Honda EVs Could Use Software To Replicate The Sensation Of Driving ICE Cars

Honda’s upcoming ‘0 Series’ EVs will feature software allowing them to simulate engine noise, shifting and even vibrations in order to try and recapture some ICE magic

Mike Bartholomew

11 Oct 2024

If there’s one reason, above all others, the car enthusiast community hasn’t quite embraced electric cars yet, it’s that their very nature means they don’t give us that same tingling sensation as a good ICE car. You press a pedal and go, and everything is very quiet and smooth and undramatic. Honda, it would seem, wants to change that.

Car and Driver recently attended a media event and drove some prototypes with tech set to feature in the brand’s upcoming 0 Series electric cars, which it plans on spearheading a global EV push within the coming years.

One of these features is pretty eye-catching from an enthusiast's perspective: a mode that aims to recreate the sensation of various Honda performance cars from the past. This goes beyond some synthesised engine noise – although that features and is apparently fairly realistic – as it also changes the car’s digital gauge cluster to mimic that of the car the driver has selected.

The feature is also set to allow the paddles on the steering column, which would otherwise be used to adjust regenerative braking, to ‘shift’ through the car’s virtual ‘gears’. This is something already used to impressive effect on the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, but what we haven’t seen before is Honda’s implementation of vibration through the seats, which aims to recreate the imperfections of a combustion engine.

Honda 0 Series saloon concept - interior

C&D tried the system in a Honda E, and the menu showed options for an S2000, current-gen Civic Type R, CRX, original NSX-R and the hybrid NSX Type S. There was even what looks like a relatively modern F1 car and, hilariously, the company’s HondaJet private jet – that one apparently changes the gauge cluster to an aircraft’s yoke.

During their test, the CRX and F1 car were displayed as locked, and a Honda engineer said that the F1 car, at least, would be extra paid content, suggesting that some of these modes will be paywalled.

The various attempts to recreate ICE sensations in EVs so far have been a mixed bag, but software is only getting better, and there’s no reason it can’t be used to great effect to make you feel like you’re charging around in an original NSX-R, even if you’re in an electric hatchback. Reckon they’ll be able to recreate the feeling of VTEC kicking in, yo?

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.