Honda goes after Tesla with pair of radical new electric concept cars

Honda has revealed a pair of electric car concepts that it plans to put into production in 2026.

Shown off at the CES in Las Vegas, they are called the 0 Saloon and the 0 SUV, and they’ll see the Japanese company go up against Tesla, Polestar and others when they arrive in production form next year.

At this point you might be checking the date of this article, since Honda showed off a similar pair of concept cars a year ago at CES 2024. But, while these should still be considered as concept cars, they are a step closer to being production-ready – and as a result their styling has been toned down somewhat, even if the aesthetics of the 0 Saloon still possess Lamborghini levels of visual drama.

Honda says its future 0 Series electric car lineup will be spearheaded by a production version of the 0 Saloon. That family will expand between now and 2030 to include seven cars in total, and they all sit on a shared new platform.

Although Honda hasn’t revealed any technical details or specifications of the platform, it says the focus is on “thin, light and wise”, and that the batteries it plans to use will be thinner than others on the market. This means they can be fitted lower in the chassis, and will potentially lead to lower rooflines too – so that wedge-like 0 Saloon could well become a reality, and not turn into an amorphous blob of an SUV.

Speaking of SUVs, Honda’s other new concept car will be the first of the 0 Series to go into production. Deliveries will begin in the USA during the first half of 2026, Honda says, with production happening at the Honda EV Hub facility in Ohio. The mid-size SUV will land in Europe, Japan and other markets soon after.

These cars will run Honda’s equally new operating system, called Asimo OS – named after the company’s family of delightfully cute humanoid robots that could dance and tackle staircases long before Tesla announced any robots of its own. Asimo OS will handle the infotainment and active safety systems of the 0 Series cars, Honda says

The company said a year ago how its future 0 Series cars will be able to charge their batteries from 15 to 80% in as little as 10 minutes, and that total capacity could degrade by as little as 10% after a decade of use.