The Ford Bronco Sport is a compact SUV that’s designed to feel more adventure-focused than a typical city SUV. The podcast mentions it because a new vehicle is expected to compete for the same kind of buyers. That’s why Bronco Sport comes up in the story.
Driver-assist technology is a set of features that helps the driver, like warning you or helping with steering/braking. It’s not the same as a fully self-driving car, and investigators want to understand whether it was active.
NHTSA is the U.S. government agency responsible for vehicle safety. In this story, it’s investigating a crash to understand what happened with the car’s driver-assist features.
The Tesla Model Y is an electric SUV that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. The podcast brings it up because there was an accident involving a Tesla in the Houston area. That’s why the specific model matters in the story.
The Tesla Model 3 is an electric car. Here, it’s brought up because investigators are looking at whether a driver-assist feature was being used during a serious crash.
Company
X
X is a social media site. The Tesla executive posted there about whether the driver-assist feature was actually turned on during the crash.
The Honda Element is a quirky, practical Honda that’s famous for being easy to live with. Here they’re saying it didn’t sell in huge numbers because the rear doors were designed in a way that made getting to the back seat more awkward.
“Clam shell” rear doors are doors that open outward in a way that exposes the back area. In the Honda Element, that door design makes it harder to get to the back seats compared with normal doors.
“Suicide style” is a nickname for a door opening setup where the door swings out in a less typical way. They’re using it here to explain why the Honda Element’s rear doors made getting in and out of the back seat feel awkward.
Removable rear seats can be taken out so the back of the car becomes more like an open cargo area. On the Honda Element, that helps with hauling bulky items and setting up easier access for things like wheelchairs.
A B-pillar is the vertical metal post between the front and rear doors. If there’s no B-pillar, the side opening is wider and easier to use for getting in and out or moving a wheelchair.
A cargo bed is the open storage area in the back of the vehicle where you put items. In this case, it’s described as part of a setup that lets you place a ramp for wheelchair access.
The Honda CR-V is one of Honda’s most common family crossovers. In this discussion, it’s the reference point for how much the Element should cost, and they also mention the two could be built on similar underpinnings—so Honda would need to make the Element feel meaningfully different.
The Honda HR-V is positioned as the smaller step in Honda’s crossover lineup, and the host is describing where a revived Element would sit in the range. The idea is that the Element would be priced above the HR-V but below the CR-V.
A “platform” is the main underlying structure a car is built on. If two models share the same platform, they can be made more efficiently—but the company has to make the cars feel different so people don’t see them as basically the same.
Body cladding is the outer trim pieces on a car’s body. They can change the look and also help protect the body, and here they’re being discussed as a way to make the Element feel different from the CR-V.
Cannibalization means one model starts taking sales from another model in the same brand. Here, Honda would want the Element to look and feel different enough that it doesn’t just replace CR-V sales.
LIVE
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Welcome to Daily Drive for Wednesday, June 24th, 2026.
I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.
Today on the show, Honda is bringing the element back as a hybrid.
An industry group says California could see vehicle sales halt
as soon as next week.
And NHTSA is taking another look at Tesla's driver assist tech
after a deadly crash.
Plus, Carney partner Cushall Fernandez
on why the drum chip shortage squeezing automakers
is unlike anything the industry has seen before.
There isn't consumer demand that is driving memory demand.
It is an infrastructure build out that is driven by very well
capitalized AI companies who are in effect in an arms race.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up
in the auto industry.
Honda is bringing back the element.
This time as a hybrid, the automaker plans to begin production
of the revived element crossover at its Ohio plant
in the second quarter of 2029.
It's targeting nearly 100,000 sales in its first full year.
That's according to people with knowledge of the plan
who spoke with us at Automotive News.
Slotting between the HRV and CRV, the boxy utility vehicle
is expected to take aim at Ford Bronco Sport Buyers.
We'll have more on this story in a minute with our own Irvash Kakaria.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation is warning that
automakers may halt new and used vehicle sales in California
as soon as July 1.
That's unless the state delays a vehicle tracking law tied
to domestic violence protections.
The Alliance represents GM, Toyota, Hyundai, and most other automakers.
It says some elements of the 2024 law are impossible to comply with this year,
including in vehicle technology changes that require extensive
engineering across multiple makes, models, and model years.
California accounts for roughly 10% of all U.S. auto sales.
And federal regulators are once again taking a closer look
at Tesla's driver assist technology.
NHTSA has opened a special crash investigation
into a June 19 incident near Houston,
where a Tesla Model 3 slammed into a brick home at high speed,
killing a woman inside.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office says the driver reported using
a driver assist system at the time.
But Tesla's head of AI said in a post on X
that the system wasn't engaged without providing evidence.
And those are today's headlines.
You can find more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com.
Joining me now to talk more about the revived Honda element
is our own Irvash Kakaria, Atlanta Bureau Chief here at Automotive News,
who broke the story for us.
Irvash, welcome back to Daily Drive.
Hi, Kel. Thanks for having me back.
All right, Irvash.
So the Honda element had a cult following,
but it wasn't a big volume driver.
Why is that?
Yeah, so the element was a niche model.
And like many niche models, it had this core base of enthusiasts.
But the amount, the number of enthusiasts wasn't very large.
It didn't really have broad appeal.
And the reason for that primarily was,
even though it technically had four doors,
it was really a two door vehicle because of its clam shell rear doors.
So it basically, the two rear doors opened up suicide style.
And so that kind of made for an awkward door configuration.
The rear seat access was cumbersome,
so it was less practical for families,
which obviously are the biggest buyers of vehicles.
So while it's boxy design, the upright styling,
sort of the utilitarian approach with the washable floors,
the removable rear seats, all those things were very practical.
And it kind of made it a great car for younger buyers.
It didn't really have the broad appeal.
Also, the pricing was to some extent,
even though it was targeted at a youth audience,
the pricing was not very low.
So really the affordability was an issue.
And interestingly, according to some folks,
I've spoken with some dealers who used to sell the original element.
They said that even though the target audience was younger buyers,
they got a lot of interest from older people, people in wheelchairs,
people with mobility issues,
because they loved those clam shell rear doors.
There was no B-pillar.
So for them, it was easier for them to get in and out of the car.
The second seat was also removable,
so it led to a lot of cargo,
which allowed people to put their wheelchairs, for example.
And in the rear, the vehicle had a cargo bed,
which again, allowed for a ramp to be placed,
and that allowed easier access to sort of roll down a wheelchair
for the lack of a better tone.
Now, Irvash, how does Honda more successfully target the youth market
with the revival and differentiate from the CR-V?
Yeah, so for Honda, and for the element to succeed,
Honda really must develop this vehicle
to be a true 4-door vehicle with easy rear access
while retaining the boxy upright styling
and the strong utility that made it special.
The other thing they have to do is get the pricing in line.
It cannot be much more than the CR-V,
so this is positioned between the HR-V and the CR-V.
So ideally, this vehicle should be priced under 30,000,
but it's more likely going to be between 30,000 to 35,000,
given sort of the competitive pricing or the premium
that a brand like Honda typically commands.
Most importantly, it needs to keep doing what it did well,
but then it also needs to be more accessible to more people
with a rearranged, I guess, door design for one.
And then they also have to create sufficient differentiation
between the CR-V. Essentially, they're the same car.
They'll be sharing the same platform as the CR-V.
The element will be, but the body cladding
needs to be distinct enough so that there's less cannibalization.
Perfect. Irvash, thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker.
Yesterday on the show, we talked about the drum chip shortage hitting automakers.
Prices are up roughly 450% in just four months.
With GM, Ford, and Honda, each reporting hundreds of millions in losses.
Today, we go deeper.
Carney just released a new report on the shortage and the firm's conclusion is striking.
This isn't the typical boom and bust cycle the chip industry has seen before.
It's a structural reallocation of supply driven by AI companies in an arms race for computing power.
It says relief is still years away.
Our own Molly Boygon sat down with Carney partner Cushall Fernandez to break it all down.
Here's a piece of that conversation.
Cushall Fernandez, a partner at Carney.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks, Molly. Great to be here.
So, Carney just released this new report about the memory chip shortage and specifically a shortage for
DRAM. I wonder if you can speak to one of the findings in the report,
which is that you all said that this shortage is a structural reallocation of supply.
It's not like other shortages that have happened in the past in this space.
Can you explain that a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely. So, the memory industry over the last two decades has been,
and even longer, has been characterized by a classic boom and bust cycle where prices go up
and then they fall dramatically due to excess capacity in the market.
Now, this time is different for three reasons.
Number one is those cycles in the past have been driven by consumer demand,
which is not really growth but pull forward of demand.
So, we saw this most recently during COVID where people were working from home and if you
needed equipment or you were in the market anyway for the new device, you pull that forward.
And so, therefore, there was this rise up in demand and certainly obviously then there were
shortages, prices go up and so on and that cycle repeats itself. Soon after that,
because that demand has been satisfied, volumes go down and so on.
This time it's different because it isn't consumer demand that is driving memory demand.
It is an infrastructure build out that is part of a mega capex cycle driven by very well-capitalized
AI companies who are in effect in an arms race and are spending to build up infrastructure as
quickly as possible and memory is a key part of that. So, the nature of the demand being sustained
this time is fundamentally different from any of the previous cycles that we've seen
and it is also being concentrated in the hands of a few big companies.
So, that's reason number one. Reason number two is the type of memory that is being consumed by
these AI companies is more wafer intensive. So, effectively the capacity that is available goes
down because of the type of memory that is being bought by these AI companies. It's called HBM,
which is high bandwidth memory and essentially for the same one gigabyte of HBM, you need three to
four times the wafer as you would for one gigabyte of conventional DRAM and so it's a double negative
in A, they're demanding a lot of it and B, they're demanding something that just consumes more
wafer. So, this is the second reason. The third reason is that shifting over to the supply sites,
the supply, this is a heavily concentrated market, there are only three suppliers of DRAM
in the world that are globally accepted and those are two Korean companies Samsung and
SK Hynex in one American company Micron and they've been remarkably disciplined in how they are
handling this situation in terms of adding capacity. You would expect to have seen a flurry of
announcements or new capacity additions but that has not been to the same extent as we did
during the COVID shortage, we saw the CHIPS Act and things like that, granted as to how much of
that has actually materialized but there were at least announcements. There is some of that,
there is capacity coming online but none of that is in the near term, it's two years out and obviously
the timeline to establish new capacity and new clean rooms and tool them up and get them to
mass production is also true to three years. So, this isn't something that is going to happen in
the near time. So, for those reasons, three reasons it is a structural change, it's a reallocation
of where the memory is going to buyers who were previously maybe 10%, 15% of the market to now
being half of the market and on the other side we're seeing a different having been burned
several times in the past, suppliers are not eager to add capacity and actually recognize that this
is not a short term cycle, this is a long term cycle and they are making handsome margins.
Wouldn't you think then because they're understanding that this is not a regular boom and
bust cycle that actually it's sort of a different situation from the boom and bust during COVID,
you know the investment in fab capacity during COVID and the subsequent oversupply,
I guess I wonder if that's the right decision by those manufacturers to avoid
bringing significant capacity online given that the cycle is different this time.
Yes and no, I think there are a few differences between the memory supply chain and other
semiconductor logic supply chain. For one thing, the fabulous foundry model and contract
manufacturing model that exists in other parts of semiconductor do not exist in memory,
all of the memory players are vertically integrated, so not only do they develop the
technology, they also manufacture it and so A, there's a capital barrier but there's also
a learning curve, IP technology barrier that also exists here. So, the threat of new entrance is
not non-existent and obviously as margins and cash flows in the business improve,
it certainly attracts other players and there are players in China that have some capability
and certainly will look at the current financial environment as a good place to make investments
in. So, I think there's certainly that one angle of it is not easy for new entrants to come in,
there's a high barrier to entry or as people use the word today, a pretty significant mode
for memory companies. The second element to it is I think there is certainly while they do believe
that this is going to be durable, you don't want to get into a market share race with your other
because that's what happens is if I make supply, expand supply aggressively, others will, the other
then find yourself in a situation of over capacity and it's a lose-lose. So, I think they're being
careful about how much they add being a little more controlled for the, from their point of view,
the greater good of all three of them and I think you could just as easily be in a situation,
I mean it's not that people are unsure of the durability of the cycle but there are obviously
complications in the way the AI industry is structured with a lot of the circularity of
investments and so on. So, obviously that is the singular thing that is sustaining this but,
you know, is it and is likely to continue for years given the CAPEX outlays but
it is not immune to risk or shocks. So, I think they're being cautious in how they think about
capacity additions. That makes sense. The report also outlines, it's expected that the shortage
is basically going to get worse before it gets better and then there you outlined a constrained
and a surplus scenario and there were a couple of wild card factors that could shift the timing or
could drive things in one direction or the other. Can you talk about those wild card factors? What
are they and how will they influence supply? Yeah, I mean outside of the overall, you know,
durability as I said of the cycle and of all of the CAPEX and just the economy as a whole,
the two factors are one model efficiency. So, as AI models continue to get better and they can then
use less memory, algorithms are designed to kind of and again, you know, necessity is the mother
fall invention and you can be sure that given the constraints that are on the hardware side and
hardware supply chain today, one way to address them is to look at how efficiently we can use
this resource. And so, as models continue to get efficient, there will be, you know,
potentially reduced memory requirements, but that could be counterbalanced by the fact that as
things get more efficient, they also get consumed more in terms of total demand or uptake or volume.
So, that's one wild card factor. The second, I mean, I would say it's a bit of the deep seek
moment that happened, you know, a year and a half ago where folks suddenly saw that you could have
great performance without using Nvidia GPUs or, you know, a lot of Nvidia GPUs at least. The
second one would be the China factor. There are two players in China that are memory suppliers.
They are not globally accepted for several factors or several reasons, but the Chinese
market is large enough for them to serve. The margins today on memory are attractive enough
for them to invest in R&D and capability. And while they may not necessarily be at the leading edge
of memory, there's enough of a market for them to serve in China and automotive products, industrial
products, consumer electronic products that do not necessarily need bleeding edge technology
where there's a lot of volume. And so, them getting more pervasive in China and be them
potentially having access to more international markets could alleviate the situation simply by
adding capacity to the market. Carney partner Kushal Fernandez spoke with our own Molly Boygon.
That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to automotive news executive
producer Jake Nier as well as our owner Irvash Kakaria for his reporting for today's podcast.
You can get the latest news on the drum chip shortage, the Honda element revival,
and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow for a
conversation with automotive news Asia editor Hans Grimel about the unrest at Nissan's
shareholder meeting this week. There was a lot to complain about and they weren't shy in letting
the management know about it. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the show
and the topics we covered today. Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com or leave us a voicemail
at 313-444-2774. And if you enjoy the podcast, remember to like, leave a review and subscribe
so you never miss an episode.
About this episode
Honda is bringing the Element back as a hybrid, with production planned at its Ohio plant in 2029—plus a look at why the original became a cult favorite thanks to its clam shell rear doors and no B-pillar design. The show also covers NHTSA’s special investigation into a Tesla Model 3 crash near Houston, where the driver reportedly used driver assist. Then Carney’s Kushal Fernandez breaks down the “structural” DRAM chip crunch tied to AI infrastructure, HBM demand, and long lead times.
