Enlarge / Infotainment system in a 2016 Ford Escape. (credit: Getty Images | Todd Korol )

A federal appeals court rejected lawsuits that alleged five major carmakers violated a Washington state privacy law. The lawsuits centered on car infotainment systems that store text messages in a way that potentially allows the messages to be retrieved by law enforcement using specialized hardware and software. The rulings in the carmakers' favor came in cases against Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen.

A three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously upheld US District Court rulings that dismissed the five class-action lawsuits, which were almost identical. The appeals court ruled in Ford's favor on October 27, then issued rulings upholding the dismissals of the other four cases on Tuesday this week.

We'll cover the Ford ruling here since the other decisions don't go into the same level of detail, and the arguments were similar in all five cases. The simple version is that the cases failed because the plaintiffs' data stayed in the car systems and apparently was never transmitted to law enforcement, Ford, or anyone else.

Enlarge / The Motocompacto was the product of one engineer's spare time. (credit: Kevin Williams)

The transition to electrified transportation can come across as boring, which, arguably, isn't all that untrue. Shouty, gas-powered sports cars have been replaced on roads by beige-colored electric crossovers. Electric scooters are ubiquitous now, cavalierly and awkwardly piled up on street corners of any global metropolitan center, serving as last-mile solutions for those unwilling to wait in traffic in the backseat of a rideshare car. It's hard to remember that electric vehicles can be fun, exciting, interesting, and maybe most importantly—cute. The Honda Motocompacto might just be the cutest little last-mile solution and maybe the most exciting electric vehicle on the market, even if Honda itself isn't quite sure what to do with it.

The Motocompacto certainly looks like no other electric scooter on the market. Appearing like a secret agent's gadget from the Spy Kids universe, the all-white box can transform from what easily could be confused as a briefcase to an oddly rectangular sit-down scooter. Unique, if not unfamiliar, the Motocompacto's form factor could seem a little contrarian in the era of traditional stand-up scooters or sit-down moped ones. I mean, who wants to straddle a motorized briefcase?

Well, it's because the Motocompacto is a modern reinterpretation of an iconic Honda scooter—the Motocompo. Back in the early 1980s, Honda sold a square-shaped (gas-powered) scooter, meant to fold up and fit in the trunk of its City subcompact hatchback. Even though neither the Motocompo nor the Honda City ever made their way outside of Japan, the outrageously cute form factor serves as inspiration for the similarly named Motocompacto. Heck, Honda has even shown it off in the cargo area of the Prologue EV crossover, surely a nod to this charmingly Ska-filled ad.

Enlarge / A GM Ultium battery pack. (credit: Santa Fabio for General Motors)

Bad news for fans of cheaper electric vehicles: The planned collaboration between Honda and General Motors on a range of cheaper EVs has been canceled. The joint project, which was announced in April 2022 , was supposed to develop a new platform for use in lower-cost EVs for North America, South America, and China, with cars appearing in 2027. But on Thursday, the two companies revealed that the plan is no more.

"After extensive studies and analysis, we have come to a mutual decision to discontinue the program. Each company remains committed to affordability in the EV market," Honda and GM said in a joint statement.

"After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV," said Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe in an interview with Bloomberg . "GM and Honda will search for a solution separately. This project itself has been canceled," Mibe said.

Enlarge / When the Acura ZDX goes into production next year, the cars will feature CCS ports. But Honda and Acura EVs launched from 2025 onward will feature NACS ports instead. (credit: Honda)

On Thursday morning, Honda became the latest automaker to announce that it is switching away from the Combined Charging Standard port for fast-charging its electric vehicles. Since May of this year, beginning with Ford, multiple OEMs have signed on to the North American Charging Standard, which uses a plug of Tesla's design.

Perhaps more important than the plug itself is the fact that Honda has negotiated access for its customers to use Tesla's Supercharger network. These are far more numerous than CCS fast chargers in North America, and they're far more reliable—although much of that reliability is down to the tightly integrated Tesla ecosystem , and there are no guarantees that third-party vehicles will find the process as friction-free.

That's particularly true since some of those vehicles—including Honda EVs—will have to use a CCS-to-NACS adapter. Each automaker announcement has followed the same pattern, with NACS ports only appearing on cars from 2025 onward. EVs built before then will need adapters, which are supposed to be available sometime in 2024.

Enlarge / This is Acura's first battery-electric vehicle, the new ZDX. (credit: Acura)

Today in California, Acura took the wraps off its first electric vehicle. It's called the ZDX, and it's the product of a partnership between Honda (which owns Acura) and General Motors, using the latter company's new battery platform and battery EV architecture. Acura says the first customer deliveries should begin in early 2024, with single-motor versions priced at around $60,000.

"The arrival of the new ZDX is an exciting moment for the Acura brand," said Assistant Vice President of Acura National Sales Emile Korkor. "It signals our transition to a zero-emissions future and demonstrates our commitment to precision crafted performance in the electrified era."

Honda is still at work developing an in-house EV architecture it can use for North American vehicles, but it has also partnered with GM to create a range of other EVs for this market. The ZDX and the related Honda Prologue, which we got a preview of last year , are the first two, but in the coming years, we also expect to see some smaller, affordable EVs as a result of the collaboration.

Enlarge (credit: Karol Serewis/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Good news, electric road-trippers: DC fast chargers are about to become a lot more common. On Wednesday, a group of seven major automakers announced a plan to create a new charging network of more than 30,000 chargers across North America starting next year.

BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis are creating a joint venture to significantly expand the number of fast charging sites in the US and Canada. The sites will use the new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure guidelines , which means, among other things, 97 percent uptime for each charging port. The sites will support both CCS1 and NACS plugs , and the chargers will also support the plug-and-charge protocol.

"North America is one of the world’s most important car markets—with the potential to be a leader in electromobility. Accessibility to high-speed charging is one of the key enablers to accelerate this transition. Therefore, seven automakers are forming this joint venture with the goal of creating a positive charging experience for EV consumers. The BMW Group is proud to be among the founders," said BMW Group CEO Oliver Zipse.