Laughter and tears: Honda gives dealers wooden supports for servicing electric vehicles

Honda's North American division is preparing to launch sales of the Acura ZDX and Honda Prologue electric crossovers, developed in partnership with General Motors Corporation. To service these models, dealers are forced to purchase specific equipment with a total cost of about $30,000, and among the “tools,” as it turned out, are standard parts from a construction supermarket, for which Honda charges a steep markup.

The Acura ZDX and Honda Prologue are based on GM's modular Ultium platform. Just a year and a half ago, Honda and GM made grandiose plans to jointly develop the mass segment of the electric vehicle market, but last fall the promising alliance fell apart, so the ZDX and Prologue will apparently be its only fruits. Honda will develop new electric train models independently or in partnership with some other company. Why things didn’t work out with GM is not known for certain, however, the trail of cooperation with GM will last for a long time.

Acura ZDX

Recently, messages from American Honda dealers appeared on social networks, showing a special tool for servicing new electric vehicles in the form of two wooden beams with the article number 07AAK-KHZA100 — the company says that they need to be placed between the lithium-ion battery and other tools used for dismantling and moving the battery. Simply put, wood is needed to prevent the battery from being damaged by metal tools and forklift forks. Wooden supports cost $180, while similar timber from the supermarket costs $10 — in general, it is understandable why dealers are indignant and share their dissatisfaction on social networks.

By the way, Honda is far from the first to use cheap parts from the supermarket in its technological operations — a couple of years ago Tesla was caught doing this .

Chevrolet Blazer EV

Meanwhile, we are expecting the start of sales of Acura ZDX and Honda Prologue in 2024 There are other troubling news as well. GM has just stopped sales of the Chevrolet Blazer EV electric crossover that launched last fall due to widespread failures in electronics and battery charging, and the Chevrolet Blazer EV is a direct relative of the Acura ZDX and Honda Prologue. Similar problems are observed in other, larger GM models on the Ultium platform, which indicates that it is, so to speak, damp. Now GM is urgently trying to solve the problem and it is not yet clear how long it will take — no matter how they now have to postpone the launch of the Acura ZDX and Honda Prologue.