Along with the information from the briefing related to the electrification of the car, a teaser image arrived from Honda announcing two new electric sports cars that will join the range of this Japanese brand.

The vehicles in the picture are still covered, although the one on the right could be the successor to the Honda NSX.

The current NSX hybrid will retire soon, but it has been rumored since last year that it will return as a fully electric model, as hinted by Acure Vice President and Brand Director Jon Ikeda.

The other vehicle on the left looks like a grand tourer. Honda announced that the two electric sports cars will be presented globally.

Honda has also revealed some details from its renewed EV plans, especially for the introduction of electric models in three main markets: North America, China and Japan. In North America, in 2024, Honda will introduce two mid-range and upper-class electric vehicles, which are currently being developed alongside GM, namely the all-new Prologue SUV and the new EV SUV for the Acura. In China, Honda will introduce a total of 10 new EV models by 2027. For Japan, Honda is considering a mini-EV model for commercial use by early 2024, followed by mini-EV and EV SUVs for personal use.

In the second half of the decade, Honda wants to introduce affordable electric vehicles (starting in North America) by 2027 through an alliance with GM. The Japanese carmaker will also start adopting Honda e: Architecture in 2026.

Honda plans to introduce 30 EV models worldwide by 2030, and the goal is to produce more than 2 million units per year. The Japanese plan to invest a total of 64 billion dollars in research and development in the next 10 years.

While we wait for the official premiere scheduled for April 13 at the fair in New York, the renewed Hyundai Palisade has already appeared in public ahead of time, in one leaked picture.

About the restored Hyundai Palisade in an earlier article.

"When it is announced that a car brand will come to Serbia, it is difficult to imagine that Volkswagen or some other company from this sector will move the factory to our country. It is possible that he will move only a part of the production because we have experience with plants that make simpler components for the German automobile industry ", says Ljubodrag Savić, a professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, for Biznis.rs.

He reminds that a few years ago, in a calmer time, we heard various stories about the arrival of Volkswagen and some other companies.

"Experience from previous times shows that there are great pre-election stories, not many of which remain. However, I cannot be categorical and claim what will happen, "Savic explains.

He states that Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey stood out as options for Volkswagen's arrival in that period, so that the German manufacturer would eventually opt for China, which is justified by all parameters.

"Big companies think in a completely different way. If you only have cheap labor, it is enough to do some of the components. Large companies go to China, due to significantly lower labor costs, significantly weaker environmental protection, due to financial assistance from the state. However, the most important reason is that the Chinese market is the fastest growing. The Germans have shown that they know how to make a car, but it needs to be sold and earned. "China's market potential is incomparably greater than in any other country," Savic claims.

As a possibility, he points out that in the time of broken supply chains, Serbia could position itself to take over some of the components to work in our country.

"The problem at the global level is the procurement of semiconductors, but we do not have trained workers for that job. It is time to remind you of another of the earlier pre-election promises, when it was pointed out that Mubadala will invest four billion euros in a chip factory in Serbia, "Savic says.

Our interlocutor points out that this whole story has nothing to do with Fiat, because its functioning is only maintained until the final solution, but that there will be no more production in Kragujevac even when the current crisis passes. Savic believes that this company is in a very difficult situation on a global level.

Fiat did not fail because of sanctions, nor because of the war in Ukraine, a company that has been on its feet for a quarter of a century only thanks to the help of the Italian government and their strong unions who managed to fight not only for their position but also for the company's position. . The integrations they made, including the latter with Stellantis, speak best about the business. The integration did not come about because Fiat was the leader of the business, but because it was a saving solution for them. "Since the beginning of the century, in the process of globalization, many large companies have disappeared," Savic concludes.

In order to save fuel, some in Germany are proposing the reintroduction of measures such as during the 1973 oil crisis: a general speed limit and a ban on Sunday driving. How effective would that be today?

Tekla Wacker, the Minister of the Environment of Baden-Württemberg, was the first to remember that: "Why don't we introduce speed limits or a 'car-free week', as was the case in the 1970s? "Then that measure proved to be effective and helped reduce fuel consumption," the provincial minister from the Greens told the German news agency dpa.

The baton was then taken over by Nina Shir, a representative of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) in charge of energy and climate protection: for the Welt newspaper, adding that "this is what people can do themselves to reduce the inflow of money into Putin's war budget."

Finally, this weekend, Green Co-President Ricardo Lang said: "We need a temporary speed limit on highways, for example for nine months - until the end of the year, or until the moment when we want to become independent of Russian oil."

In a country that has car manufacturers such as Mercedes, Volkswagen or Opel, that proposal could not go unnoticed. After Riccardo Lang's statement, the Liberals (FDP), the coalition partners of the Greens at the federal level, took the floor: "It is amazing how some use the war in Ukraine to carry out their own symbolic themes," said FDP Secretary General Bijan Djir Saraj. Now is definitely the wrong time for party ideology. "

Memories of the seventies

The general speed limit and "car-free week" were first introduced by the ruling coalition of the Social Democrats and Liberals (FDP) under William Brant in 1973, in an attempt to deal with the consequences of the oil crisis after the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East. The first such action was organized on November 25, 1973, followed by three more "weeks without a car". Those who violated the ban were fined 500 marks. At the same time, the speed limit on highways is up to 100 kilometers per hour, and on highways 80. These rules have remained in force for six months.

The first "car-free week" brought pictures from Germany: thousands of pedestrians and cyclists flocked to highways, police hunted lawbreakers on foot, and even horse prices jumped, as reported by the media at the time. There were also funny scenes: some remembered to harness horses to pull cars, and Bavarian Radio reported on drivers who lived near Austria and who pushed their cars to the border to get behind the wheel and ride there.

Reduce consumption by up to ten percent

Could these measures still work today? Analysts with whom the First Program of the German public service ARD spoke estimate that a ban on driving on Sundays, combined with the introduction of a general speed limit, would reduce fuel consumption by up to ten percent. The question is, however, to what extent such a measure can be acceptable today, when more and more people are using cars due to the pandemic in order to avoid crowds in public transport.

"I think it would be difficult to implement that proposal, because many people work on Sundays today," Amadeus Bach, a researcher at the University of Mannheim, told SWR radio. It would be better, he says, if the authorities gave various incentives, for example for the use of public transport.

By the way, in recent years, almost all European capitals have symbolically designated at least one "Car Free Day" per year, giving pedestrians and cyclists the opportunity to enjoy the city center.

Environmentalists also have different opinions. Greenpeace, for example, proposes two "car-free weeks" each month in Germany, while Jurgen Resch, of the environmental organization "German Environmental Aid" (DUH), believes that it is "only symbolic", but in fact "More lasting solutions are needed to reduce fossil fuel consumption." However, in a conversation with the "Rajniše Post" newspaper, he estimated that the speed limit would make sense, because, he believes, "3.7 billion liters of gasoline and 9.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions would be saved every year."