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Honda Says Thin Is In: 0 Saloon And 0 SUV Designs Are Close To Production

The 0 Saloon and 0 SUV are meant to invoke the principles of Honda's new "thin, light, and wise" for its new EVs.

Honda 0 Saloon

Photo by: InsideEVs

Kevin Williams

By: Kevin Williams

Jan 8, 2025 at 11:00am ET

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The 0 Saloon and 0 SUV will enter production in Ohio starting in 2026.
It's not clear if the 0 Saloon or 0 SUV will remain the production names for these vehicles.
Honda executives were clear that these designs are close to the production versions of these vehicles.

I didn’t think Honda had it in them. I remain skeptical that the brand’s EV efforts, and tech promises that that 0 Series SUV and Saloon will “bond” with their drivers and become best friends via AI is a real or desirable piece of kit. Yet, I have to admit – the Honda 0 Saloon is one slick-looking car. When the car was revealed at CES, it took all of five seconds for people to make the connection between Honda, and Lamborghini. According to Honda’s designers and executives, the 0 Saloon and its sister model, the 0 SUV aren’t just a pipe dream—the production models will likely look pretty close to what we see here.

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Now, when Honda showed off the original 0 Saloon concept at last year’s CES while announcing the intent to produce it, most of us took Honda’s comments as pure vaporware, a sign of a brand completely unserious about electric cars. The two-door, gullwing ultra-low coupe looked pretty far from what could feasibly be placed on roads; it had no side impact beams, the yoke-style screen had zero bezels or buttons and the seats had no padding. The roofline was disconcertingly low and likely would never accommodate the headroom of real adults.

Honda Series 0 Prototype

Photo by: Honda

Nevertheless, the brand persisted. This year, it showed off an updated version of the striking-looking concept car from 2024. The gullwing doors were replaced with four conventional forward-hinged ones, and the headlights went from the base of the windshield to pseudo-pop-up ones that feel straight out of the sketchbook of an Italdesign employee working on a Lamborghini account circa 2001. The car is refreshingly long and skinny, refreshing in the age of the too-tall electrified crossover blob. There’s a reason for that, according to Toshinobu Minami, the Managing Director and COO of the Design Center at Honda R&D. For them, they really wanted the “thin, light, and wise” ethos to shine through with Honda’s first 0 Series models.

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“In Japan, we’ve done things very challenging—we have had some failures. But we wanted to determine our concept thin/light/wise, especially exterior design,” said Minami during a Honda roundtable event during this year’s CES. Minami said that the 0 Series, in particular, was designed to channel the “thin” part of that three-word mantra.

Gallery: Honda 0 Series Saloon

Honda 0 Saloon

Source: InsideEVs

It may be hard to gauge in pictures, but in person, the 0 Saloon is very much, a “thin” looking car. Compared to the original concept, this version of the 0 Saloon does look visually longer, with its upturned rear and relatively large greenhouse adding to the vehicle’s perception of thinness. It’s a radical-looking car, and Honda’s executives do admit that that radicalness may be challenging to some buyers in the U.S. market.

Gallery: Honda 0 SUV

Honda 0 SUV

Source: InsideEVs

By comparison, the 0 SUV does look somewhat conventional. However, Minami insists it, too, was meant to convey the essence of thinness, even though it does admittedly look somewhat unrelated to the striking 0 Saloon. Minami spoke about giving the 0 SUV as much forward-looking glass and visibility as possible and emphasizing how (comparatively) thin the vehicle is compared to a traditional SUV. “When [the 0 SUV is] on the road, it will look a lot different on the roads compared to other cars,” said Minami.

The 0 Saloon and 0 SUV (along with the Sony-Honda Afeela) are planned for production at Honda’s Ohio EV hub starting in 2026. Yet, while the Afeela feels like a fairly finished (if kind of old) design, it’s not clear exactly if Honda’s giving us the runaround with just how much the 0 Saloon and 0 SUV will translate to production. For example, both vehicles have doors and full interiors, and even details like door jambs, but only the 0 SUV has cutouts for the charge door and potentially repairable bumper covers. Minami did say that part of the 0 SUV’s design decisions were to meet global regulations (including the United States), but as of right now the camera-only rearview setups on both cars aren’t legal.

Also, it’s still not entirely clear if Honda’s 0 Series will even be competitive when it is introduced. Honda has been somewhat vague about the 0 Series’s actual final technical specifications, but if it launches with the Afeela’s 91 kWh battery, roughly 300-mile range, and maximum 150 kW charging speeds, then Honda’s striking looking set of production-intent concept-like cars are dead in the water. We already know that 0 Saloon won’t be cheap. (Honda has not said how much the 0 SUV will cost, but that it will “meet market expectations.”)

Still, Honda’s design team remains optimistic. “When you go in your car, and look in your garage, you want to feel joy. I think (0 series) is going to be an upgraded version of Honda in the USA. We want to make a design that resonates with the next generation of Honda buyers,” said Minami.

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The Honda 0 Saloon and 0 SUV are slated to go on sale in early 2026.

Contact the author: kevin.williams@insideevs.com

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