In the impression of most people, the pace of electrification of Japanese brands has been relatively slow. This is not only in the Chinese market, but also in the global market, the volume of electrified products of Japanese brands is relatively small. In order to change this situation, Honda recently officially released the latest new plans for electric vehicles in the global market.
According to the plan, in order to promote the development of the electric vehicle business, Honda Motor will invest about 800 million yen in research and development over the next 10 years, of which about 500 million yen will be invested in electrification and software. Backed by this R&D funding, Honda plans to launch 30 pure electric vehicles by 2030, with an annual production of more than 2 million.
Honda officials said that from now until the second half of 2020s, products will be launched according to the market investment points of each region. Among them, the Chinese market, as the world's most important new energy vehicle market, Honda Motor plans to launch 10 electric vehicles by 2027.
At present, Honda's first pure electric vehicle based on a new platform in the Chinese market, Dongfeng Honda e:NS1, will be officially launched at the end of April. The new car has opened pre-sale, with a price range of 180,000-210,000 yuan.
For the North American market, Honda Motor plans to launch two medium- and large-sized pure electric vehicles jointly developed with General Motors in 2024, one of which is from the Honda brand and the other is from the Acura brand.
In the Japanese domestic market, Honda plans to launch commercial light pure electric vehicles with a price of about 1 million yen in the first half of 2024, such as light electric vehicles for individuals and SUV pure electric vehicles, but did not announce the specific time, and the official said that it will be launched in due course.
In addition to product planning, Honda announced the specific plans for battery and electric vehicle production lines at the press conference. In terms of batteries, Honda Motor said that at this stage, it is mainly through external procurement, of which the North American market will purchase "Ultium platform" batteries from General Motors, the Chinese market will cooperate with CATL, and the Japanese market will purchase batteries from Envision Power for light electric vehicles.
In addition to external procurement, Honda plans to establish a joint venture for battery production in the North American market. In the second half of 2020s, Honda will also accelerate the independent research and development of next-generation batteries, and start construction of an all-solid-state battery production line in the spring of 2024, with a planned investment of 43 billion yen. The new generation of batteries developed in-house will also be used in the second half of the 2020s.
In addition, in terms of production base planning, Honda Motor also plans to build a dedicated production line for pure electric vehicles in North America. In addition to the Wuhan production base in the Chinese market, it plans to build a special plant for electric vehicles in Guangzhou.
Red dot observation:
Judging from honda's latest planning released for the global market, from battery production to vehicle planning, Honda has a more detailed planning idea.
However, from the perspective of time nodes, whether it is the independent research and development of batteries or the centralized launch of new products, the layout rhythm is still relatively slow, and most products and production lines cannot be landed until the second half of 2020s. This also makes the prospects for Honda's electrified vehicle business challenging.