With no end in sight to one of the weirdest trade wars in history, we’re bound to see prior norms uprooted, old ties severed, and new alliances formed. Case in point: A new report claims that Honda might use batteries made by Toyota in North Carolina to limit the impact of proposed blanket tariffs.
At the same time, Chinese automaker BYD just unveiled an electric car that can charge about as quickly as it takes to fill up the tank of a gasoline-powered car, California’s electric vehicle HOV lane perk might be coming to an end, and Ford just facelifted a 34-year-old vehicle. Think buccal fat removal, but for a van. All this coming up on today’s edition of The Morning Dump.
Honda Might Use Toyota Batteries To Avoid Tariffs
By now, we’ve covered how potential tariffs can make entire vehicles more expensive along with little parts to make cars, but what about major powertrain components like hybrid batteries? Well, on-shoring might need to happen quickly, and Nikkei Asia reports that Honda will soon get American-made batteries from Toyota to put into its U.S.-market hybrid models like the Civic, Accord, and CR-V as a way of mitigating tariff risks. As the newspaper wrote, “Starting in fiscal 2025, Honda will take in batteries for approximately 400,000 vehicles, enough for all of the HVs it sells in the country.”
This tracks with Toyota’s timeline for its North Carolina battery plant, which is slated to open in April. The plant is expected to have 14 battery production lines for hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric models, so it makes sense for Honda to tap Toyota for any potential excess capacity.
It’s also worth noting that cars like the Civic, CR-V, and Accord aren’t just seriously popular, they also sit on the more affordable end of the new car spectrum, which means consumers would certainly feel any pass-through of tariffs into final retail prices. Even on models made Stateside, the effect of these proposed tariffs could be profound, as the Nikkei reports.
Honda estimates that 25% reciprocal tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods could cost the company around $4.7 billion annually. The company plans to shift some production from Canada and Mexico to the U.S. and restructure its supply chain to minimize the impact on its business.
Considering a prior Reuters report that Honda might keep Civic production in Indiana to avoid tariffs, it seems like the Japanese automaker is taking some heavy proactive measures to avoid the potential impact of a prolonged trade war. While we still have yet to see what effect this has on models made in Canada and Mexico, I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn soon enough.
BYD Might’ve Just Fixed Charging Times
Even in 2025, one of the worst parts of the electric vehicle experience is DC fast charging. It’s improved substantially from the early days of supplying just 50 kW, but even at up to 350 kW, it’s nowhere near as fast as filling up a combustion-powered car. After all, I just pumped half a tank into a Cayenne GTS in about four minutes, and that’s a reasonably large tank. Well, it seems that the nut of ultra-fast charging might’ve been cracked. Chinese automaker BYD just unveiled a platform that can charge at 1,000 kW, and it comes with a series of bold promises.
The new 1,000-volt, 1,000-amp Super e-Platform features a higher nominal voltage than anything we get in North America, batteries with a 10C rating, and a new electric drive unit that can crank out 777 horsepower all on its own. With the right charger, BYD claims models on this architecture like the “Han L” can add 249 miles of range in just five minutes of charging. On paper, that’s nearly ICE car fast, but there are a few catches.
Let’s start with that claim of adding 249 miles of range in five minutes. That’s likely on China’s economy testing cycle, so it wouldn’t directly translate to 249 miles of range as we know it under EPA test procedures. It’s also quite likely that due to differences in rolling resistance and drag, not all future models will add precisely 249 miles of range in five minutes. As ever, your mileage may vary.
However, the bigger catch is infrastructure. Even in China, Megawatt chargers aren’t exactly everywhere, and BYD doesn’t have a firm timeline on its rollout of 4,000 DC fast charging stations that can take full advantage of this new platform. It’s worth noting that many cases of range anxiety are really cases of infrastructure anxiety, and while the capability of charging at 1,000 kW is cool, spotty charger availability will put some limitations on the technology for now. However, it’s cool to think that in a decade, we could see 1,000 kW DC fast charging out there to add an LA to Vegas trip-worth of juice to a car in just a handful of minutes.
EV HOV Lane Access Is In Limbo
If you live in California, you’ve probably been tempted by the EV perk of single-occupant carpool lane access. I certainly can’t blame you, because those little stickers could be your ticket to get home sooner, which means less time in rush hour and more time to do the things you want to do in life. It’s a great little incentive, but it’s one that might be coming to an end. As Automotive News reports:
The federal statute says public authorities can allow use of carpool lanes by single-occupancy vehicles meeting certain conditions until Sept. 30. California legislators want to extend the window, but lawmakers in Washington, D.C., have yet to introduce a bill or otherwise move to authorize an extension.
On the one hand, I can understand sunsetting the incentive since zero emission vehicles made up 25.3 percent of all new cars sold in California last year, and a whopping 194,486 Clean Air Vehicle decals were issued. Once you hit that level of market penetration, there’s a good chance taking the HOV lane might not always be faster with so many vehicles eligible to access it. As California Air Resource Board air pollution specialist John Swanton told Automotive News:
“You’re going to reach some point where you’ve exhausted that excess capacity. We’re not at the point where, no matter what we do, it’s totally exhausted, but the challenge to our legislature is how to keep this a meaningful incentive.”
On the other, with many automakers readjusting their powertrain mixes and the federal government potentially cutting EV programs in the near future, is now the right time to end this program? Only time will tell, but for now, don’t count on an electric vehicle to get you through traffic faster beyond September. [Ed Note: My 2021 BMW i3 is eligible until September 30; is it worth trying to get those stickers for just 5 months of HOV access? -DT]
Not Dead Yet
I don’t know about you, but general news in these unprecedented times can be a bit exhausting, so here’s something that’s delightfully boring, The oldest current Ford just got a new grille.
Yes, the E-Series Cutaway van that debuted in 1992 has received the lightest of facelifts, with a subtle riff on Ford’s C-clamp grille that’s sure to go relatively unnoticed unless you really know what to look for. This is the E-Series’ first cosmetic update since 2008, and while it won’t move the needle spectacularly, the first time you see a 2026 E-Series Cutaway in the wild should be a mild delight.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
When it comes to post-hardcore bands, few have a repertoire quite as accomplished as that of Alexisonfire. From getting past the censors on “Open Mike” because nobody on the production team knew the words to “Pulmonary Archery” to one of the best House of Strombo performances ever, the St. Catharines, Ontario outfit has a catalog of banger after banger. In that discography, “Passing Out In America” is a weird one because it’s actually a Moneen cover. Are there technically better Alexisonfire songs out there? Absolutely, but for some reason I find myself drawn to this performance time and time again, perhaps due to its grand riffs and perhaps due to its lyrical poignancy. “I wanted to cry” indeed.
The Big Question
It’s been half a freaking decade since many of us were told to take two weeks off work and got some extra time to work on our project cars, so I want to know what you did with that unexpected free time. I ended up buying my 325i and helping a friend who used to live next door with a suspension rebuild on his Celica Supra, how about you?
Top graphic credit: Honda
Covid taught me to drink, on average, 5-6 high gravity beers every night of the week. I’m only now extricating myself from this horrible entitlement.
I did not achieve Steve Vai-levels of guitar greatness. Maybe SRV’s rhythm section.
I did not solve world hunger, but I did solve a really hard Simpsons puzzle that took 3 months.
I did not rehab my old car, but I should have. I’m doing it now (now that it’s too late to fix the clear coat damage and the plastics are mostly dust).
Yeah, I was just blaming covid for my current high levels of drinking as well. I don’t recall drinking nearly as much before, and I can’t understand why I am still drinking so much still.
Wait, I can understand it, it’s called “alcoholism”, and it’s a disease I now realize I have.
Step 1: complete
Noticing how much I spend on hooch has kept me from having to go through the rest of the steps.
I think it was when I had my local brewery make a second delivery in the same week (probably 3 months into the pandemic) that my wife and I went “hey, uhhhhhh, I don’t think we’re supposed to be seeing our bartender on our front porch more often than people had milk delivered in the 40’s”.
Wow, brewery delivery?! I would have fallen SO far off the wagon. It’s bad enough that all of our major grocery stores (and the small/fancy ones) all tend to have really good beers.
Once I switched to HG seltzers I took a look down and said to myself “This isn’t even enjoyable, this is just self-medication.” I had just told myself it was healthier because of the lower carbs. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
But that Simpsons puzzle is glued and framed!
It’s really easy to buy a lot of craft beer in the name of supporting local business when you know the owners and most of the people who work there lol. Also, the beer is great.
I also subscribe to the premise that if I’m drinking something that I don’t enjoy, I probably need to reassess, lol.
We live in a denser neighborhood and were able to spread out our purchases amongst three different grocery stores to minimize clerk judgement.
The clerks all know the regulars. Maybe they judge but you are one of many they see all the time.
Heck, I was at a concert and the local beer store clerks recognized one of my buddies who would stop for 4-6 950ml cans of Steeler every night.
Can we not do the historic hyperbole’s of ‘most this’, or ‘strangest that’, as in one of the weirdest trade wars in history. Not saying it’s not weird and all but we literally can’t have mini-trucks because we were selling too many chickens overseas…like, that’s pretty weird right there. We also overthrew the previous government due to something about taxes on tea or some such, so maybe just say things are weird right now, not ‘in history’, cause when it comes to America and historical craziness, we’ve got a lot of it.
During covid I got my factory electric Ford Ranger and it was really strange to think back on buying a truck sight unseen off Ebay, having it transported from the west coast to NC, then actually getting in a 25 year old EV and testing to see how far it would actually go after having bought it. Also it needed lots of, and constant rattle can paint fixing up as I’m not paying double what I paid for the truck to have it done proper.
We went straight into working remote at our usual work hours doing the exact same things we did in the office so no extra free time for me. It was just more of the same but at home instead of in the office
We did 2 months of on-a-week, off-a-week, never going into the office. In the 4 weeks I worked, I designed an XYZ stage (I worked in linear motion at the time) mechanics, and wrote the control software (GUI) for it.
This was for a machine to do COVID testing. Each XYZ stage cost $10k, as cost was no option due to COVID money a flowin. Customer never used any of the 10 assemblies I delivered.
I still have one sitting on the shelf at home.
I’m so glad that BS is over.
That said, I was fired last year, and out of work for 3 months. Easily the worst 3 months of my life, despite having “all the time in the world”. Nothing is worse than being laid off as the prime income source in the house. I spent all my time trying to find a job, stressed out. It sucked.
I can only imagine where those 200,000+ federal workers are at mentally right now. Not a good place. I hope the best of all of you.
Ditto, and I think I was only out of a job for 2 months. Even after that relatively short a time I was going crazy watching money leave my account with none coming in.
The only silver lining for me during that time was that I didn’t set an alarm for about 3 months (I had a month notice before I was technically laid off, but at that point I was obviously checked out of the job), so I was actually caught up on my sleep for possibly the only time in my adult life.
The rest of the “funemployment” stuff I didn’t do because I either didn’t want to spend any extra money or I didn’t want to risk injury doing free stuff like biking. A big medical bill at that time would have suuuuucked.
And I had basically a full-time job searching for a new job. I spent at least 8 hours a day every day working on my resume, LinkedIn, networking with every acquaintance I could, writing applications, etc. Luckily it paid off, but it was pretty soul-crushing. It definitely changed my perspective on corporations in a permanent way.
I was WFH, then got layoff after a few weeks from the initial lockdown. My husband he is a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Room, he was dealing with covid patients. I took care of the household chores and kids, I didnt had a job for 9 months, best 9 months of my recent years.
I negotiated a better contract and position after the 9 months period with the same company. After that I started with my car purchases lol
I never got time off. Not a day.
I did go remote for an extensive period of time though, and used that time to work myself to the bone in order to justify permanent WFH status. I got more work done in that time than I ever have. I basically gave my employer the time I’d normally be commuting.
Did it work out? No. Apparently old people and conservatives hate WFH, so they forced me and everyone else back in here because they didn’t trust any of us. Where, ironically, I’m typing this very comment.
I’m still waiting for my ‘Free Time/Nothing To Do’….
We went to WFH briefly, but workload did not change. If anything, it got worse because everything became more dysfunctional.
Oh, I guess I did get a week off when I caught the 2nd round Covid via my wife, via her employer’s mandatory all hands on-site ‘end of qtr Rah Rah’ meeting.
I was instructed to begin wfh effective immediately. Which for my role meant I had to remote into lab computers to do my work. The remote connection made it feel a bit like operating the computer from 10ft away using a broomstick to operate the mouse.
I sure could use 2 weeks off. We were still going with partial furloughs and most everyone working remote except the people in the labs and anyone else who couldn’t do their work outside the office. But during that time I did rebuild my gaming laptop that fried in ’18 (right outside the warranty), and now I need to retire that thing since its 9 years old
I was 60% remote, so when the pandemic hit we went full remote. I never went back. I didn’t get anything done on any vehicles but I rode my motorcycles a lot more.
I got furloughed shortly after that two week period, which lasted five months. During that time I tore apart my GT6 engine in preparation for a rebuild once the money started flowing again.
You got two weeks off? I was told that I was disposable and to keep working
The place I worked in 2020 stayed open, so I still had to come in occasionally, but I’ve mostly been WFH since, including through a job change in 2022.
My wife works in health care, so she was still going in every day.
I had my two boys home with me, aged almost 3 and 7 months, so needless to say not much work was getting done until day care reopened later that summer.
On the other hand, a group of guys who used to go out for a couple beers after work set up a recurring “bar night from home” meeting on MS Teams every afternoon that ended up being pretty fun for several months.
More apropos to this site, I used my stimmies and all the money saved on gas to go on kind of a vehicle buying binge during 2020-21 (Polaris Ace in March of ’20, ’72 Blazer in June of ’20, new Sienna in October ’20, ’70 Blazer in March ’21, 996 project in May ’21).
The irony of using money saved on gas to go out and buy two 1970’s Blazers is delicious.
Better use of $$ at that.
I’d prefer something safer and less stinky.
This probably goes without saying but neither is a daily driver (in fact, neither can drive at all at the moment)
That does help somewhat.
Oh man, it’s been a hot minute since I listened to Alexisonfire.
I still remember their beginnings of fame, seeing them mis-labeled on MUCH Music: “Pulmonary Academy by Alex is on Fire”
Thanks for the trip back to my teen years!
I was in the office the whole time. And some of my job for the first bit of it was to ensure that people coming into the office were supposed to be (we had a quarantine period after travel and some people did not want to wait). It was really nice to have a lot fewer people in the buildings, though.
I changed roles in the company around the time that the vaccine was becoming commonplace, and I ended up with a couple weeks of working from home when I caught the virus (post-vaccine, so it was really minor). I was not properly set up for working from home, so most of my time was spent trying to make the VPN work how I needed it to.
With Chinese build quality the way it is, how many times can you charge a battery that fast and not expect something to fail catastrophically?
Regardless of who makes the battery, regular fast charging shaves a lot of life off the cells on all current battery tech (jury is out on solid state, we’ll see if that changes the game).
“Results show no statistically significant difference in range degradation between Teslas that fast charge more than 90% of the time and those that fast charge less then 10% of the time.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/05/study-reveals-effects-of-fast-charging-on-electric-car-battery-health/
The results on the linked page are images, which are not loading, so It’s difficult to understand if the author’s summaries of the data are accurate. Assuming the study results are repeatable, this means Tesla battery management and cooling systems do a good job in protecting their cells.
BMSs in other vehicles may not. I would be reluctant to fast-charge vehicles using pouch-cell technology, such as the GM Ultium, without learning how those battery packs hold up to frequent fast charging.
This new pack uses a new version of their blade (prismatic) battery cells. Given the prevalence of AC home chargers in China, and the fact that the cars it’s in are not super nice but have luxury prices and use 1500V semiconductors for a 580kW 30,000RPM motor, I have higher confidence that they didn’t cheap out on BMS/cooling and that the batteries will last.
The actual story isn’t so cut and dry
Of the over 13,000 Teslas in the survey, 344 of them were classified as “frequent fast chargers” which they denoted as fast charging more than 70% of the time.
Also, 90% of the cars are 2018 or newer, so the data isn’t clear on the long term picture. Considering the average car on the road is what? 14 years old?
Finally, they sum it up at the bottom saying the degradation effects aren’t clear enough and that “fast charging should be fine in small doses”.
I was a diesel tech for a local transit agency and my spouse is an RN that was working the ER at the time.
Safe to say, we saw no change in our work schedules.
Speaking of safety, anyone who wants to have 1000V architecture chargers and EVs here better read up on NFPA 70e (Or CSA Z462-12 if you’re in Canada, which is based on 70e).
It’ll be EXPENSIVE to set up places and train/protect staff to work on them. China, I’m assuming, has looser standards about working with high voltage.
Around here nurses were living in parking lot RVs because they couldn’t go home.
We’re fortunate enough that it never got that bad in our area. But she got VERY sick of listening to conspiracies after spending day after day with boardrooms and hallways filled with any patients that didn’t need to be on a ventilator.
Will safety practices for 1000V chargers be significantly different than the currently prevalent 400 & 800V ones?
The distance for approach boundaries changes at 750v. There’s also a requirement for more PPE and a few other things that I have to look up before I mis-quote.
I guess that means that they’ll be just as expensive as current 800V stations (by US/Canada standards at least). FWIW, these particular stations will be using 1-2 on-site BESS cabinets. Does the abnormally high amperage (1000A vs typical ~500A) affect anything on this front?
Since it’s usually electricians doing the chargers, less there. It’s the vehicle maintenance bays that will be very expensive if done correctly. I suspect a lot of shops will take shortcuts until techs start getting BBQ’d.
Ooooh vehicle maintenance. I wonder if NA market automakers will take advantage of the fact that 800V-class cars are usually a bit below that number (the Ioniq 5 is 679V) and intentionally not exceed 749V. Or, shops may learn their safety lessons handling less deadly hybrid batteries before it becomes a problem.
It was 10 months for me. I rented a car and drove around the country aimlessly. The joys of being single with no responsibilites
At the point of the big pause 5 years ago, I was still in college, taking several 3000 level engineering classes, and the extra week of spring break was nice, but the university mismanaging communication, professors power tripping, and 3 In person lab classes becoming fully remote did not help that semester. I’m just grateful that I was able to get through it, get my degree on time, and get decent enough jobs since that have allowed me to play with cars and have a reasonable work-life balance. There were a few rough years in there due to the pandemic, but I’m ever thankful it’s behind me. I’m trying to cling to that fact in the light of the *everything* going on right now.
I had a bit more than 2 weeks off, but I used it to do the timing belt and water pump on my ’91 Miata, and install the supercharger I bought back in 2018 while I was in there.
I did the same thing! Major service on my 94 M-Edition (sans the supercharger)… in 110 degree heat in my garage. Had to do it twice since I kinked the O ring on the back of the water neck.
RE The big question: I had to show up to work every day during the lockdown as I was deemed essential, even though I essentially did absolutely nothing at work during those months. In my spare time I enjoyed the outdoors, going hiking, biking, and lots and lots of drinking with my work buddies as we were told to keep our contact circle as low as possible.
Same for me on the work front. The first month was just me telling most of my installers there was no work. Then when we were told retail operations could continue because we were considered “construction,” it was slow at first, but the business came back in a big way. I remember hearing in May of ’20 that a couple of our retail salesmen hadn’t had a day off since the end of March. People were stuck at home, and decided that they needed an upgrade. it was bonkers!
You mean they made Matt take some time off? Good!
I took a couple days off to work on my MGB with my son when he came to visit 🙂
I can’t remember the last time I took 2 weeks off all at the same time
The first few Alexisonfire albums were great. Despite being local to me I somehow never saw them in their prime. I should have seen them in Thunder Bay when they were playing down the street from where I was working. Also realizing that was 20 years ago.
Also, my dentist is their drummers godfather.
I’m so over this tariff stuff, I hope whoever voted for this a$$ hat is getting what they paid for:
Automaker’s in chaos (Tesla Included) – Check
Slowing economy – Check
Stock market in decline – Check
Airlines bookings down – Check
Retirement portfolios in decline – Check
US reputation in toilet – check
Need I list more?
So much winning!
Oh wait.
I shutter to think of how much worse it could have been with Kamala.
I think you’re probably “blind” to Trump’s faults. It’s certainly “curtains” for our reputation.
Good job throwing shade.
In America we say Shudder…
Shutters go on a house.
“I hope whoever voted for this a$$ hat is getting what they paid for”
Which, ironically, would be no pay.