Despite offering only one EV in its U.S. lineup, Japanese mobility giant Honda spent 2024 beefing up its poker hand and amping up its electric game.
During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, the automaker revealed two concepts that are a part of the "0 Series." Dubbed the Saloon and Space-Hub, these futuristic concepts were meant to showcase Honda's "fresh approach to design and engineering" in models bound for America in 2026.
“The mobility we dream of is not an extension of the trend of ‘thick, heavy, but smart’ EVs,” said Honda Global CEO Toshihiro Mibe. “We will create a new value from zero based on thin, light and wise as the foundation for our new Honda 0 EV series to further advance the joy and freedom of mobility to the next level.”
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In April, Honda further upped the ante by announcing an $11 billion investment that would establish the country's first "comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain" near the brand's Alliston plant in the Canadian province of Ontario.
This new investment in Canadian manufacturing includes new assembly and battery plants to support what it calls "a future increase in EV demand in North America," targeting the first vehicles made in the hub to be made in 2028.
“Honda’s investment is a vote of confidence in Canada, in Canadian auto workers, and in our manufacturing sector,” Trudeau said.
“This is the largest auto investment in Canada’s history. Together, we’re creating good-paying jobs, growing our economy, and keeping our air clean.”
Honda
Honda's new state-of-the-art [test] facility
In a release on November 20, Honda showed off a demonstration of its solid-state battery production line at its research and development facility in Sakura City, Tochigi, Japan, that replicates the processes required for the mass production of the EV batteries it plans to make.
Overall, the line takes up 295,000 square feet of space on a corner of Honda's R&D campus and is made up of different machines involved in various parts of the production process, "including weighing and mixing of electrode materials, coating and roll pressing of electrode assembly and the formation of cells, and assembly of the module."
Honda says that the facility will be ready in January 2025 and that its purpose is to conduct "verification of mass production technologies and costs for each process" to ensure that production hiccups are kept to a minimum once they start scaling up production of solid-state battery cells in the future.
Honda
In remarks to the press reported by Reuters, Keiji Otsu, Honda's R&D president, called the new battery technology "a game-changer of the EV era," adding that Honda aims to exploit the new tech to make EV batteries to deliver twice the driving range of current lithium-ion batteries by the end of this decade and 2.5 times more range by the 2040s.
Though 600-mile ranges may be a tough feat to achieve, Otsu aims for this project to help Honda reduce the EV battery size by 50%, reduce the EV weight by 35%, and make EVs about 25% cheaper from current levels in the next half-decade.
"The all-solid-state battery is an innovative technology that will be a game changer in this EV era. Replacing engines that have been supporting the advancements of automobiles to date, batteries will be the key factor of electrification. We believe that advancement of batteries will be a driving force in the transformation of Honda." Otsu said in a statement.
"[...] We can say that we have reached an important milestone for Honda and the country of Japan. We will continue taking on challenges to launch our mobility products equipped with our all-solid-state batteries as quickly as possible so that Honda can offer new value to our customers."
Related: Honda is betting big on North American EV manufacturing
Honda, the next EV battery king?
In remarks to Reuters, Otsu noted that Honda has "no reason to refuse" the idea of selling solid-state batteries to other manufacturers.
This idea is not entirely far-fetched, as in the past, Honda has sold some of its engines to power some of its competitors' cars. As per a 2003 piece by Car and Driver, Honda and Detroit Big Three automaker General Motors previously had an agreement called a "powertrain cross-supply arrangement" established in 1999.
Said agreement, which was touted as "the first step in a new relationship that may lead to future cooperation in other areas," saw Honda get Izuzu-made (GM owned Izuzu at the time) diesel engines to shove inside European-bound versions of its cars and GM getting some of Honda's V6 engines to use in its cars. As a result, from 2004 through 2007, Saturn VUEs came equipped with the same engine as its competitor, the Honda Pilot.
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Honda is not alone in participating in an EV landscape defined by partnerships and joint ventures. In October 2022, Honda partnered up with LG Chem, an EV battery supplier to GM and Toyota, on a $4.4 billion EV battery plant that would anchor its existing midwestern automaking facilities in Ohio.
At the time, President Joe Biden heralded the move in a post on Twitter (now known as X) as another "win" following the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, which deeply incentivizes automakers, both foreign and domestic, to make critical EV parts in the United States.
“Thanks to my economic plan, we’re leading the world again — rebuilding our supply chains, infrastructure, and manufacturing at home,” President Biden said.
The Honda Motor Co. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HMC.
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