A girl drives alongside a bucolic coastal highway at daybreak in her Honda 0 Sequence Saloon, which then asks her if she desires to see a “lovely view” someplace. It is aware of her favourite coloration, the names of her associates, what sort of temper she’s in and care for her after she’s had a foul day.
Should you drive a Honda proper now, it would not do any of that. (Nicely, possibly the final one, in case you’re in a Civic Sort R or one thing.) And also you most likely have not ever thought that it ought to. However Honda—like a lot of the remainder of the automobile trade—is banking on a future the place you want, and pay for, options powered by synthetic intelligence that can completely redefine the expertise of proudly owning and working a automobile.
However is that what folks really need out of their vehicles within the coming years, and might it really be executed? All of that’s onerous to say.
As anticipated amid its present growth, AI was all over the place at CES 2025. Residence devices, highly effective new processors and, sure, vehicles. Most of our collective expertise with AI to date, if we now have any, has most likely been restricted to utilizing ChatGPT to cheat on time period papers, sifting via an infinite slop of pretend photos in our social media feeds and fretting for the day when it would possibly take our jobs. However traders and the tech trade writ massive are bullish in regards to the methods AI would possibly rework each means we work and dwell—together with, sure, how we drive.
Picture by: Honda
03 Honda 0 Saloon inside
Honda desires in on this too. The 0 Sequence 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 signify all of the methods Honda desires to plant its flag on the “mobility” tech of the long run.
That, after all, means AI. So what does that imply within the context of a automobile? To Honda, it may be the “engine” that unlocks lots of what makes the 0 Sequence 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 government Katsushi Inoue stated in his CES keynote speech. “Like a smartphone, varied features of 0 Sequence fashions will proceed to advance even after the acquisition. The extra it’s used, the extra customized it’s going to grow to be.”
The “like a smartphone” half is straightforward sufficient to grasp. Proper now, within the U.S. at the very least, only a few vehicles actually get higher over time with new options, with Tesla and Rivian main the way in which. Most others have struggled deeply with over-the-air software program downloads past navigation system updates and possibly bug fixes. However all of them wish to get there as a result of they assume they cannot solely make their vehicles higher that means but in addition cost for a lot of completely different subscription providers alongside the way in which.
Picture by: Honda
“With the utilization of AI and large knowledge, the car will be taught the person’s preferences similar to music, in addition to the motive force’s behaviors and tendencies whereas driving, and can make varied options,” Honda stated on the 0 Sequence 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—possibly folks will need it, however possibly they will not. (We do have a loneliness epidemic throughout almost the entire world.)
Picture by: InsideEVs
A Higher Charging Expertise
However there’s yet one more tangible space the place Honda hopes AI will make the EV possession expertise a lot better: charging. Principally, it hopes to lean on AI to remove 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 most likely leans on a hodgepodge of apps like ABRP, PlugShare or Tesla’s app to determine that out. Sooner or later, a 0 Sequence Honda will kind all of that out for you.
“By incorporating [Amazon Web Services] generative AI and associated applied sciences into Honda clever know-how, and analyzing knowledge obtained from the Honda 0 Sequence and the intensive charging community”—on this case, the Tesla Supercharger Community it is natively suitable with and the Ionna community Honda is a part of—”we’ll present a personalised charging expertise for every particular person when it comes to discovering charging services and simplifying cost,” stated Jay Joseph, American Honda’s Vice President of Sustainability and Enterprise Growth.
No matter makes public charging higher would definitely be welcome.
Autonomous Driving
Picture by: Honda
Arguably, getting a automobile to completely and safely drive itself will likely be AI’s largest get together trick within the 0 Sequence. 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 actually make command choices on the highway—particularly the suitable ones.
The 0 Sequence vehicles will goal to come back with so-called Degree 3 automated driving help, which means a human driver can take his or her palms off the wheel and eyes off the highway, whereas being able to intervene if mandatory. To date the one U.S. vehicles able to true Degree 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 principles round autonomous automobile testing.)
However Honda received 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 apply.
Picture by: Honda
Honda 0 Sequence Saloon Driving
So the place does AI are available in? 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 could 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 automobile’s lane; and detecting and avoiding a bit of burst tire on the highway.
Picture by: Honda
“The energy of our know-how is that it may possibly reply appropriately to irregular conditions,” stated Steve Frey, the Vice President for Growth Operations at Honda’s North American improvement middle. “Our AD was developed for each doable occasion to make it usable in site visitors environments the place ‘something can occur.’”
That is a giant promise to make. It is the objective that numerous automakers and tech corporations alike are chasing, and to consider the 0 Sequence will likely be prepared to completely obtain all of that when (and if) it goes on sale in 2026 could be to imagine loads. However the automobile will include some potent {hardware}: a “system on a chip” (SoC) from Japanese tech firm Renesas that is tailor-made particularly to this undertaking.
“The truth is {that a} general-purpose SoC can’t unlock the total potential of AI software program for the 0 Sequence,” Frey stated. “If we will understand the total potential of this ultra-high-performance SoC, we will run [autonomous driving], dynamics, power administration and extra on a single chip.”
Can It Be Achieved, And Do Individuals Need This?
Picture by: InsideEVs
These are large guarantees to make at CES, a present identified for giant guarantees. They usually signify a wholesale transformation by Honda into a brand new sort of tech firm, one targeted extra on delivering automated driving and customized app experiences than high-revving engines.
Extra just lately, when “conventional” automakers and newcomers alike have tried this, the tip end result has been product delays or transport incomplete vehicles—or usually, each. It might be onerous to see an automaker with a blue-chip popularity for high quality like Honda wish to do the latter, so if it runs into points, the previous is extra probably, particularly as that is Honda’s first actual foray into the reinvention of the automobile that is occurring 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 Sequence is due out within the first half of 2026. Within the fashionable automobile 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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