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Payne: Walking around Honda’s radical 0 Series with the designer
Posted by Talbot Payne on January 9, 2025
Las Vegas — New cars used to be the meat and potatoes of January events like the Detroit Auto Show and Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. But, in the age of social media, manufacturers have increasingly scheduled singular dates to pull the wraps off cars in order to guarantee maximum media attention.
Once the home of over 70 new car reveals, the Detroit Auto Show will have none this year. And there was only one by a mainstream automaker this week at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show.
But what a reveal it was.
Honda unveiled its highly-anticipated 0 Series models before an overflow audience, a peek into the brand’s all-electric future that it calls its Second Founding. 0 Series (0 as in zero tailpipe emissions and Ground Zero reboot of company design) is a dramatic departure from anything the mainstream brand has made before.
In the great tradition of production prototypes, the Saloon and SUV models are meant to turn your head and make you reconsider the brand. These are designs out of a sci-fi movie, not the tradition of a modest Accord or Civic. Heck, the flagship Saloon 0 Series looks like Lamborghini made a station wagon.
And the Ohio-made models promise to carry premium prices, unlike the Accord and Civics that made Honda a household U.S. name. “EVs are in an expensive price range,” said Katsushi Inoue, Honda’s chief of electrification business development. He’s aware of the challenge to the automaker’s affordable brand. “It will take some time, but we are looking to expand the range with seven models by 2030.”
A crowd watches the introduction of Honda’s first 0 Series prototypes at the 2025 Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. Henry Payne, The Detroit News
I corralled Honda Chief Designer Daisuke Tsutamori, who had flown in from his Tokyo design studio to unveil his baby, for a walkaround of the unique features of the Saloon and SUV prototypes.
Saloon Prototype
Honda is a brand with great pride in its history and I asked Tsutamori through a translator if there was a precedent for the exotic-looking Lambo — er, Honda. A pleasant man with a quick smile, Tsutamori acknowledged that the Saloon was a new design for a new Honda era.
“It’s the idea of starting from zero for the 0 Series,” he began.
“The proportions are about how much surprise we could put into a new sedan,” he continued, sweeping his arm across the vehicle’s dustbuster nose that sniffed the ground. “It’s low, thin and had the biggest panoramic roof ever made for a Honda and a strong D-pillar too.”
As in, you can’t see out the back of this thing. Not only is the D-pillar wider than Iowa, there is no rear window. Which means the driver must use a camera mirror to see out the back — a technology pioneered by Cadillac and prized by the brand’s IMSA race drivers so they get unobstructed views out the back of race cars in traffic.
Designers like to organize groundbreaking cars around a theme, and Tsutamori said the 0 Series’ guiding principles are “thin, light and wise.” Thin is a reference to the unique, lightweight skateboard battery platform that is the bones of all 0 Series models. Light, Tsutamori pointed out, is a recurring theme, whether in the repeating red LED tubes that make up the rear taillight — or the interior lights that change with the mood of the driver. Purple indicates the EV is ready for aggression — sky blue is more passive for when the driver wants to take a break from the road.
The colors are integrated with Honda’s new Asimo operating system, which displays lovely graphics (an ocean floor, for example) across the car’s huge pillar-to-pillar dash screen.
Why is the yoke steering wheel upside down? I asked.
Tsutamori motioned me to slip into the car and the reason becomes apparent. The wheel was upside down to make entry easier for my knee. It spun upright when it sensed that I was seated.
Like the exterior, the interior is meant to push boundaries. The yoke steering wheel controls drive-by-wire, variable electric steering — meaning drivers won’t require a 540-degree, lock-to-lock rotation to maneuver like conventional wheels (even Tesla’s Model S yoke). Instead, it only requires 140 degrees of lock-to-lock rotation. No arm-crossing, just small inputs. Slick.
Radical it may be, but the Saloon is less than two years from production, meaning it is close to its final form. To this end, the front end has changed significantly from the concept Saloon that Honda introduced at last year’s CES. Headlights are lower to the road, and the snout is interrupted by a radar brick for semi-autonomous, Level 3 hands-off driving.
The designer pointed out the lidar inserted in the camera unit at the top of the windshield — subtle as well as high-tech.
SUV prototype
The 0 Series SUV is more modest next to its Lambo-like mate — but still pushes the boundaries of the SUV form.
The D-pillar is even more massive. Tsutamori revealed why: inside, the pillars contain huge storage boxes to complement the hatchback’s cargo space. He said the boxes might contain charge plugs in the final production model.
The rear’s square, light-rimmed design echoes that of the Saloon (as well as the sci-fi “spinner” mobile that Ryan Gosling’s character drove in “Blade Runner 2049”). But it has a substantial glass opening that won’t require a camera mirror, said the designer, in keeping with the SUV’s more affordable price point compared to the Saloon.
This is a compact SUV with a similar footprint to the gas-powered CR-V, Honda’s best-selling model at over 400,000 units a year in the U.S.
The interior is as radical looking as the Saloon (including the yoke wheel), but there is a familiar face. Tsutamori called it “screen-face” and it is unmistakably similar to the cute, electric Honda e compact that the brand sold in Asia and Europe until 2024.
“This is human-centric design,” said the designer of the anthropomorphic features that resemble eyes and a nose. “It also keeps it simple to accommodate the sensors.”
Like Saloon, the SUV is bristling with lidar, cameras and radar for hands-free autonomy. A new Honda logo anchors the screen face. I asked if the SUV will have a front trunk (frunk) since there is no gas engine up front.
The designer smiled again, reminding me that there is still a year before production begins on the ute.
“We don’t want to tell you everything just yet.”
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.