Wen | Li Haoxian
"Is this a real Honda?" Yuan raised the question after test driving the Honda e:NS1.
e: The NS1 is the first pure electric vehicle launched since Honda China announced its electrification strategy last year, and it is also the first pure electric vehicle in China to hang Honda's standard, which is regarded as the pioneering work of Honda China's electric strategy.
According to the plan, by 2027, Honda will launch 10 pure electric vehicle models in the Chinese market, and all new models launched in China after 2030 will be electrified models, and no new pure fuel vehicles will be launched.
So for e:NS1, whether you're ready to start or disappointed, Honda China's electrification strategy will still be implemented step by step, and there is no turning back.
On the occasion of Honda's announcement of the first anniversary of the electrification transformation, the senior management can't wait to report more progress and details of the transformation to the public, trying to let more people understand Honda's grand plan.
On April 12, Honda held an automotive electrification business briefing meeting, which can also be regarded as a supplement to honda's global CEO Sanbu Toshihiro's new performance conference in April last year, compared with last year's "six years and five trillion" investment plan, this year's blueprint supplemented a lot of key information.
Transfer the basic disk
Honda revealed that as of now, the number of derivatives of its global models has decreased by 50% compared to 2018. Honda aims to reduce the number of derivative models by 2/3 compared to 2018 by 2025. In addition, Honda plans to reduce the cost of automobile production by 10% compared with 2018.
Honda intends to spend as much of its capital as possible on electrification and the company's future growth by improving its traditional business base. Honda said that in the next 10 years, Honda's budget for research and development will reach 8 trillion yen (about $64 billion), which is undoubtedly a huge expenditure, compared with Toyota's research and development budget of only 4.4 trillion yen (about $35 billion) in the same period.
Of the 8 trillion yen, 3.5 trillion yen will be invested in research and development in the fields of electrification and software, 1.5 trillion yen will be spent on production facilities, and a total of 5 trillion yen will be invested in electrification. Relative to the research and development costs of fuel vehicles, there has been a significant tilt in resources.
In addition to electrification in the automotive sector, Honda plans to expand the use of batteries and hydrogen energy in motorcycles, aircraft engines, marine engines, and generators to help it achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
It is worth mentioning that Toshihiro Mibe has repeatedly emphasized the importance of "alliance", in his view, Honda should not complete the electrification transformation task alone, but should actively embrace cooperation with partners such as General Motors, reduce costs through large-scale mass production, and ensure more feasibility of the business.
According to local conditions, win-win cooperation
According to the previous plan, in North America, Honda will launch two medium- and large-sized pure electric vehicles developed in cooperation with GM in 2024, one is a Honda-branded SUV and the other is an Acura-branded SUV. (All using the universal Ultium platform)
At the beginning of April this year, Honda and GM announced the expansion of their existing partnership to launch a volkswagen model in the North American market that can compete with traditional fuel vehicles in terms of cost and mileage. It is understood that the electric vehicle jointly developed by the two sides is still based on the general Ultium platform, but the price will be less than $30,000, trying to seize the market with a price advantage.
At present, Honda does not intend to use Honda China's e:N Architecture pure electric architecture in the North American market, which is mainly due to the consideration of improving synergy effects and reducing marginal costs. This also means that honda will no longer have a so-called global car, but according to local conditions, launch a local "special model".
In addition to cooperating in car building, Honda also did OEM work.
Last month, Honda signed a letter of intent with Sony to form a joint venture in 2022 to jointly develop and sell all-electric vehicles, and the company's first all-electric model will start selling in 2025. Under the partnership agreement, Sony is responsible for software development and the provision of mobility service platforms, and Honda is responsible for manufacturing and sales.
In other words, Honda will be the oem of "Sony Motors", but until now, the two sides have not announced what kind of chassis the new car will use as the basis. Honda plans to launch a product using "Honda e: Architecture", a pure electric vehicle platform that combines hardware and software in 2026.
Will Honda be the first to use the platform to build a new car for Sony? If so, then the relationship between these two CEOs is really iron to a certain extent.
In addition, in Japan, Honda will launch a commercial micro-electric vehicle with a price of about 1 million yen (about 50,000 yuan) in the first half of 2024. This was followed by the launch of individual-oriented light electric vehicles (K-cars) and pure electric SUVs.
It can be seen that Honda is very conservative in its Japanese base camp compared to its overseas efforts, which is due to the fact that Japanese society's willingness to electrify has always been low. Just look at the various objections of Akio Toyoda's "mouth".
Although the launch did not mention the deployment of the European side, Honda stressed that by 2030, it will launch 30 pure electric vehicle models worldwide, and make the annual production of pure electric vehicles exceed 2 million, and the sales ratio of electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles increase to 40%; increase to 80% by 2035; and terminate the sales of fuel vehicles worldwide in 2040.
A battery roadmap of "inside and out"
Based on the above-mentioned huge electric vehicle plan, Honda also disclosed the battery procurement plan this time.
At this stage, Honda is strengthening its cooperation with battery suppliers to ensure a stable supply in each region. In north America, Honda is exploring the possibility of establishing a joint venture for battery production in North America, which will purchase GM's "Ultium platform" batteries; in China, Honda has purchased about 1% of the shares of CATL to further strengthen its cooperation with CATL; and in Japan, Honda is sourcing batteries from Envision Power for light electric vehicles.
Of course, the above are all delaying strategies, and Honda does not intend to entrust its future core competitiveness to others.
Honda regards all-solid-state batteries as the core competitiveness of the future, and will invest 43 billion yen to build a demonstration production line for all-solid-state batteries under development, with the goal of putting it into operation in the spring of 2024 and applying it to models that will be launched after 2025. At that time, the endurance and price of Honda pure electric vehicles will bring qualitative changes, and the significance of the existence of traditional fuel vehicles will be further weakened.
It is worth noting that Nissan Motor will also use 2024 as a time node for solid-state battery trial production. In addition, Toyota's chief technology officer Masahiko Maeda also said that Toyota is optimistic about solid-state batteries and expects to put the next generation of batteries into practical applications by 2025.
In this way, Japanese brands have been "absent-minded" about electric vehicles, perhaps waiting for solid-state batteries to come to the table on the day.
Is the Chinese market positive?
The Chinese market that everyone is most concerned about, honda did not refine it at this conference, and will continue to implement the established strategy, that is, all models launched in China after 2030 are pure electric and hybrid.
But even so, Honda China's electric vehicle program has actually shown some variables.
On April 8, GAC Acura officially announced that it will no longer produce and sell existing products of the GAC Acura brand, and the existing dealer channels will be integrated by GAC Honda to become a member of GAC Honda's electrified sales network.
In fact, GAC Acura's exit from the Chinese market has long been traced. As mentioned above, Acura, which was born in North America, will be electrified through GM's Ultium platform in the future, while Honda will use its own e:N Architecture pure electric architecture in China, and the two have no commonality at all, unless they are handed over to SAIC-GM in the future or imported.
So it's only a matter of time before GAC Acura is integrated, and there's no point in dragging it on. From the perspective of GAC Honda, converting the existing resources of GAC Acura into GAC Honda's electric channels can transform the long-term burden into a driving force for Honda's electrification business. Now is the best node for stop loss, there is no room for mistakes.
As the first Japanese brand to announce full electrification, Honda has no way back. Be tough on yourself now, and the road ahead will be smoother. And what I want to know most is, will these silent Hondas still make you a lifetime of Honda?