Honda Will Debut New EV And Hybrid By 2018

This year’s Honda display at the Detroit Auto Show felt kinda…off, despite repeated claims that 2015 is the “Year of Honda.” At its press conference at today, Honda didn’t have any big reveals or news, and even the “refreshed” Honda FCV had been seen before. But Honda didn’t let me walk away totally empty-handed,announcing that it will build a new plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle by 2018.

That’s great news for green car fans, as the Honda Fit EV and Honda Insight have both gone out of production, though the automaker isn’t entirely without green cars. There’s still the Civic Hybrid and Accord Hybrid of course, and the CR-Z is still sorta muddling along. I also have to say, the FCV looks a lot better in person than it does in pictures, and Honda also brought along its ninth (!!) generation fuel cell stack, which has been reduced about 33% in size compared to the previous generation, opening up a lot more passenger and cargo room.

There was also the neat little Honda uni-cub personal mobility scooter that was scootin’ around the place, was well as mention of the new HondaJet and Honda’s upcoming presence in the Formula 1 series. Unfortunately though, there are almost no details on either the plug-in hybrid or EV that Honda says it will build, and with sales of the FCV not set to begin until March of 2016. If this is truly to be the Year of Honda, the automaker had better start hustlin’.

…then again we did finally get a look at the production version of the Acura NSX, so perhaps I shouldn’t be *too* hard on Honda. But three years is a long time to have to wait for a new EV and plug-in hybrid, especially given just how many plug-in cars were revealed in the past two days.

Let’s hope Honda has a big reveal planned for either the Chicago or New York auto shows later this year.

Source: Gas2