human life,” he said.
“One, acutely by preventing a crash from happening … and one over a longer arc of time because one of the consequences of personal mobility has been the impacts of climate change and air pollution.
“As a company we take responsibility not just for the quality of our products but for the operation of our products – the emissions of our products.
“We don’t want to contribute to that. That’s been a consequence of personal mobility. We aim to erase that.”
But Mr Joseph said battery electric vehicles were not the goal, but rather “a pathway” to achieving carbon neutrality.
“Our goal is carbon neutral, not battery electric vehicles. That’s just the obvious pathway in the near to midterm. But we’ll develop other technologies that help achieve that as well,” he said.
“I think with the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) emission targets, the real difficulty is going to be balancing the consumer demand with where the targets are actually set,” Mr Thorp added.
Australia’s NVES sets strict emissions targets for new vehicles, starting in 2025 with a cap of 141g/km of CO₂ for passenger cars and 210g/km for light commercial vehicles – limits that will tighten each year to drive down transport-sector emissions.
Put simply, Mr Joseph says “you can’t regulate taste”.
“You can incentivise and penalise consumer choice, but that doesn’t change taste. You can’t regulate taste. And that’s a fundamental issue here,” he said.
“I think regulators should be conscious of (possible) unintended consequences.
“If you make new cars unappealing by regulation or unaffordable by regulation, you’ll almost certainly drive up the market for used cars and keep older cars on the road longer.
“(This) might be contrary to the outcome that you want because those vehicles didn’t have emissions reduction designs or features or other things that have helped improve conditions since the days where we were worried about smog 30 years ago.
“And you might actually end up in a condition where you’ve got more cars with worse fuel economy and higher emissions on the road for longer because you’ve tried to regulate taste.”
Mr Joseph, who previously worked for the company in America for 27 years, insisted the company was “on the right path”.
“March was our best sales month in four years, so things are going right, and we just need to deliver more of that,” he told News Corp.
“Anybody who’s ever used a Honda lawnmower, like I did when I was a teenager for mowing the neighbour’s lawns, you know that it starts on the first pull. And all of that translates to trust.
“Trust that we’ve earned with our customers. Now we just need to translate that into the digital era, into the electrified era. And that’s what we aim to do over the next several years.”
He said last year the company sold just shy of 14,000 new Honda vehicles in Australia.
“The first thing that struck me when I landed here was how competitive the marketplace is,” he said.
“I come from 27 years in Honda where we reliably have 10 per cent of a 16 million per year new car market. And that’s being competed for by just north of 42 different brands.
“And you come to Australia and there’s upwards of 70 brands competing for 1.2 million new car sales per year – it is a brutally competitive market.”
Mr Joseph said Australia’s vast, sparsely populated landscape can make infrastructure rollout slower.
“When you fly across the United States, you can’t go more than 10, maybe 15 minutes without seeing signs of people, whether it’s power lines or railroad tracks or roadways or dams or something, but you really can’t go very far without seeing some sign of humanity,” he said.
“I’ve flown across Australia a few times, and you can go hours without a single sign of humanity.
“The pace of infrastructure growth for things like electrification will take much longer in Australia by the traditional means.
“I think things will evolve. We’ll find some solutions where you can deploy a solar site for recharging in between major cities, and that will help solve some of the problem.
“Honda’s view is that the role of technology is to serve people, and I think technology always advances to meet people’s needs.
“We’ll see some advances that will help solve some of those challenges, but we don’t know when we’ll see them.”
Now based in Melbourne, with Honda’s head office located in Moonee Ponds, Mr Joseph describes his new home as a “vibrant city”.
“There’s always something going on. There’s always a band you want to hear. There’s always a restaurant you want to try, and the diversity is just amazing,” he said.
He says the top two priorities for him during his time as chief executive will be to ensure that he is serving his customers and developing local talent.
“When you’re young, your parents teach you to leave things better than you found them.
“If I can leave Honda Australia better than when I arrived a few months ago, I’d like to have a clear development path for more local leaders to step up and control their own destiny.
“I’d like the people that I work with to know what is possible more than what isn’t possible.
“It’s human nature and very easy to talk about what you don’t have. It takes conscious effort and a little grace to talk about what you could do with what you have. And that’s what I’d like to leave behind.”
What is the lifespan of a hybrid car?
Hybrid batteries typically last for eight to 10 years, or 160,000 – 200,000kms.
The actual lifespan can vary significantly based on driving habits, climate and maintenance.
What is the disadvantage of a hybrid car?
One major drawback of hybrid cars is their higher upfront cost compared to traditional gasoline-powered vehicles.
They also sometimes come with increased maintenance expenses – particularly when it comes to battery replacement.
What kills a hybrid battery?
The lifespan of hybrid batteries can be shortened by various factors, including ageing, extreme temperatures, excessive heat and long periods of inactivity.
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