Honda Executives on EVs and Charging Infrastructure Challenges
TapTechNews August 27th news, according to TheDrive report, Kazuhiro Takizawa, president and CEO of American Honda, and Shinji Aoyama, global executive vice president of Honda, said at the 2024 Monterey Car Week that pure electric vehicles are the best way to achieve carbon neutrality, but now there is a lack of charging facilities.
The two executives pointed out that although the popularity of electric vehicles is steadily rising, without a complete charging infrastructure, consumers will not easily switch from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles. Kazuhiro emphasized: You can't force consumers to change their minds. Although some incentive measures can be provided, but we can't force those people living in the Midwestern region where there are no charging stations to switch to electric vehicles. Even with incentive measures, they won't switch from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles. I think it's very difficult to force people to switch to electric vehicles, and we need to gradually prepare the ecosystem and let them transition slowly.
Shinji said that the slowdown in the electric vehicle market is not unexpected, because as the number of electric vehicles increases, the changes in the entire electric vehicle ecosystem will also accelerate. He pointed out that from oil exploration, refining, gas stations to fuel vehicles, the existing fuel vehicle ecosystem has been established for a long time. And electric vehicles have a completely different ecosystem, so this is a problem of the entire social change and may take time to change. Battery electric vehicles are the most effective way to achieve carbon neutrality, and Honda will continue to adhere to the long-term vision and expects the electric vehicle ecosystem to gradually change.
However, TapTechNews noticed that Peter Rawlinson, CEO of Lucid, said at the 2024 Monterey Car Week that the slowdown in the electric vehicle market is temporary, and turning to the hybrid vehicle field is a dead end.