Honda's seemingly aggressive electrification strategy has a clear time "advance table".
In April last year, toshihiro Mibe, the new president of Honda, proposed Honda's strategic goal for electrification at a media conference: to increase the proportion of EV and FCV sales to 40% by 2030, to 80% in 2035, and to 100% globally in 2040.
A year later, on April 12, Honda once again announced specific measures and goals for the future development of global electric vehicles: by 2030, it will launch 30 pure electric vehicles in the global market, with an annual output of 2 million.
In North America, in addition to purchasing "Ultium platform" batteries from General Motors (GM), we are studying the establishment of a joint venture for battery production. In terms of products, in 2024, two medium and large pure electric vehicles jointly developed with General Motors will be launched, one is the Prologue, a new Honda brand SUV, and the other is the Acura brand SUV model.
Through the cooperation with General Motors, after 2027, volkswagen models that are as competitive as traditional fuel vehicles in terms of cost and mileage will be launched in the North American market.
In the Chinese market, we will further strengthen cooperation with CATL and launch 10 pure electric vehicles by 2027.
Two weeks ago, Guangqi Honda released a new pure electric brand "Ji Pan", and the first model Ji Pan 1 was also released at the same time. According to the plan, a new model will be released every year until 2025. In order to better cope with the competition in the era of electrification, GUANGQI Honda has set up a new manufacturing standard plant for the Jipan brand, and the new plant will be officially completed and put into operation in 2024.
It is worth mentioning that the e:NP1 polar turbulence 1 adopts a new pure electric architecture e:N Architecture F, which integrates a three-in-one high-power drive motor, a large-capacity, high-density battery, a high-rigidity pure electric vehicle exclusive frame and a chassis platform.
Honda believes that in the second half of 2020, the world will enter the popularization period of pure electric vehicles, and from 2026, it will launch a product using "Honda e: Architecture", which is a pure electric vehicle dedicated platform that combines various software and hardware platforms.
In the Japanese market, Honda is focusing on batteries, investing JPY 43 billion in the production of all-solid-state batteries in 2024, and will be equipped with new solid-state batteries in the second half of 2020s. That is to say, after 2025, we may see Honda EV models equipped with solid-state batteries.
Compared with liquid batteries, pure solid-state batteries have unique advantages in terms of energy density, safety and low temperature resistance. Therefore, the mainstream view is that the mass production and scale of solid-state batteries is the standard to measure whether the automotive market has truly entered the era of electrification.
In the face of the unique attributes of the era of electrification, Honda will also shift from focusing on hardware sales to providing services to products that combine hardware and software and services to customers.
It is reported that in the next 10 years, Honda will invest about 8 trillion yen as research and development funds, of which about 5 trillion yen is expected to be invested in the field of electrification and software. Previously, the three tomohiro said that no matter how sales revenue fluctuated, it would strengthen investment in research and development in electrification.
Honda has proposed to achieve "carbon neutrality" by 2050, but as a powertrain manufacturer involved in motorcycles, automobiles, power products and aircraft, Honda believes that "it needs to adopt a multi-faceted, diversified solution, rather than simply replacing the engine with a battery". In addition to the electrification of vehicles, we will provide customers in different countries and regions with a variety of solutions on demand, including the use of exchanged batteries and hydrogen fuel cells for different modes of travel.
Obviously, in the face of the future pure electric vehicle market, Honda is a technology route with solid-state batteries as the core, which coincides with Honda President Mibuhiro's previous view that "Toyota should stop pursuing hydrogen fuel technology research and development, and focus on the research and development of pure electric vehicles".
Toshihiro Mibe said that honda, after conducting a lot of research on the feasibility of hydrogenene on the internal combustion engine, concluded 10 years ago that hydrogen-fueled automotive internal combustion engines will not become the mainstream of the future for technical reasons. Of course, in addition to cars, Honda is not abandoning hydrogen fuel cells in other fields.
Honda has always been "radical" in technological innovation, and now, in the face of the global wave of vehicle electrification, Honda's bold and informative electrification initiatives and goals have once again proved that Honda is still the passionate Honda.
Note: Images are from the Web