Well, EVs aren’t that great at the moment.
Both nickel and cobalt are carcinogenic and must be mined under terrible conditions, without proper protection, mainly in third world countries. Nickel comes mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines, and more than 60% of cobalt comes from the Congo.
Now the batteries can only be reused, as is happening in the new large battery in Moerdijk, but recycling is not yet successful.
Honda derives most of its sales from the US and Asia. In America they want to throw a V12 in a Fiat Panda and charging is very challenging if you can’t connect to the Tesla network. And in Asia, the electricity grid isn’t great, and people generally can’t afford expensive EVs.
Yes, we are slowly moving towards fully electric cars, but we are not there yet. Hybrid cars are a nice middle ground at the moment, and Honda has had enough of it. So they have EV technology. Also, the difference in attitudes towards EVs can be easily linked to the car brands’ sales markets. Toyota, Nissan and Honda all have a limited number of fully electric cars and are brands that don’t like Europe. At the moment, after Tesla, it’s really the European brands that you end up with EVs.
We sometimes forget, but it’s really good in the Netherlands. We have 30% of Europe’s charging stations, while we only have 4% of the population. Also, we have to drive much less here than in other countries, and everything is easily accessible without a car.
So I don’t think it’s really surprising that Honda hasn’t done much with fully electric cars yet. If it really makes them bigger, they’ll build EVs. But that is not the case now, we have to wait for a few more years.
