Honda 0 Saloon and Honda 0 SUV Prototype World Premiere at CES 2025 – Technocrat

The company also introduced its own vehicle operating system (OS), ASIMO OS, which will be used in EV families globally.

■ Honda 0 Saloon

At last year’s CES event, the study model was presented, on the basis of which the prototype of the Honda 0 Saloon was developed, thus enabling its market introduction in 2026. The prototype, which completely faithfully preserves the design of the study model, is characterized by the low design and sporty style that distinguish the Saloon model from other electric vehicles, as well as a more spacious interior than expected based on the external dimensions.

The Honda 0 Saloon, the flagship of the Honda 0 Series, is based on a newly developed targeted EV architecture and features a number of “Slim, light and wise” offers next-generation technology embodying a development approach.

At the 2025 CES event, Honda will focus on showcasing some of the technologies that contribute to the Honda 0 Saloon’s ‘Wise’ value. These include highly reliable level 3 self-driving technology, the first in the world to be put into practice by Honda, as well as “ultra-personal optimization”, which offers a mobility experience tailored to each user, enabled by the ASIMO operating system.

The Honda 0 Saloon is scheduled to debut in the North American market in 2026, followed by global markets including Japan and Europe.

■ Honda 0 SUV

Based on the Space-Hub study model – presented at CES 2024 – which is designed for people based on the new values ​​of future electric vehicles “space” prioritizes – the company presented the prototype of the medium-sized electric SUV, which will be the first Honda 0 Series model. THE “Slim, light and wise” approach was used in this case in such a way that the interior space was increased even further – and the result is a spacious passenger compartment, with an exceptionally clear and unobstructed field of vision, and a high degree of flexibility.

In addition to a wide range of next-generation technologies, the Honda 0 SUV includes high-precision position estimation (determining the car’s spatial orientation) and stabilization control. It is based on the 3D gyroscopic sensors developed by Honda during the development of original robotics technologies and its task is to enable dynamics according to the driver’s will on different road surfaces.

The Honda 0 SUV is scheduled to debut in the North American market in the first half of 2026, followed by global markets including Japan and Europe.

■ ASIMO operating system

Honda 0 Series models are equipped with ASIMO OS, the original vehicle operating system developed by the Japanese company, which will be the core technology to realize the “Wise” approach of the global EV series.

The system’s namesake, ASIMO, was a self-driving humanoid robot that Honda developed as part of its basic technology research to help people while also coexisting with members of society. Honda began its robotics research and development in 1986, and then introduced ASIMO in 2000, which has become one of the iconic figures in robotics in the 2000s and 2010s, loved by people around the world.

After completing the development of ASIMO, Honda continued to improve its robotics technologies, including those that recognize the external environment and autonomous behavior control, which allows the robot to understand the intentions of the people around it. By combining the technologies provided by robotics with state-of-the-art intelligent solutions, the Honda 0 Series represents the company’s commitment to offer unique value for software-controlled vehicles (SDVs).

As a software platform, ASIMO OS will realize integrated control of electronic control units (ECUs) of vehicle systems such as self-driving/advanced driver assistance systems (AD/ADAS) and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI).

Through continuous online (OTA) updating of the control programs in the vehicle, the functions and services are further developed even after the purchase of the car in accordance with the preferences and needs of individual users. These include, for example, those that enhance the value of “space” and the digital user experience, thus ensuring a fun and comfortable mobility effect. Furthermore, the integrated dynamic control, because it is so characteristic of Honda, defines the joy of driving, allowing the pilot to become one with the vehicle.

■ Self-driving (AD, Automated Driving) technology

In 2021, Honda became the first car manufacturer to start using level 3 self-driving equipment in practice with the introduction of the all-new Legend equipped with the Honda SENSING Elite system, which can take control of the car from the driver in certain situations with conditional driving automation.

Honda developed the Honda SENSING Elite system to put this self-driving technology into practice, predicting all driving conditions and scenarios. It starts from the premise that, in addition to reducing the number of traffic accidents in society, Honda AD must completely eliminate traffic accidents that people believe could be “prevented by a human driver”.

The Japanese manufacturer believes that the widespread use of the “eyes-off” technology will lead to zero fatalities in collision traffic accidents in the future. Based on this belief, Honda aims to offer affordable self-driving vehicles to more customers around the world through the Honda 0 Series.

To this end, the Japanese company uses an original Honda AI technology that combines unsupervised learning with Helm.ai^*1 technology and the behavioral models of experienced drivers, which allow artificial intelligence to learn with a smaller amount of data and effectively expand the range of situations in which self-driving and driver support become available.

In addition, Honda applies its original cooperative artificial intelligence developed through research into humans and mobility to further improve the accuracy of cooperative behavior such as road priority, which is difficult even for a human driver. By applying these advanced technologies, Honda realizes an extremely reliable driving support system that can react quickly and correctly to unexpected situations, be it an animal running into the lane or an object falling onto the road.

Members of the Honda 0 Series will also be equipped with a system that will expand the range of driving conditions where driver assistance and level 3 self-driving will be available. This expansion starts with eyes-off technology available in traffic jams on highways and will continue to evolve through OTA updates.

In Level 3 self-driving, the vehicle takes over, allowing the human driver to perform a “second task” while en route to their destination, such as watching a movie or joining a meeting remotely. Honda continues to develop its technologies and becomes the first car manufacturer to extend the “eyes-off” functions to all driving situations, opening up new opportunities for mobility.

■ Development of SoC for Honda 0 Series

Honda and Renesas Electronics Corporation (Renesas) announced an agreement to develop a high-performance System-on-Chip (SoC) system for future SDVs (Software Controlled Vehicles) that the company aims to achieve with the Honda 0 Series models ) is used to implement.

For next-generation models to be launched in the late 2020s, Honda will introduce a centralized E&E architecture that combines multiple ECUs responsible for controlling vehicle systems into a single central electronic control unit. It will be the heart of the SDV and will handle various vehicle systems such as AD/ADAS, powertrain control and convenience functions. For all of this, the ECU needs an SoC that provides more processing power than conventional systems while minimizing the increase in power consumption.

To meet these requirements, Honda and Renesas are developing a system that applies multi-die chiplet technology to Renesas’ generic fifth-generation (Gen 5) R-Car X5 SoC series and an AI software developed independently by Honda. for combining optimized AI accelerator. With this combination, the two companies aim to create a system that achieves one of the industry’s best AI performance of 2000 TOPS (Sparse) with an energy efficiency of 20 TOPS/W.

Honda press conference at CES 2025 (livestreaming/archive)