As a metric of just how much damage the push to “electrify” everything on wheels has caused, it’s hard to surpass Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe’s announcement the other day that Honda – Honda! – suffered its first-ever money-losing year last year.

“The outlook is very challenging. However, we would like to explain the circumstances leading to this management decision and the future direction for rebuilding the mid-to long-term strategy for our automobile business,” he said.

The EV transition, it turns out, has developed not necessarily to Honda’s (or anyone else’s) advantage – echoing the statement about how the war was going, issued by Japanese Emperor Hirohito on August 15, 1945.

Honda – like a number of other vehicle manufacturers that drank the EV Kool Aid – has cancelled several pending EVs that had been scheduled to make their debut this year, including the entire “0” series. It turns out zero will be made, which is better than zero dollars being earned (and many dollars probably lost).

“We made this decision with a heavy heart, believing that introducing these three models to market without an outlook for business viability may lead to an early discontinuation of production, which could cause a concern and inconvenience to our customers as a result of potential damage to the value of the Honda brand.”

The Prologue – Honda’s first EV – is also the first Honda to be cancelled after just three years of availability. It ought never to have seen the light of day – and not just because it’s another over-priced ($40k to start) crossover that goes half as far as $25k gas-engined crossovers and tethers its owner to a charge cord – but also because it wasn’t even a Honda. It was a reskinned Chevy Blazer EV, with some trim/feature tweaks. This saved Honda some money, by not wasting it on R&D’ing its own EV – but it also arguably damaged Honda’s brand, something far more costly. Some will remember when GM got in big trouble for putting Chevy (and Oldsmobile) engines in Cadillacs. Not that Chevy or Oldsmobile engines were bad engines; they were not. The point is that Cadillac customers were paying Cadillac money for a Cadillac; not Cadillac bodywork with Chevy/Oldsmobile mechanicals. There were lawsuits and buy-backs.

Honda hasn’t had to face that – yet – probably because the Prologue has been a sales fiasco for Honda, especially after the $7,500 federal tax credit got yanked. In the fourth quarter of 2025 – just after that happened – Honda was able to offload just 2,641 Prologues.

The deeper problem is that Honda forgot what Honda was once synonymous with – that being sensible and affordable transportation. The company began – after the war that developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage – making scooters and small motorcycles that very quickly became very popular, precisely because they were sensible and affordable as well as exceptionally well-made relative to the competition. Then came the cars, which were hugely successful for the same reasons.

“Honda” became synonymous with value.

The cars were also fun-to-drive; ask anyone who owned an early Civic. The great gas mileage was of course the main draw, which brings us up to why “electrified” Hondas have proved to be such a drag. A 1975 Civic was capable of 40-plus MPG. Its tank held about ten gallons of gasoline. That meant you could drive a ’75 Civic roughly 400 miles before you had to stop for more gas. In other words, more than 50 years ago, a $2,200 Civic (that was the car’s base price) could be driven about 40 percent farther than a $40,000 Prologue can go today. The ’75 Civic made good sense; the Prologue is the apotheosis of nonsense.

More finely, it is the apotheosis of unimaginative thinking. It is a copy, first of all – and that’s the apotheosis of unoriginality. Second of all, it is also just like everything else. This is true of pretty much every EV so far, with the exception – possibly – of the Slate EV that’s supposed to be coming out later this year sometime. The Slate – a small. modular electric truck that can be converted into an SUV – at least manifests some imaginative thinking, some originality. Why didn’t Honda come up with something different? Perhaps something sensible and affordable – like the original ’75 Civic?

Adjusted for inflation, the ’75 Civic’s $2,200 base price works out to about $14k today. Imagine if Honda had put together a little commuter car like that today? One that got 60 miles per gallon – because unlike the ’75, it would have overdrive gearing as well as a more efficient, fuel-injected engine – and could take you 600 miles on a tankful?

If Honda had something like that to offer buyers, Mibe would not be having to discuss the “challenging outlook” Honda is facing right now.

Instead, the “challenges” are probably just beginning – because Honda’s senior management is still in the grip of EV Fever:

“Honda made the decision” to cancel the 0 Series “with a strong determination that taking initiatives toward the realization of carbon neutrality is a responsibility Honda, as a mobility company, has to take.”

Italics added.

Honda no longer even sees itself as a car company – which may explain why it is having “challenges” selling them.

. . .

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