Here comes Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo, rising from the dead to walk among us in the year 2019—a year in which Tesla has sold more than 255,000 cars—to inform us he is still not sure about this whole electric car thing, revealing himself to be not a man but a ghost of a bygone era.
Does anyone really want electric cars? He hums from his undead lips. No, he muses as he fails to pick up a glass of water because his body is translucent, people do not.
And it’s not just a Japan or America thing, he assures us while simultaneously confirming the existence of an afterlife. It is everywhere in the world; people, all the people, do not want electric cars.
Hachigo broke this antiquated take out during an interview with Automotive News Europe. Here is the relevant part:
Honda wants two-thirds of its global sales to come from electrified vehicles by 2030. What is your road to electrification when demand for hybrids and EVs is still undeveloped?
I believe hybrid vehicles will play a critical role. The objective is not electrification, per se, but improving fuel efficiency. And we believe hybrid vehicles are the way to abide by different environmental regulations.
What about full-electric vehicles?
Are there really customers who truly want them? I’m not so sure because there are lots of issues regarding infrastructure and hardware. I do not believe there will be a dramatic increase in demand for battery vehicles, and I believe this situation is true globally. There are different regulations in different countries, and we have to abide by them. So it’s a must to continue r&d. But I don’t believe it will become mainstream anytime soon.
It’s incredibly ironic that the head of a company making an electric car that has captured the hearts of the entire Jalopnik staff thinks nobody wants electric cars.
Honda is also designing a modular electric car platform which they hope to have ready by 2025. Does that count as “anytime soon?” By automaker timelines, probably not, which means there’s plenty of time for more CEOs to die and rise from the dead before Honda completes its EV platform for a future it doesn’t think will happen.