Yep, it looks like Honda is emulating internal combustion cars with its future electric vehicles—like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N—but it’s taking it even further.
At an event showcasing tech destined for its upcoming “0 Series” EVs last week, there was a Honda e Digital UX Concept equipped with a very interesting add-on to its instrument screen: a video game-like car selection menu featuring some of the company’s greatest performance car hits. There’s the S2000, both generations of NSX, the Civic Type R, and even a HondaJet.
Tap one and the e’s gauge screen turns into the instruments of said vehicle and it’ll even make the appropriate engine noises—turn “VTEC” on and there’s an appreciable uptick in volume as the fake S2K crosses 6,000 “rpm,” just like the real thing does. The seat vibrates to really make it feel like you’re driving an old sports car. Put it in HondaJet mode and the car is quietest at constant, full throttle, like a real plane would be. Anything other than that and you get what I, an aviation non-expert, can only describe as plane deceleration noises. It is, by all accounts, extremely neat. Check it out:
We weren’t able to demo this since the car was strictly stationary, but a Honda engineer confirmed to me that these drive modes will indeed come with artificial gear ratios controllable via paddles à la the aforementioned Ioniq 5 N. He even said that they’ve toyed with emulating, to an extent, handling by altering steering ratios and weights (0 Series EVs will use drive-by-wire steering), different pedal mapping and weights, and even adjusted ride height. Although, we don’t expect any Honda e’s in HondaJet mode to ever actually take flight.
The Honda engineer also confirmed that an artificial manual transmission has been developed and exists internally, but whether that comes to production seems like more of a stretch.
Currently, the system is very much a work in progress. The UI is far from finished, there’s a noticeable lag when switching between modes, and, to my ears, the synthetic engine noises could use refining. The biggest asterisk, though, is that you’ll likely have noticed that among the S2000s and NSXs on that selection screen, a CRX and a Honda F1 car have been locked away. The same engineer said that certain cars would only be available as paid OTA updates. Translation: Honda is doing in-car DLC.
Say what you will about fitting artificial ICE elements in EVs, but the Ioniq 5 N is hands down the most fun EV I’ve ever driven mostly on account of its Veloster N-mimicking shenanigans. Honda is now taking that same idea and cranking it to 11. And considering how rare and hard-to-obtain certain classic Honda products have become, I can’t help but be glad that they’re being immortalized in Honda’s future products.
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