Best known for offering roadside assistance plans and TripTik travel maps in the days before GPS, the American Automobile Association (AAA) is still popular, claiming more than 60 million members in the US and Canada – and now, those members will be able to get preferred pricing at ChargePoint stations.

Established in 1902 by nine motor clubs with fewer than 1,500 members, AAA today boasts more than 60 million members. For their money, AAA members get discounts on auto insurance, hotel stays, and financial services.

“AAA’s first priority is serving our members,” said Bob Huffman, Director of Roadside Programs & Benefits for AAA. “By working with ChargePoint, we are able to provide resources and services to our clubs and service providers, so they are able to best assist our members when they need us most.”

This newest arrangement with ChargePoint offers yet another benefit for AAA road-trippers, but the initial press release is somewhat light on details. It explains only that deal covers Level 2 AC charging as well as Level 3 DC fast-charging stations AAA and CAA (Canadian Automobile Association) members in need of charging infrastructure can find more information at this link.

It’s not much, in the way of information. Still, when the nation’s largest auto club is talking about EVs, it feels like we’re moving in the right direction.

Electrek’s Take

Despite those impressive stats, if you’d asked me what I knew about AAA yesterday I would have told you a story about driving a Mosler Twinstar from Florida to Las Vegas in 22 hours using a AAA TripTik and guessed they’d closed up shop sometime in the last decade.

Alas, there seem to still be a healthy number of Baby Boomers still buying AAA memberships for college-age grandkids out there (the average age of members was 55 in 2014, and I assume it’s only gone up from there). Making them aware of EVs – and making the EVs even easier and cheaper to own – can only be a good thing.

SOURCE | IMAGES: ChargePoint.

Tesla has opened up Cybertruck leases in the US, and it is now offering free wraps, worth $6,000, on Foundation Series Cybertrucks, which Tesla is still stuck with.

The Cybertruck wasn’t mentioned once during Tesla’s last earnings call. CEO Elon Musk gave a long speech about the current state of the company and its future, and yet, he didn’t mention Tesla’s only new vehicle launched in the last 5 years.

That’s because the program has been quite disappointing.

Tesla had over 1 million reservations for the electric pickup truck and Musk said that it could see Tesla selling 500,000 units per year. Tesla built the capacity at Gigafactory Texas for a planned production of 250,000 units per year.

Yet, Tesla worked through its entire reservation backlog by selling fewer than 40,000 units, and now it is having problems selling what it currently has in inventory.

The automaker offered discounts, referral incentives, and free Supercharging for life to try to move the truck.

Now, Tesla has announced that it is launching Cybertruck leases in the US starting at $750 per month:

Leases are less profitable than outright purchases, so Tesla generally waits until demand is down before introducing them to new vehicles.

There are a few other things that could help the Cybertruck in 2025.

The electric pickup truck has become eligible for the federal tax credit. Tesla is also planning to release the cheaper RWD version of the Cyhbertruck later this year, which could increase demand, but it’s unclear by as much.

Tesla is also giving $1,000 off on the Cybertruck through its referral program.

But despite all these incentives, Tesla is having issues moving the Cybertruck. The automaker is still stuck with some Foundation Series Cybertrucks, and it announced this weekend that it is even offering free wraps to those buying inventory Foundation Series Cybertrucks.

That’s worth more than $6,000 in some cases.

We previously reported that Tesla even buffed out the Foundation Series badges on some Cybertrucks to sell them as regular trucks because it was having issues selling the more expensive and exclusive version of the electric pickup truck.

Electrek’s Take

Despite all these incentives, Tesla can’t move the Cybertruck. I am curious to see how many Tesla will be able to sell in 2025.

I’ve seen estimates as low as 30,000 units, which would be even lower than last year.

There are some at 100,000 units, and while I would not have doubted 6 months ago, now I think that’s high.

There’s plenty of room to start thinking of the Cybertruck vehicle program as a failure compared to Tesla’s planned production capacity. If Tesla would have worked on a more conventional electric pickup as well as cheaper EVs, I think it would be in a much better situation today.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.

As we enter the second month of 2025, Honda is inching closer to commencing BEV production at its long-standing US plant in Marysville, Ohio, later this year. That $1 billion transition will begin with the assembly of the recently confirmed Acura RSX EV, followed by the first two models in Honda’s 0 Series lineup. Before that happened, however, Honda gave an exclusive tour of its new EV Hub in Ohio, which included an innovative new approach to modular vehicle assembly, massive mega press machines, and an insightful look into the positive impact Honda has established amongst the residents of The Buckeye State. You can view my whole tour expeirience in the video below.

While Honda is a global name synonymous with engines and mobility, it is still carving out its own legacy in the BEV segment. That process began with two initial all-electric models – the Honda Prologue and the Acura ZDX, both of which I’ve had the opportunity to test drive and share my impressions.

While those two models put some of Honda’s skin in the game, they are arguably only a fraction of Honda’s true design DNA, which it has since taken into its own hands looking forward. That future includes the Honda 0 Series, which was initially announced at CES 2024 as a “back to zero” mentality for the Japanese automaker.

The 0 Series began with two BEV concepts called the “Saloon” and “Space Hub,” which have since evolved in the Honda 0 Saloon and SUV prototypes, which debuted at CES a year later and were on display at Honda’s EV Hub in Marysville, Ohio this past week.

Marysville, home to Honda’s first and longest-running US production facility, will soon house BEV production of the two models mentioned above. First, however, Honda will begin assembling an all-electric Acura SUV developed from the Performance EV Concept, which we recently learned will be called the RSX.

Honda is still putting the finishing touches on a $1 billion overhaul of its new EV Hub in Ohio but invited a group of media out to tour multiple facilities and see where the first true Honda and Acura-built BEVs will be assembled, beginning later this year.

I documented my visit in a video below, but will break it down in words for you as well.

Honda is taking a failsafe approach to production

As you may or may not know, the Honda EV Hub is part of a $1 billion+ investment from the Japanese automaker to retool its existing facilities in Ohio to produce electric vehicles. That includes reimagining three existing plants: the Marysville Auto Plant (MAP), East Liberty Auto Plant (ELP), and the Anna Engine Plant (AEP).

During my EV Hub visit, we started at the Marysville Auto Plant, which originally opened in 1979 and has been building Honda cars since 1982, to see the progress the company has made in revamping a 40+ year old facility for the all-electric age while continuing to build ICE and plug-in vehicles.

What we saw was a unique approach to modern-day vehicle assembly, in which Honda will soon be able to build ICE, hybrid-electric, and BEVs on the same production line. Furthermore, the automaker can ramp up or down any specific vehicle configuration depending on customer demand. Senior vice president, Honda Development & Manufacturing of America, LLC, Bob Schwyn spoke to the media before joining us on the tour of Marysville:

The Honda EV Hub provides Honda with the flexibility to produce ICE, hybrid-electric and EV models on the same production lines so we can quickly respond to shifting customer needs and market conditions. Beyond adding the capability to produce EVs, we completely reimagined our approach to manufacturing, transforming the Honda production environment with more human-friendly processes and sustainable manufacturing practices.

As you’ll see in my video coverage, Honda was in the process of building a slew of Accords, which was interesting in its own right, but what was more exciting was the empty space at the Marysville section of the EV Hub, where Honda will soon begin assembling its battery platforms before integrating them into vehicles on those very same assembly lines, beginning with the Acura RSX.

As you can see in the image below, Honda has cleared out a massive amount of space for dedicated BEV component assembly, which required it to remove an entire existing build line and get creative about where to re-implement other manufacturing components in different parts of the plant – all while continuing to build non-BEV models.

Per the Honda team, the EV Hub will hire 300 new employees to specifically handle battery pack assembly at Marysville. The battery cases for those packs are built at Honda’s Anna Engine Plant, which I also got to visit and have detailed below. Those manufactured cases are then transported to Marysville, where trained Honda “Associates” will work alongside electric guided vehicles (EGVs) and robots to assemble Honda’s first-ever propriety EV platform.

Honda calls the process “Parallel module manufacturing,” which consists of a network of assembly cells performing assembly tasks in a multi-lateral manner in which if one cell is slow or completely down for some reason, production can continue.

Per Honda, the first batch of battery pack assembly cells have been installed at Marysville with a second batch to follow in three months. That will put Honda at its targeted launch volume of which it can scale from there depending on demand.

For me personally, it was awesome to visit AEP and see the megacasting in action because I got to see the same machine at Honda’s R&D center in Tochigi, Japan, this past fall. There, I was told that six more of those megacasting machines would be installed at the EV hub in Ohio.

Just months later, Honda is nearly complete with the installation process, and the three pairs will begin pressing the front and rear battery casings. While I did see the megacast machine in action in Japan, it was at a distance. During my visit to the EV Hub, however, Honda took us onto one of the machines where we could watch an EV battery case cast and trimmed up close. I documented it in my video below for you!

Another assembly technique I learned about in Tochigi but got to see in person at the Anna Engine Plant was Honda’s friction stir welding process. This innovative method produced high-strength welds to combine the two halves of the battery case and the water jacket (seen below) while reducing the amount of energy used and heat impact on the aluminum material.

This technique and Honda’s overall EV Hub renovation are part of a larger three-pronged strategy called “Triple Action to Zero.” Its goal is to achieve zero environmental impact by 2050 through carbon neutrality, clean energy, and resource circulation. That entails all zero-emission sales by 2040.

Honda is building EVs in the US the right way

After my visit to Marysville and Anna, walking the assembly lines and chatting with Honda Associates from all levels of the company, I realized that a vestige of the American dream is still present in Ohio. Marysville and Anna are blue-collar areas, and those cities have continued to evolve thanks to Honda’s decision to plant roots on US soil over 40 years ago.

Many of the people I encountered during my trip have been with the company for longer than I have been on this Earth, some second generation, who grew up watching their parent grow alongside the company and its Ohio footprint.

While much of Honda’s US production history is a bit oily and dusty due to engines and combustion, the EV Hub provides a new era on par with Honda’s overall “back to zero” startup mentality. I was genuinely impressed by Honda’s ability to pivot, rethink, and repurpose its existing facilities to support the addition of BEV production.

Furthermore, the decision to implement those assemblies on the same line as Honda’s ICE and plug-in vehicles sounds like a pipe dream on paper, but in person, the company appears to have pulled it off. But it took everyone in Marysville, East Liberty, and Anna to get there. Honda will continue to rely on those Associates as it approaches the day when its first bespoke BEV on its very own platform rolls off that Marysville assembly line.

With the current political climate and EV education and understanding remaining huge hurdles for Americans and plenty of the public servants who help govern them, the future of BEV production is murky. That’s scary, given our tremendous progress in the past decade.

However, whether people are buying ICE cars, hybrids, PHEVs, or BEVs years from now, Honda has teed itself up to adapt and rise to the challenge (something the company prides itself on) with its EV Hub.

I’ve now learned the where, the when, and the how of BEV production at the Honda EV Hub, but now I’m ready for the what. From what I’ve been told, the 0 Series Saloon and SUV prototypes are “very close” to the final production design, but the Acura RSX remains a bit of a mystery aside from one camouflaged image.

I expect to learn more soon as that SUV will kick off Honda’s EV Hub production in late 2025. Perhaps I can take another trip to Ohio and see it built before driving one myself. While we await that milestone, you can check out my video touring the Marysville and Anna facilities at Honda’s EV Hub below: