Down to 0: Honda’s New Tech From Inside and OutDown to 0: Honda’s New Tech From Inside and Out

The two Honda 0 Series EV prototypes unveiled at CES 2025 – the sporty Saloon and sleek SUV – that are scheduled for production and will go on sale in North America in 2026 look nothing like the automaker’s previous vehicles. Underneath avant-garde exteriors is equally cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence for automated driving, newly designed silicon to support the two vehicles and future 0 Series products and a Honda-developed electrical/electronic  (E/E) architecture and operating system (OS).

Some of the AI software and system-on-chip (SoC) hardware underpinning the 0 Series’ innovative features come from outside suppliers. While other legacy automakers have leveraged the expertise of top tech companies such as Nvidia and Qualcomm, it’s new approach for Honda, Jay Joseph, vice president of sustainability and business development for the automaker, tells WardsAuto at CES. But despite recent production debacles created by other OEMs by producing their own software, Joseph says it’s crucial for Honda to write its own code.

Honda’s ‘Second Founding’

Honda considers the launch of the 0 Series the company’s “second founding,” Joseph says. “We need to be more innovative, more entrepreneurial and move faster. A common language across our company for the first 76 years of our existence led us to be fiercely, proudly independent,” he adds.

As part of a clean-slate approach to the 0 Series, Honda is looking outside the company for competencies in certain areas, Joseph says. “We always said if we do something, we need to know how to do it by our own hands – ‘Carry our own torch’ is one our internal phrases,” he says.

“We recognize that not only can we not do some of these things, but we shouldn’t do some.” He points to a new partnership with AWS for software-defined vehicle development. “Operating a network of servers for cloud services is not our core business,” Joseph says. “We can do it, but they can do it much more efficiently and on a much larger scale.”

Another example is a new partnership with chipmaker Renesas to develop a high-performance SoC using the latest chiplet technology. Honda plans to run automated driving, vehicle dynamics, energy management and more on a single chip, Joseph says. “We need to have an integrated and singular communication network within the vehicle,” he adds. “Renesas is helping us achieve that.”

Level 3 ‘Eyes Off’ Driving

Such processing will power the next generation of Honda’s Sensing Elite Level 3 “eyes-off” automated-driving tech now available in Japan that allows drivers to perform what Honda calls a “second task” such as watching video or joining an online meeting. Honda is also working with Helm.ai to combine Honda-developed AI with technology from the Silicon Valley startup to add Level 3 automated driving to 0 Series vehicles.

Helm.ai’s technology uses small amounts of data to expand the range of situations in which automated driving can be deployed through what Joseph calls “cooperative behavior, meaning how human drivers react to stimuli from the vehicle and from outside the vehicle and respond appropriately.” Existing Level 3 automated driving systems aren’t legal in all parts of the U.S., but Joseph says Honda will proceed “responsibly and legally” with the rollout of its system and acknowledges that a “legal framework and insurance” issues need to be resolved.

A Change of Mindset

At CES 2025 Honda also announced internal development of a streamlined E/E architecture and the ASIMO OS, named after the robot Honda unveiled at CES 20 years ago. “ASIMO taught us how to develop operational systems with automatic independence,” Joseph says. Given software issues with the Chevy Blazer and the firing of executives involved in mismanagement of Volkswagen’s Cariad software division, traditional automakers have struggled with this tech.

Still, Joseph is confident Honda has the in-house know-how to succeed where others have failed. “We need to own the code on our vehicles,” he says. The 0 Series’ simplified E/E architecture mimics that of EV-only automakers including Tesla and Rivian instead of “a network of 173 suppliers and chips that don’t talk to one another, which is what the traditional industry has done,” Joseph adds. Honda intends to create “a singular language that’s controlled by a central ECU that’s a much better system for the software-defined-vehicle era,” he says.This requires working with outside tech suppliers and what Joseph calls “a change of mindset” at Honda to approach vehicle development differently. “It’s been refreshing, exciting and a little terrifying,” he says. “But I think it positions us to be much healthier for the next 75 years.”