Unlike Toyota, Honda has no plans to imitate the way the manual gearbox operates in its electric cars, CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in an interview to Car&Driver, adding that he was personally objecting against such ‘fakes’ in cars.
He explained that there were many other ways for Honda to make driving electric cars engaging for drivers without resorting to emulating relics of the past. Optimizing the construction of the whole car, fine-tuning its chassis, properly programming its ECUs and engineering with precision are all valid alternatives to achieving a great driving experience, he said.
In an earlier interview with The Drive, Mibe also let it slip that the company was considering adding all-electric cars to its sporty Type R lineup. He did not provide any further details.
When it comes to electric sports cars, Honda bets big on solid-state batteries. The designers claim using such batteries can potentially drastically reduce the weight of EVs. Aside from being much lighter themselves, these batteries reportedly require far less cooling than the conventional designs used today.
The Japanese company plans to launch the production of solid-state power cells in a few years. Right now, Honda is researching a variety of new technologies that it believes will let it produce ‘electric cars with a soul’. To understand what it means, one may look at the latest gas-powered Civic Type R (in the gallery below).