Honda is conducting improvement work on an electrical sports activities automotive, CEO Toshihiro Mibe mentioned in a lately revealed interview with Autocar.

The automaker is “researching sports activities vehicles within the EV period,” Mibe mentioned. That is not precisely affirmation of a manufacturing electrical sports activities automotive, however Mibe mentioned improvement work is “steadily continuing,” including that “on the R&D heart, we now have a sports activities automotive.”

Acura Electrical Imaginative and prescient Design idea

Honda can be analyzing potential rivals, Mibe mentioned. The automaker is not trying to copy present sports activities vehicles, although, as any potential efficiency EV will “have a very totally different style” from any efficiency automotive Honda has launched to this point, Mibe mentioned.

The EV improvement program could possibly be the inspiration for an all-electric substitute for the Acura NSX, one thing Honda has hinted at earlier than. In 2021, the pinnacle of Acura promised that one other NSX will arrive ultimately, and that an EV can be a logical development from the gasoline first-generation NSX and the hybrid second-generation mannequin.

Honda 0 Saloon idea

Honda in 2022 teased two electrical sports activities vehicles, certainly one of which regarded like a possible NSX substitute. Final yr it supplied one other preview of a possible electrical NSX with the Acura Electrical Imaginative and prescient Design idea. NSX badging or not, an electrical sports activities automotive would doubtless use underpinnings from the Honda 0 Sequence EVs rolling out from 2026, beginning with an electrical sedan for North America previewed by a CES 2024 idea automotive.

In the meantime, rival Toyota could also be working by itself electrical sports activities automotive. The automaker unveiled a idea referred to as by FT-Se on the 2023 Tokyo auto present. Firm chairman and former CEO Akio Toyoda mentioned just a few months prior that he was personally concerned in improvement of an electrical sports activities automotive, claiming Toyota was engaged on options like a guide transmission and simulated engine sounds to extend driver involvement.