Recently, Japan's second largest car company Honda announced the latest electrification strategic plan, Honda said it will invest $64 billion in the next 10 years for electrification transformation, and launch 30 pure electric vehicles by 2030, when the annual output will reach 2 million. The plan states that Honda will phase out its internal combustion engine by 2040 and transform itself into a new energy power supplier. The hydrogen energy dispatch car companies represented by Honda and Toyota (released the electrification transformation strategic plan at the end of 2021) have turned to the era of electrification, which is a stage victory of the vehicle electrification route.
Honda's turnaround is relatively slow even compared to its American and German counterparts, let alone compared to its Chinese counterparts. Honda's "slowness" is directly related to Japan's lack of resources and the narrow domestic market. Resources rely on overseas, the market relies on North America and China, doomed Honda to not bear the cost of failure. This sense of crisis has caused Japanese car companies, represented by Honda, to consider the sustainable survival problem first in the consideration of the route of new energy vehicles. Therefore, both Honda and Toyota choose to bet on multiple sides and never all in (similarly, Honda's turn does not mean abandoning other solutions). It is precisely because of the conservative tradition of multi-pronged approach that Honda, although it has taken the lead, has not received the first share due to lack of persistence and concentration. Toyota can be described as "getting up early in the morning and catching up with a late set"!
Toyota electric vehicle experience in 1997
Honda's electric car experiment has actually been 25 years long. Back in 1997, Honda released its first electric car, the EV Plus. The model had a range of only 130 kilometers, coupled with the immature battery technology and cost pressures at the time, and toyota then switched to a hybrid route.
An attempt at fuel cells
Since 1999, Honda began to develop fuel cell vehicles, until 2003, every year will launch a new fuel cell vehicle, 2003 FCX-V4 technical parameters are closer to the current fuel cell vehicles, but then Honda stopped the continuous update of fuel cell vehicles (there are still sporadic product releases).
Pure electric fit and hybrid Accord
The all-electric Fit (launched in 2010) and the hybrid Accord (launched in 2013) are Honda's two classic attempts at plug-in cars. Fit is equipped with a lithium-ion battery pack that can travel about 131 kilometers and is only used for rental purposes. The Hybrid Accord is a $40,000 mid-size sedan with a battery pack that provides 21 kilometers of pure electric range.
From specialized departments to full electrification
In 2017, Toyota became the division dedicated to the production of pure electric vehicles, and announced the goal of "full electrification" in 2021, making Honda the first automobile manufacturer in Japan to publicly stop selling fuel models, and plans to stop selling fuel vehicles in 2040. Toyota's just-released electrification strategic plan is an upgraded version of this goal, covering everything from R&D investment, organizational restructuring, electric vehicle launch plans, and strengthening global battery procurement to strengthening software and networking.
In order to achieve the goal of banning the sale of fuel vehicles by 2040, Honda adopts a two-pronged approach of cooperation and self-development, on the one hand, it cooperates with partners to reduce costs and achieve large-scale production capacity in the short term; on the other hand, it will simultaneously develop its own core technologies and maintain long-term operations. Toyota's current compromise cannot hide its future ambitions, which can be seen from Toyota's upcoming three platforms and sub-market battery procurement programs.
In the field of electric vehicles, Honda will launch three platforms: micro and ultra-small electric vehicle platforms; medium-sized electric vehicle platforms; e: Architecture large platform to cover all market segments: its micro and ultra-small platforms, more for the Japanese domestic market; medium-sized electric vehicle platforms will be jointly developed with General Motors, focusing on the North American market; Toyota's self-developed e: Architecture architecture is the core of its electrification strategy software part. It will be used in the North American and Chinese markets, mainly large automobiles.
This is especially true in terms of battery procurement, which is the most core component of electric vehicles, in the North American market, it has chosen to cooperate with General Motors to purchase batteries from GM; for the Chinese and Japanese markets, Honda will continue to strengthen cooperation with China's NINGD Times and Envision Power to ensure a stable supply of batteries. Toyota's "backhand" is to invest about 43 billion yen in the demonstration production line of all-solid-state battery construction that is still in the development stage. Toyota CEO Toshihiro Mibu has high hopes for its all-solid-state battery, saying that solid-state batteries will be game-changers in the future.
Toyota's strategy is to fight steadily, step by step, based on the present, and focus on the future. This pragmatic and forbearing attitude is worth learning from domestic counterparts. In addition, Toyota's 25 years of experience in electrification exploration can not be underestimated, and Toyota's sales data and reputation in the mainland have always been good. According to sales data released by Honda, the cumulative sales of terminal vehicles in China in 2021 exceeded 1.56 million units (more than 1.3 million units in the United States), accounting for more than one-third of Toyota's global sales. However, with the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the world, the domestic market has strong competition from traditional car companies such as BYD and new car-making forces, and the international community is facing Tesla's crazy attack, and toyota, which is slow and half-beat, still has the opportunity to replicate the success of fuel vehicles on the electric road?
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