Honda and LG announce a joint venture to build a $4.4-billion EV battery plant in the United States exclusively for the automaker's vehicles. The companies are not announcing a location for the factory yet but plan to break ground in early 2023. Production would begin by 2025 with an annual capacity of 40 gigawatt-hours.
The factory will build pouch-type lithium-ion batteries. These packs will go into both Honda- and Acura-badged EVs for the North American market.
"Aligned with our longstanding commitment to build products close to the customer, Honda is committed to the local procurement of EV batteries which is a critical component of EVs," said Toshihiro Mibe, president, CEO, and representative director of Honda Motor Company.
Honda has a multi-part strategy for its EV future. Things kick off in 2024 with the arrival of the production-spec Honda Prologue and revived Acura ZDX. Both of these electric models ride on the General Motors Ultium platform. There's a rumor that GM's factories might also build these products.
Gallery: 2022 Acura Precision EV Concept
The next step comes in 2026 when Honda brings its in-house-developed e:Architecture platform to market. Both Honda and Acura products get to use the underpinnings. Given the timing and the information available, these products might be the ones using the batteries from the LG partnership.
Unfortunately, there are no technical details about the e:Architecture platform yet. Honda plans to prioritize the vehicles using it for North America first before offering them in other regions.
Gallery: Honda Prologue Teaser
Honda and GM are also co-developing a new global platform. The first of these vehicles arrive in 2027.
Earlier in 2022, Honda and Sony announced a joint venture to develop an EV together. They plan to position this venture as an independent company from either of the existing giant corporations. The vehicle from this work might arrive as soon as 2025. It's not clear yet whether this initiative has anything to do with Sony's Vision-S concepts.
Honda's global strategy is to offer 30 EVs by 2030 and build more than 2 million of these products each year. The next step is to introduce models with solid-state batteries, which are currently under development.
For a deeper look about how Acura's first EV might look, check out the video below:
