Honda’s CEO has revealed they’ve already made electric sports cars.
- “Many” prototypes have been built, but they’re not coming to market.
- Company believes the timing isn’t right, but they’re still working on them.
The Prelude is shaping up to be a slow and expensive disappointment, but Honda is working on other sports cars. They’ve even built some, but they’re not coming to market – at least not yet.
That’s the word from Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe, who recently told MotorTrend “We do have research on EV-based sports cars and we have many prototypes already made internally.” However, the company doesn’t feel now is the right time to launch a production model.
Mibe went on to say the timing is up for debate, but their research and development teams are working on improving electric vehicle technology. Eventually, at some point, “we will provide you with [an electric] GT.”
All of this suggests the next-generation NSX has been pushed to the backburner. That would be an interesting development as Acura unveiled the Electric Vision Design Study at Monterey Car Week in 2023.
Roughly one year later, Shinji Aoyama told reporters “We are going to introduce a sports model in 2027 or 2028 … We may not call it an NSX, but it’s kind of an NSX-type of vehicle.” However, that timeframe may have slipped as the electric revolution has fizzled.
While sales have been climbing for years, adoption has been much slower than many companies anticipated. This has pushed a number of automakers to walk back electric-only promises and invest in new ICE-powered models.
Honda and Acura still have a number of electric vehicles in the pipeline, but it appears their performance focus will be limited to Formula 1 for the time being.
