• The Honda S7 is made by Dongfeng, one of Honda’s Chinese joint venture partners.
• It is either RWD or AWD, fed by an 89.8 kWh battery.
• The S7 starts at $36,000, slightly cheaper than the equivalent China-spec Tesla Model Y.

It’s become an accepted fact that China’s EV scene is kicking ass, to the chagrin of longstanding Western OEMs who have rapidly lost marketshare. Some brands are figuring out how to get out of China before the losses get too bad, but others are giving it another go. Honda is taking another crack at China’s super competitive EV market with this, the S7.

Now, we’ve technically covered the Honda S7 before. At last year’s Beijing Auto Show, Honda showed off three models under a new subbrand called Ye. Perhaps the association with Kanye West was too great, so the Ye prefix was dropped, and now it’s just called “S7”. This model is made by Dongfeng (Dongfeng-Honda), while its badge-engineered twin, the P7, will be made by GAC, Honda’s other Chinese joint venture partner. 

Underneath, the S7 rides on the “e:N Archiecture W”, which isn’t the same as the new ground-up EV platform that the 0 Series prototypes use. Still, the S7 will come in either dual motor AWD or single-motor RWD guise, both fed by an 89.8 kWh NMC battery. The S7 can go up to 404 miles (650 km) on a single charge, at least according to China’s notoriously easy CLTC cycle. Single- motor cars are good for 268 horsepower, while dual-motor ones get 469 hp. At 187 inches long, it’s a little trimmer than the 192-inch-long Prologue.

The real story, though, is the S7’s price. The cheapest RWD S7 starts at 259,900 CNY, or about $36,000. Chinese pricing doesn’t necessarily translate to U.S. pricing, but this price puts it in the direct line of sight of a lot of EV crossovers. The new updated Tesla Model Y’s 263,500 CNY ($36,200) price is higher, and its 368 mile (598 km) range means it can’t go as far as the S7. For once, it seems like Honda has made an EV that could be well-suited to the Chinese market.

With that in mind, I think it’s a shame that Honda has no plans to bring the S7 to the U.S. The Prologue is okay for a stopgap meant to keep Honda’s name in EV buyers’ minds, but it’s not really a Honda, is it? It sort of looks like the rest of Honda’s lineup, but it drives and feels like the GM product that it is. Some consumers may be fooled, but I’m not.

Photo by: Honda

Of course, there’s a lot of red tape that stops the Honda S7 from being sold directly at U.S. dealerships. Its Level 2 autonomous driving features are supposedly cribbed directly from Huawei, which is a no-go here. Honda hasn’t said who makes the battery for this car, but no doubt it’s likely some Chinese supplier that would screw up the the vehicle’s elligibility for any tax credits. Plus there’s the whole tarriff business. 

I can’t help but wonder if it would have been a smarter take to simply develop this car to be produced in other markets. What if the S7 was made at Honda’s Ohio EV hub? The 0 Saloon is cool looking, but it will be pricy, limiting its broad appeal. We need a mainstream Honda-made EV, pronto. If the S7 was introduced to the US at similar pricing as the Tesla Model Y, they’d likely have a big hit on their hands. How hard could it possibly be to get a different battery from a compliant supplier and use Honda’s own software? Oh, right, both of those things are actually very hard. 

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If Honda wants to get its foot in the EV realm, it needs to move quicker than it has. It’s a shame that the Honda S7 isn’t making its way to American dealerships at the same time as Chinese ones.

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