What does this mean, if anything? How would it be possible for a car company to be carbon neutral? Is this just nonsense/posturing since it’s so long from now?
What does this mean, if anything? How would it be possible for a car company to be carbon neutral? Is this just nonsense/posturing since it’s so long from now?
There will for sure be some “Creativity” with their numbers.
“Carbon Neutral” will only apply to the manufacturing of the product, not the life of the product.
It will probably also only apply to the assembly that is done in-house. It might not apply to things like the tires.
It will also probably be done through some bulllshit “carbon credits”, which are about as honest and reliable as those “no, our $2 chocolate definitely didn’t use any child labour, and the farmers definitely aren’t paid slave-wages.” badges you find on foods.
Similar to how Subaru brags about their “zero landfill” production. Manufacturing a car absolutely generates waste. They just juggle the supply chain to have all the waste happen at their suppliers.
Ah this makes sense. Seems like they are trying to say Honda’s impact on the planet will be carbon neutral, which seems impossible.
Honda: WE’RE carbon neutral, but if you drive one of our cars, that’s on you.
Presumably by 2050 any new cars they sell will be electric. I don’t see anyone selling a ton of ICE cars at that stage except for niche applications (and they can easily spin that off into a different company if needed for carbon accounting purposes).
Seeing at how bad Japanese car manufacturers are at producing good electric cars, and how they may be replaced by Chinese companies, maybe they mean they’ll be bankrupt by 2050… :P
I wouldn’t say they’re bad at it, just playing catch-up after they bet on the wrong technologies.
Toyota was the first to sell a usable hybrid back when BEV battery tech wasn’t there yet; Honda bet on hydrogen fuel cell tech.
When it turned out everyone was going with the Tesla BEV concept, Honda and Toyota were already mid-development lifecycle with investments in technologies that didn’t make the cut.
Now that those lifecycles are starting to wind down, we’ll see of they can leapfrog the current designs for BEVs to come up with the next big thing before China or Korea beats them to it.
As someone who has a client who is an automotive OEM (I work with Customs and Imports), most of the parts are made by suppliers, who use parts from other suppliers, and barely anything is done in-house except maybe final assembly, so your comment totally tracks.
It’s suppliers all the way down LOL.
You assume they are even going to justify the bare minimum… it is so far in the future they are just hoping everyone will forget about it.