The Honda Prologue is a new electric SUV made by Honda. It uses batteries for power instead of gasoline and is part of Honda's plan to make more electric cars.
Leasing an electric car means you rent it for a few years instead of buying it. After the rental time, the car goes back to the dealer and can be sold as a used car.
BYD is a company from China that makes electric cars. They have a special way to charge their cars quickly, which they call 'ready in five, full in nine' meaning the car can be charged fast.
Flash charging means charging an electric car really fast by giving it a lot of power at once. BYD uses two cables at the same time to do this and make charging quicker.
Proprietary means something is owned by one company and only works with their stuff. So if you buy a car or charger that is proprietary, it might not work with other brands.
Open standard means a system that anyone can use and make stuff for, so different brands can work together easily. For electric cars, this means chargers and cars from different companies can connect without problems.
General Motors, or GM, is a big car company from America that makes electric cars. Their charging and software systems sometimes only work with GM cars.
Polestar is a company that makes electric cars and is trying out new ways to charge them, sometimes working with other companies to make charging easier.
2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G are types of cellphone networks that help cars connect to the internet. Older networks like 2G and 3G are being turned off, so some cars might lose their internet features.
Home Assistant is a tool that helps you control smart devices in your home or car and can send you messages about what's happening, like when your car starts charging.
These are types of mobile internet networks that help cars connect to the internet. Older networks like 2G are being turned off, so cars using them might need new parts to keep working.
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Welcome back to EV News Daily, today used EVs set to jump, global EV sales pull back
and Honda's prologue clings on, plus stay tuned, later in the show I'll tell you why
connected vehicles pose a new problem when owners are left stranded by the car makers.
No EV news China today as it's the weekend, back tomorrow morning.
Let's get into it, the US EV leasing market grew back in the day after the Inflation Reduction
Act of 2022, the law included a so-called loophole that nearly all EVs qualify for the federal
tax credit through lease deals and the company leasing you the vehicle was then exempt from
things like your own, perhaps things that would exclude you, like your income level
or the price of the vehicle, however leasing got around those things that now points to
a wave of returns because most EV lease terms for 2 or 3 years, more than 300,000 EVs will
come off lease in 2026 alone in the United States, CDK Global, a software firm that powers
a large share of US dealership operations, has flagged the trend from dealership data,
it sees the returning off lease EV volume as an affordable chance for used car buyers,
and that will of course carry on all the way through until the end of the decade,
when those leases that were taken out up until a few months ago, when the federal tax credit
was ended in September last year and many EVs were bought in 2025 through the leasing program,
they're all just starting their financial journey and they'll all be de-fleeted over the coming
years. And there's demand as well, used EVs are selling faster according to data from dealers
than petrol powered equivalent models, that's according to Edmunds Q3 2025 dealer data,
faster turnover gives dealers more reasons to sell them, dealers are all about shifting metal,
the more cars they sell the more money they make, it's a pretty brutal game selling used cars,
I certainly couldn't do it myself and I have huge admiration for anybody,
then get up in the morning and sell your car and that is all part of the game,
just got to sell as many cars as possible, unless of course you're probably a Ferrari
dealership in which case it's not about scale but the way to do that is stock more EVs,
at great prices sell more EVs make more money, some dealerships are catching on to that and
doing very well. Okay let's talk about global EV sales reaching 1.1 million units in February 2026
but that was down 11% year over year and down 11% from January this year, year to date sales
globally is at 2.2 million down 8% versus the same two months of 2025, so what's happening?
Let's break it down, Europe grew, North America and China fell, Europe was the strongest performing
region in the first two months of this year, whereas China recorded 1.1 million EV sales in
the first two months of this year but that's down about a quarter on the same time last year,
Europe recorded 600,000 sales in the same two months that's up 21% year to date,
North America only 170,000 sales that's down 36% year to date and the rest of the world
about 370,000 sales, Europe held up in February, EV sales were up month on month and of course year
on year, German EV sales up 26% year to date, France up 30% year to date, Italy posting a record
for February up 23% a month on month compared to January but 98% compared to the same time last
year, the jump followed a subsidy program launched last October under the European Union's Recovery
and Resilience Facility, up to 11,000 euros for households and small businesses get even more
to go EV, Chinese car makers haven't sat still though even though domestic sales are down many
Chinese buyers bought their purchase decisions forward to the end of 2025 as EV subsidies and
tax incentives were changing in China and so it's been a slower start to the year we've seen in many
countries actually when tax rules end and the market always eventually bounces back to be
bigger than it was before but in China they've moved to export, EV exports doubled year over year
in the first two months of this year compared to 2025, EV exports are passing 500,000 coming out
of China, manufacturers increased exports as they shift towards international markets to shore up
a slowing market at home, okay let's talk about one of the big stories of the week and that's
Honda cancelling plans to launch three new EVs in the United States, the Honda Zero that's the SUV
and the Saloon and the Acura RSX, Honda tied the move to a decline in EV interest in the United
States and the Trump administration's rollback of pollution standards and fossil fuel regulations
easing, I mean the car makers can make more money out of selling more polluting cars rather than
make EVs and the three models were due to enter production this year so the plans were finalized,
we were months away from the EV hub in Ohio making the first vehicles, it's a huge right down for
Honda, it's a huge shame for jobs in America and it hasn't stopped rumors that Honda will also
ditch the prologue, Sam Fiorani of Auto Forecast Solutions said prologue production will wind
down and then end this year, an automotive news report said prologue production will end in December,
Honda said it was speculation, Honda's already discontinued the Acura ZDX or ZDX the prologue's
system model, the Acura ZDX was also built on GM's Altium platform that ended last September,
the Honda prologue was actually sick amongst best-selling EVs last year in the United States,
how could a car well inside the top 10 sellers be cancelled, well Honda has been discounting and
offering great finance deals just to shift the cars, Honda's moving back towards hybrids now,
engines and small batteries to save cash in the short term but it'll wind and Honda's gap
to the leaders, to the likes of Volkswagen and the likes of Ford, obviously Tesla,
BYD, Rivian, Lucid, BMW and more, all of those who have purpose-built,
software-defined EV platforms, it's difficult to catch up when you're going to be as behind as
Honda are without finding a partner or spending a lot of money, something that Honda don't have
at the moment. Okay BYD will pair their fast charging cars and fast chargers in Europe for
the first time in April next month, they're going to debut fast charging on the 8th of April,
they'll unveil the Denzer Z9 GT at the Paris Opera House, the same day BYD revealed second
generation charging, flash charging last week, there's a load of stuff in the podcast feed
on EV News China and in the main show about it as well but basically if you've missed all of that
Blade Battery 2.0 is LMFP, not lithium ion phosphate, lithium manganese iron phosphate,
a change to the chemistry which allows a 5 minute charge to 70% and a 9 minute charge to 97%
and at minus 30 degrees Celsius so real niche stuff, okay so you're talking northern Europe,
northern hemisphere, very cold, northern China, some markets that buy EVs there, that is a 12 minute
97% charge, 20% to 97% but you know what it's fine because in some of the most extreme conditions
in the world you've got to wait 12 minutes for your EV to charge, that's absolutely fine,
it's only three minutes longer than ambient so what BYD have called it is ready in five,
full in nine, cold add three, okay I kind of get that, I think they could have called it ready in
five, full in nine because adding three minutes to charge in minus 30, like it's amazing technology,
they're obviously really proud of it, they want to shout about it, it affects so few people though,
so few people actually drive an EV in those temperatures, anyway their new slogan ready in
five, full in nine, cold add three, I even stumbled over the last bit, you see it's a mental block
for me, ready in five, full in nine, I love it, market that, stick it on billboards, ready in
five, full in nine, even the average person would see that and be like I get it, ready in five,
full in nine, love it, BYD, I've just changed BYD's marketing unilaterally, sorry BYD, ready in five,
full in nine, BYD says its flash charges deliver up to 1500 kilowatts when the two charging cables
are used at the same time, disclosing the two cable requirement in small print during the Chinese
launch event, which I missed actually, I said it was one cable and thank you to those that emailed
me and went oh no, I think the full 1500 is we're still with the dual gun technique, yeah they
didn't really talk about that, sorry, that was an assumption on my part and they didn't really
want to shout about still having to use two cables to get the full 1500, CCS is the standard needed
to access Europe's public fast charging network, so when BYD comes here, it obviously won't be
GBT, which is the plug, but will they use dual CCS for their flash charges, well that's not been
confirmed, if it means that you only get to use one cable but maybe you only get a megawatt,
a thousand kilowatts, only, only a megawatt, I don't get a, I don't get a bed to charge my car,
a megawatt, you know, if that's what they can pump down a cable, which you can safely do with CCS2
by the way, not sustained but you can do it and I don't mean it's not going to be very sustained,
well if it's for five minutes, then the connector can technically take that. The Z9 GT has been
waiting in the wings for a while, it appeared in Milan last year, they're going to launch it in
Germany last year as well, but they shelved the plan and paused it and now we know why, because
of Blade Battery 2.0 and flash charging, so the Denzer Z9 is a premium car, the rear wheel drive
version is targeting 500 miles of range or 800 kilometers, 122 kilowatt hour battery, of course
those figures are often China cycles, so we should get WLTP and EPA, it makes it more realistic but
still can't wait to find out. Now, we'll take a break, we'll come back, we'll talk about German
motorway charges and vehicle to grid, another trial but another step forward, back in a moment.
All right, welcome back to the podcast, the higher regional court of Düsseldorf ruled earlier this
week, the Germany's motorway EV charging market must open itself up to competition,
the decision ends decades of de facto exclusivity held by Tunk and Rust, the court drew a clear
line between fuel services and EV charging, it found that they are separate markets and you
can't bundle them into a single concession, the ruling invalidates agreements that have given
Tunk and Rust control over fast charging installations at 360 service areas, Fastnet bought the case,
it argued that extending the existing fuel concessions, the effective monopoly had in effect
had over the fast charging network in Europe, the judgment set a simple principle, any operator that
wants to put a fast charger in a German motorway side must now go through an open tender process,
that'll start later this year, the change matters beyond the legal fine print, open tenders will
speed up infrastructure deployment in theory and improve service quality for EV drivers,
Fastnet opened their first autobahn station last year, could now gain access to hundreds of highway
traffic motorway locations that were previously out of reach, the tenders could reshape long
distance travel in Germany for EV drivers, drawing attention across Europe to a possible
president and an opening up of competitive charging markets which until now had been
favouring of incumbent monopolies, UK power networks and one of the companies that will
sell you the energy on that network, Octopus, have launched a new vehicle to grid trial
to feed energy back into the grid, the trial gives manufacturers a chance to test V2G equipment
and to make sure the grid infrastructure can cope, alongside the trial UK power networks
is automatically approving any new grid connection, so of course that's a really important part of
we should actually do a series on V2G, so this is not the work of a moment because feeding energy
into the local grid is a grid connection, so if you wanted to build a power station,
even I understand with my tiny brain, you'd probably need to apply to get a connection,
yeah but if you want to plug your car in and do a little bit of energy trading,
it's a grid connection, but they're not the same, you know plugging in your 50 kilowatt hour
battery is not exactly a nuclear power station, so we need to be sensible about that but also
understand how the grid is built at a national, regional and local level as well, so they're
doing this trial of automatically approving any V2G capable charger connection, the company's
automatic approval rate is already over 80%, whereas the national average automatic approval rate is
11% and that gap matters because slower connections, more paperwork, more admin, slows things down
and it actually can choke new technology before it's established, Ashley Southgate,
the low carbon technology strategy project manager at UK Power Networks, said the initiative
shows how networks can enable innovation while keeping safety and performance. Michael Evans,
director of optimization at V2G, that octopus energy group, said rapid grid connections are
critical to making V2G commercially viable, he said V2G could turn parked cars into flexible
low carbon power sources, you know that, I know that, I'm sure as a long time listener of the
podcast or even if you're new, hello, welcome, then this is part of the long game, the end game
for electric vehicles but there's just so many moving parts to join up before V2G, even V2H,
vehicle to home, but vehicle to grid, we can actually make a bit of money out of selling the
energy, that is tying up so many stakeholders, so I know that's a little bit of industry
slogan, jargon, I always try and avoid that on this podcast, there's so many things to tie up,
isn't there with V2G, there's the car makers, there's the people who make the box that goes on
the side of your house, there's you, there's your energy company, there's the grid operator as well
and so we have various regions and the grid operates by region even though we have one UK
national grid and so, oh man, it's not mainstream turnkey non-proprietary open standard solution
yet and that's where we must get to and we must resist any proprietary closed walled garden
standard even though I'm fully in the Apple ecosystem because it's one of those, because my
Apple phone and watch and iPad all just work together, it's different for cars, you spend a huge
amount of money on a car, a lot of money on a box for the side of your house as well and you
shouldn't be tied into that brand like you are at the minute if you buy Tesla or Ford or GM
in America and you use those solutions or I think Polestar are doing California trials,
you get tied into that ecosystem, it's all proprietary and it must not, we must not let
that situation happen because we should speak up and say, no, no, V2G needs to be open, it needs to
be, you know, you shouldn't be tied into always buying that brand of car or when you sell that car,
you got to rip out all your stuff, that's, it's bonkers, absolutely, but that's kind of where
there are standards, there are open standards as well, so it's not like we're, it's a standing
star. All right, let's move on. The UK government has rejected industry calls to bring forward a
review of its EV targets, its mandates if you like, it'll begin the review this year and it will
publish the findings next year. Aviation Maritime and Decarbonization Minister, that's a long
business card, isn't it? Kia Mather set out that line at an event hosted by the car lobby,
he said that the timetable would let the government identify pressure points properly
and ensure the mandate continues to work, he also said the government stands
resolutely behind the shift to electric vehicles but also supporting the car industry,
the stance put ministers at odds with the car industry in the UK, the boss of the car lobby,
Mike Hawes argued that the transition pathway was built on assumptions that have since proved
wrong since those assumptions were written a few years ago. For now though, ministers want more
time before they allow the car makers to get their way of selling you higher polluting and yet
more profitable gas guzzlers worth noting, by the way, I'll do a either a special podcast or I'll
include it on tomorrow's podcast or one earlier in the week. The government, I think, to push back
on this release, the 2024 data, so not last year's but 24's data on all the car companies
hitting their targets. So that was the first year of the mandate and no one paid any fines
because of either emissions trading or credits and things like that. So it's not the work of a
moment to explain it if you are not familiar with it and I think we're going to start to possibly see
not a war of words but certainly some sharing of more information because the car industry says,
oh, we can't do it. We can't possibly make EVs and the government released some stuff this week
which said, well, well, you are at the minute and so but also being sympathetic to what they're
saying. So we'll see. Zero motorcycles are next in the news. They'll sell their XB and XZ electric
dirt bikes direct to consumers by buyers can order both models online and have them shipped to your
door in a crate. Most of the bike arrives preassembled. You've got to fit the battery
and the front forks. Interestingly, zero supplies, instructions and video guidance
doesn't replace the dealer network, but dealers will still sell the XB and XC from zero motorcycles
and handle warranty support. Zero says the change streamlines fulfillment and speeds up delivery.
BMWs next in the news. They've teased their new BMW i7 top of the shop super luxury ahead of its
world premiere next month. The teaser is simply the front end of their updated flagship saloon.
The refresh keeps the kidney grill. That sets it apart from the new iX3, which uses the smaller
vertical Neuerklasse grill. BMW's product plan rests on the next generation Neuerklasse architecture,
but for now, the seven series is just getting a mid-cycle refresh, not a clean sheet car. The
model will follow the platform's design language. The more important changes are inside new key
technology from the iX3, like the full width BMW panoramic vision display and also under the
skin, a new larger battery pack, silicon carbide inverters, more range, more efficiency. The current
i7, the 2026 model year in America, is the eDrive 50, that's single motor, XDrive 60, that's dual
motor and the M70, starting at $105,700 and going all the way up to the M70 version, which is $168,000.
And finally, Nissan announced that they will end Nissan Connect EV app access at the end of this
month. They've given buyers two weeks to get their head around it, cutting off remote functions for
Nissan Leaf EVs and ENV200 vans. Leaf models built before May 2019 lose the Nissan Connect EV app,
and the ENV200 vans made through to the end of 2022, so that's a three year old van,
three and a bit year old vehicle, lose app access. That's less than four years old. Owners, 2022 was
five minutes ago Nissan. Owners will lose smartphone access to charging management, the schedule,
the cabin preheating, battery state monitoring and much more. Nissan says you can still set your
climate and charging timers in car and has ruled out restoring remote access. Nissan says the app
will not support future upgrades and cites that as the reason for ending existing remote access.
Owners, understandably, criticized the move online. One owner said Nissan supported a
core EV feature for just seven years. That owner noted that EVs often remain in use for 12 or more
years. The decision lands after criticism in 2024 when first gen Leaf owners lost all their
connectivity as one of the UK mobile networks, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, etc. moved on and Nissan didn't
upgrade those vehicles. You could argue it's not Nissan's job to upgrade those vehicles with a new
SIM card. The wider point is perhaps beyond Nissan, although if you are a Nissan owner,
I understand your frustration and perhaps worse as well, your depth of feeling on this.
Industry observers warn that aging connected vehicles face a risk as manufacturer support
declines. Features at risk in older connected vehicles include remote charging, navigation,
touchscreen, heated seat, subscriptions, auto mode, autonomous driving aids, performance
unlocks and more. The industry has no standard or set contract with consumers
over supporting connected cars. Buyers have no guarantee that digital features will ever work
when they buy or use DV. The car may physically survive, its core functionality may not.
Hey, when I bought the Polestar, coming off a three year lease, and I bought it at auction
actually, and so we've had the Polestar two years now, I was surprised that there was no fee from
Polestar for me. I was fully prepared. I didn't know what it was. I hadn't even looked into it,
by the way. Obviously Tesla charges for premium connectivity and considering that I've done
an EV podcast daily for eight years, I think I'd know this somewhere in the memory banks.
But I was like, oh, I wonder what Polestar charge for connectivity. They don't.
So Polestar have had none of my money. I bought the car used at auction for a very low price.
And apart from servicing the vehicle at my local Volvo dealer, which is obviously a franchise
dealership, Polestar have had none of my money. Polestar don't owe me anything. Polestar don't
owe me a connection. But I would want Polestar to offer me a connection, perhaps I think something
like maybe $4.99 or $9.99 a month would be reasonable because my kids can watch YouTube
videos inside the car when we're parked, we can stream music, and crucially, I have a lot of
connectivity with the app. So longtime listeners know that I'm super nerded up to the hilt. I have
Home Assistant. I like writing my own little Home Assistant scripts. Oh, yes, that's my hobby.
What do you do for fun? Oh, I have a Home Assistant on a dashboard. But I have that with the Polestar
API. And so when I plug my Polestar in, my Home Assistant sends me a text message to my phone,
which goes, oh, your Polestar just started charging, and it will be finished at this time.
Now I could open the app and see that, but I like the fact that I've got an automation doing it,
because like I say, I'm nerd level 3000. And so I don't mind paying for that.
But for Nissan, just to say, I got two weeks left for turning it off. That's difference. Now,
if it's technology that like the 2G network closed down here for the really, really old connected
cards, that could be, okay, so we're going to take the dashboard out, put a 3G, 4G, 5G card in.
It's going to be 200 or 300 pounds. It's like at a dealer, whatever the service bulletin is on that.
It's going to be this many minutes, always one hour. That's then a decision that a car owner
would have to take, wouldn't you? You'd have to go, okay, so am I going to, like Tesla has had for
years? Am I going to upgrade it at the dealer? But you should have the option, Nissan. Come on.
You've got to pay for the option. That's not okay just to switch it off with two weeks notice.
Anyway, it's another thing with the move to EV that hasn't been
fully thought through in terms of all the consequences. Not as if we're making it up as
we go along, but there's a lot of stuff that's still TBC. And I love talking about it with
you and discussing it. And that's your podcast for today. Thanks for listening. Thanks to our
premium partners, National Car Charging on the US mainland and the Low Heart Charge in Hawaii,
and Test EV, Avalu's trusted partner for independent EV battery health testing in
Australia and New Zealand. Have a good one. See you tomorrow for a brand new week. And remember,
there's no such thing as a self-charging hybrid.
About this episode
Used EV leases in the US are set to surge in 2026 as over 300,000 vehicles return from lease, creating a growing market for affordable used electric cars. Global EV sales dipped 11% year-over-year in February, with Europe showing growth while China and North America declined. Honda has canceled several US EV launches, signaling a shift back to hybrids amid regulatory rollbacks. BYD is introducing ultra-fast charging technology in Europe with its new Denzer Z9 GT. In Germany, a court ruling will open motorway EV charging to competition, potentially improving infrastructure and service. The UK is trialing vehicle-to-grid tech to feed energy back into the grid.
