Honda Is Determined To Sell EVs In The US, One Way Or Another

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Honda took a giant step backwards in its vehicle electrification plans for the US this year, but the automaker is offering a consolation prize of sorts. Honda’s Fastport venture has just joined forces with the leading micromobility firm Third Lane Mobility to help launch more tiny, little pedal-powered EVs into the urban cargo delivery space.

Bike Lanes Create An Opening For Tiny Pedal-Powered EVs

Fastport Honda is also targeting school campuses and other more bucolic settings, but its primary business opportunity exists in the growing network of urban bike lanes here in the US and around the world. The company has tailor-made its new eQuad four-wheeled, all-electric cargo bike to fit inside the width of a typical bike lane.

“The eQuad shuttles cargo in challenging conditions such as high-congestion zones. Using the bike lane as its primary artery through the city, this nimble vehicle fits within a 48-inch-wide space,” notes the design award organization Red Dot, which conferred a 2025 “Best of the Best” design concept prize on the eQuad.

“Exposed mechanical elements also help this vehicle ‘fit’ within the bicycle ecosystem. Retaining familiar components — seat, pedals, and handlebar — was a deliberate choice to appeal to both frequent and occasional cyclists,” Red Dot emphasizes.

The Bike Lane Clutter Conundrum

That’s all well and good, but it’s not particularly good news for bike lanes, which are already cluttered beyond their initial intention.

Assuming that the foundational purpose of a bike lane is to create a safe space for bicyclists, it’s not too much of a stretch to include electric two-wheelers in the mix. However, bike lane safety hazards have grown apace with the proliferation of high-speed delivery e-bikes and specialized recreational e-bikes.

Alongside the safety issue, there’s the clutter: parked cars, construction work, bikers of all sorts traveling the wrong way on a one-way lane, and joggers who think they’re special.

Readers, drop a note in the discussion thread if you have other clutter to add. For example, have you spotted Amazon’s four-wheeled, bike lane-compatible cargo e-bikes from the Rivian spinoff ALSO? For that matter, should e-bikes of any sort be considered bike lane clutter when cutting carbon emissions from delivery trucks is the ultimate goal?

Of course, expanding bike lanes to take up more space on city streets would help resolve the clutter problem. Even better, city streets could be redefined to prioritize safety and access among all types of bikes over cars and trucks — though, that’s not likely to happen in the near future.

Nevertheless, Honda Is Persisting

While regulatory obstacles to the use of bike lanes by cargo e-bikes may arise in the future, in the meantime Honda is banking on Fastport to deliver the electrification goods. Earlier today, Honda announced that Fastport has hooked up with the micromobility firms Bird and Spin, which both come under the wing of Third Lane Mobility, to spark customer engagement with the eQuad.

Alongside the general parcel and grocery delivery market, Honda lists “food and beverage service, gig and direct-to-consumer distribution, municipal and government deployments, and corporate and university campus operations” among the use cases for the eQuad. Bird and Spin will gild the green lily by using the eQuad to service their fleets.

“Bird and Spin field teams will use the eQuad for battery swapping, vehicle rebalancing — moving scooters and e-bikes throughout the campus and city to ensure availability where and when riders need them — and routine maintenance,” Honda explains.

In conjunction with the eQuad e-bike, Fastport’s Fleet-as-a-Service platform offers all the bells and whistles, including:

Fleet utilization statistics via Fastport Cloud

Streamlined service management across all vehicles

Quick-access components for rapid service or replacement

Preventative maintenance schedule ensures fleet uptime

Smart battery management with health and performance monitoring

Honda Mobile Power Pack (MPP) batteries with data-enabled infrastructure

Swappable lithium-ion packs minimize downtime

On-site or depot charging flexibility

API-ready for system integration

Fastport Cloud for analytics, service, and parts ordering

Integrated telematics and fleet management solutions

Over-the-air (OTA) updates enhance performance and adaptability

Wait, Did They Just Say Swappable Batteries?

Keep an eye out for Fastport to e-pedal its way into your area. Honda states that both the eQuad and the Fleet-as-a-Service platform are currently available in multiple US locations, including university campuses and cities, with plans for scale-up and wider deployment in the works.

Meanwhile, if you caught that thing about swappable batteries, that’s of particular interest here in the US market, where everyone is wondering why battery swapping has yet to catch on. It has, but primarily among e-bike riders who swap out their personal batteries on the go. That can exacerbate fire hazards related to off-market home charging, which some cities are hoping to alleviate by making certified public battery swapping stations available to riders.

E-bike batteries have the advantage of small size and weight, making them easy to swap manually. The larger battery used by the Fastport eQuad also fits the bill. Fastport has developed the EV for Honda’s Mobile Power Pack batteries, which weigh in at a relatively manageable 22 pounds in a package less than 12″ tall. They also come with a handle for ease of swapping.

Public battery swapping stations for e-bikes, e-scooters, and electric motorcycles are already commonplace in major markets around the world. Enabled by robotic systems, battery swapping stakeholders overseas have also pierced the market for full-sized electric cars and trucks (see lots more swapping background here).

So, what’s holding up the US market for full-sized swappable batteries? Who knows? Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously trialed battery swapping for a short (very short) period in 2013 only to drop the idea like a hot potato, but that was a long time ago.

Next Steps For EVs In The US

Battery swapping or not, the vehicle electrification movement in the US needs all the help it can get, and the micromobility space is providing a small but growing glimmer of light in the unwelcoming gloom of US President Donald Trump’s energy policy.

In addition to the commercial fleet space, keep an eye on the consumer market. Trump’s war in Iran has sparked fresh interest in EVs globally, and that includes e-bikes and other entries in the micromobility sector.

Whether or not “interest” translates into a significant uptick in sales in the US remains to be seen. In a weirdly helpful development, though, earlier this month Trump stepped back from the idea of imposing tariffs of 50% on imported bicycles, e-bikes, and bike frames made of steel or aluminum.

The tariff threat first emerged last August when e-bikes made the proposed list of imported items subject to tariffs on steel. In October, bicycles and frames also appeared in a Commerce Department list covering steel and aluminum tariffs.

The trade organization PeopleForBikes credits itself with a successful combination of grassroots and high-level lobbying to earn the rollback. “Yesterday, the president announced that the bicycle industry will not be subject to new Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs,” PFB announced on April 3.

That’s … interesting. Who do they know in high places? If you know who they know, drop a note in the discussion thread.

Photo: EVs continues to push across the hurdles of a recalcitrant US market, with the Honda venture Fastport providing an example of perseverance in the pedal-powered micromobility sector (courtesy of Fastport Honda).