A lady drives alongside a bucolic coastal highway 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 shade, the names of her mates, what sort of temper she’s in and the way to maintain her after she’s had a nasty day.
If you happen to drive a Honda proper now, it would not do any of that. (Nicely, perhaps the final one, when you’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 automotive trade—is banking on a future the place you will have, and pay for, options powered by synthetic intelligence that can completely redefine the expertise of proudly owning and working a automotive.
However is that what folks really need out of their vehicles within the coming years, and might it truly be carried out? All of that’s arduous 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 thus far, if we’ve got any, has in all probability been restricted to utilizing ChatGPT to cheat on time period papers, sifting via an countless slop of pretend photos in our social media feeds and fretting for the day when it may take our jobs. However traders and the tech trade writ giant are bullish in regards to the methods AI may remodel each manner 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 severely. 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, after all, means AI. So what does that imply within the context of a automotive? To Honda, it should be the “engine” that unlocks numerous what makes the 0 Collection particular.
A ‘Private’ Contact
“Our EVs will provide ‘ultra-personal optimization’ by pondering fully in regards to the buyer, and optimizing all particulars together with exact management settings for car dynamics,” Honda electrification govt Katsushi Inoue mentioned in his CES keynote speech. “Like a smartphone, varied features of 0 Collection fashions will proceed to advance even after the acquisition. The extra it’s used, the extra personalised it’ll turn out to be.”
The “like a smartphone” half is straightforward sufficient to grasp. Proper now, within the U.S. a minimum of, 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 need to get there as a result of they assume they can’t solely make their vehicles higher that manner but additionally cost for a lot of totally different subscription providers alongside the best way.
Photograph by: Honda
“With the utilization of AI and massive knowledge, the car will be taught the consumer’s preferences reminiscent of music, in addition to the driving force’s behaviors and tendencies whereas driving, and can make varied strategies,” Honda mentioned on the 0 Collection web site.
Now, the AI private assistant that understands while you’re having a crappy day like within the video above might sound like a tricky promote in 2025—perhaps folks will need it, however perhaps they will not. (We do have a loneliness epidemic throughout practically the entire world.)
Photograph by: InsideEVs
A Higher Charging Expertise
However there’s another tangible space the place Honda hopes AI will make the EV possession expertise significantly better: charging. Mainly, it hopes to lean on AI to get rid of issues like routing to chargers which are offline, or too gradual, or jam-packed with folks 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 kind all of that out for you.
“By incorporating [Amazon Web Services] generative AI and associated applied sciences into Honda clever expertise, and analyzing knowledge obtained from the Honda 0 Collection and the intensive charging community”—on this case, the Tesla Supercharger Community it is natively appropriate with and the Ionna community Honda is a part of—”we are going to present a personalised charging expertise for every particular person when it comes to discovering charging amenities and simplifying cost,” mentioned Jay Joseph, American Honda’s Vice President of Sustainability and Enterprise Improvement.
No matter makes public charging higher would definitely be welcome.
Autonomous Driving
Photograph by: Honda
Arguably, getting a automotive to totally and safely drive itself might be AI’s greatest 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 essentially make command selections on the highway—particularly the fitting ones.
The 0 Collection vehicles will purpose 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 highway, whereas being able to intervene if vital. 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 searching for to modernize and federalize the foundations round autonomous automotive testing.)
However Honda obtained 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 observe.
Photograph by: Honda
Honda 0 Collection Saloon Driving
So the place does AI are available? Supposedly, by studying in regards to the many various edge circumstances and nuances concerned with driving, similar 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 timber alongside a highway; turning left whereas avoiding bicyclists and motorcyclists in a crowded metropolis; auto-braking when one other car cuts into the automotive’s lane; and detecting and avoiding a chunk of burst tire on the highway.
Photograph by: Honda
“The power of our expertise is that it may well 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 doable occasion to make it usable in visitors environments the place ‘something can occur.’”
That is an enormous promise to make. It is the aim that numerous automakers and tech corporations alike are chasing, and to consider the 0 Collection might be prepared to totally obtain all of that when (and if) it goes on sale in 2026 can be to imagine quite a bit. 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 mission.
“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 Accomplished, And Do Folks Need This?
Photograph by: InsideEVs
These are massive guarantees to make at CES, a present identified for large guarantees. And so they symbolize a wholesale transformation by Honda into a brand new form of tech firm, one centered extra on delivering automated driving and personalised 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 delivery incomplete vehicles—or typically, each. It would be arduous to see an automaker with a blue-chip status for high quality like Honda need to do the latter, so if it runs into points, the previous is extra possible, 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 trade, a 12 months 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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