HASfter Toyota, it is the turn of the number two Japanese automobile company to announce its accelerated conversion to electric propulsion, with a colossal investment of 5,000 billion yen (37 billion euros) over ten years. Honda plans to launch 30 electric models by 2030, including a sports car that could take over from the current NSX, as the photo illustrating this article suggests. The Japanese manufacturer plans to produce more than 2 million zero-emission vehicles per year within 8 years.
Solid electrolyte battery
With these new objectives, Honda is in line with many other global manufacturers. Like its rivals Toyota and Nissan, Honda is developing in-house solid electrolyte batteries that are stronger and more efficient than current chemistries. The group plans to launch a pilot line in this area in the spring of 2024. Traditionally, the organization at Honda was divided into major product families (two-wheelers, automotive and other equipment). But from its 2022-2023 fiscal year started on 1er April, the technologies of the future (electric motors and fuel cells, batteries, software, etc.) used in common will be integrated into a single entity, to create synergies and accelerate their development. Honda plans to build two electric vehicle production plants in China as well as a dedicated production line for this category in North America.
Partnerships with GM, Sony and CATL
The group is increasingly closely allied in North America with the American giant General Motors: the two manufacturers moreover announced last week that they were going to co-develop a new line of electric vehicles at “affordable” prices whose production is supposed to start in 2027. But Honda no longer refrains from forming parallel partnerships with other companies: at the beginning of March, it also joined forces with Sony in electric vehicles, a segment that the giant also covets. Japanese technology. Honda also said on Tuesday that it was considering creating a battery production joint venture in North America with a partner other than General Motors. For now, GM must supply the Ultium batteries for the electric vehicles that the two manufacturers are developing together for the North American market. In its other major markets, Honda plans to strengthen its collaboration with CATL in batteries in China and it intends to source supplies from Envision AESC (already a partner of Renault-Nissan in particular) for the batteries of its future mini-electric vehicles in Japan. . In some markets, a battery swap system will be offered to circumvent the charging time issue for small delivery utility vehicles.
Carbon-free fuel
If the bulk of the research and development effort announced by Honda relates to the battery-powered electric car, the Japanese giant does not abandon the fuel cell operating on hydrogen, nor does it abandon the heat engine completely. As suggested by one of the slides of the presentation mentioning so-called carbon-neutral fuels because they are produced from renewable energy and CO2 taken from the atmosphere, the world’s leading manufacturer of combustion engines plans in all logical that some markets will still use this technology for many years.
