This week, the American EV segment got some more bad news, with Honda’s surprise cancellation of its 0 Series EVs. This includes the 0 SUV and Saloon, a pair of cars that made a huge splash at their CES unveilings, and the Acura RSX as well, which was likewise turning heads at last year’s Monterey Car Week festivities.

That stirred up plenty of discussion this week about whether or not this move, which Honda itself says may cost upwards of $15 billion, is the right way to go. I don’t have a lot to add on that front, so I recommend checking out Mack Hogan’s take over at Inside EVs if you’re looking for some perspective.

Well, okay, I’ll just briefly say that it feels like a curious move to eviscerate your EV future in the face of an international conflict that’s set to spike oil costs to unforeseen levels. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today.

I’m here to say that Honda killed the wrong cars. Honda euthanized some of the freshest and compelling EV designs I’ve ever seen, yet the increasingly tepid Sony Honda Mobility joint venture is “operating as usual” per this Car and Driver report. So, Honda’s charming $50,000-ish EVs are dead, but the $100,000-ish Afeela 1 is, for now at least, still on target to enter production later this year at Honda’s Ohio factory.

I’ve been watching the Afeela 1 take shape for six years now, and each year its announced specifications just got less and less compelling. In 2025, I said it looked like “A PlayStation 4 in a PS5 era” and in 2026 it didn’t look much better.

I don’t like saying negative things about a product that many, many extremely talented people have worked extremely hard to develop. And indeed, there are some compelling ideas in the Afeela 1 that may have found success if we were to have sprung forth in the midst of a booming economy full of open-minded consumers.

Instead, we’re at war and still feeling the turbulence from the misguided political attacks on EVs during our last election, waves that are clearly still rattling a lot of executives. The best way to fight that is with right-priced, compelling cars. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo’s latest EVs are all hitting the right marks on that front, and Honda’s 0 Series looked set to do the same. That they were to be built right here in the U.S. of A. certainly didn’t hurt.

Meanwhile, the Afeela 1 not only targets the dying sedan segment, but is priced comparably to a Lucid Air despite offering none of the range or performance. I’m extremely skeptical that this niche, software-first, luxury sedan will find enough success to warrant its existence, and yet it lives on while Honda’s mass-market, right-priced EVs are dead.

That may change. While Honda can do whatever it likes to its own product portfolio, Afeela 1 is part of the 50/50 Sony Honda Mobility joint venture. Nixing that will require some higher-level negotiations and many more furrowed brows. I’m guessing there’s plenty of frowning going on in Japan right now.

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