Honda and GM to Develop Affordable EV Together
Honda and General Motors are planning to attack electrification together, having signed an agreement targeted at 100 percent of their offerings by 2040. Yes, these are the two manufacturers that slug it out against one another in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and in IMSA’s WeatherTech Sportscar Series, and who are prepping for a hybridized power system in 2024 to power the Indy cars.
Now these two competitive auto makers are preparing a $30,000 EV that should serve as a bridge from internal combustion to electrically-powered vehicles in the United States and globally.
Both manufacturers have sketchy results on the EV arena. GM’s EV1 was praised by its early adopters but every single car was crushed The EV1 first appeared in 1996 and was leased through 1999 before all of them were crushed in late 2003 due to their expense. There wasn’t much demand for an EV that went just about 50 miles on a single charge and GM couldn’t justify the $1M development cost per vehicle.
Around the same time GM was promoting the EV1 as a future vehicle, Honda was going a different direction. Actually more than one direction at the time. It had the Honda Clarity Fuel Cell vehicle and it was also making the two-seater Insight gas-electric hybrid. The tiny Insight didn’t appeal to people who were trending towards larger cars and trucks. Honda capitulated with the Civic hybrid and has been making gas-electric hybrids ever since., including a larger Insight The Clarity has since evolved into an EV, as Honda was a bit too early to the fuel cell party.
Development costs are still an issue for every manufacturer, whether attempting to build ICE-powered vehicles or EVs. Sharing these costs could be a win-win for both Honda and General Motors. This isn’t their first EV project together; in 2018 Honda joined General Motors in a quest to harness battery module development but, at this time, neither manufacturer is offering a true battery electric vehicle(BEV) for the United States market. That should change in 2027 when the co-developed $30,000 EV series is expected to see the light of day.
While the first co-developed products should come to market in five years, this project will be a boost worldwide as the two manufacturers strive to co-develop a series of affordable electric vehicles based on a new global architecture using next generation Ultium battery technology. Ultium cells, a nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum blend that is less expensive than current technology and should enable as much as 400 miles on a single charge.
General Motors is currently working to accelerate new lithium-metal, silicon and solid-state battery technologies, together with more efficient production methods that can quickly be used to improve and update battery cell manufacturing processes. Honda, which sees solid-state battery technology as the core element of future EVs and has established a demonstration production line in Japan for all solid state batteries, is working towards imminent mass production.
Mary Barra, GM chair and CEO acknowledged that General Motors and Honda “will share our best technology, design and manufacturing strategies to deliver affordable and desirable EVs on a global scale, including our key markets in North America, South America and China. This is a key step,” she said, “to deliver on our commitment to achieve carbon neutrality in our global products and operations by 2040 and eliminate tailpipe emissions from light duty vehicles in the U.S. by 2035. By working together, we’ll put people all over the world into EVs faster than either company could achieve on its own.”
“The progress we have made with GM since we announced the EV battery development collaboration in 2018, followed by co-development of electric vehicles including the Honda Prologue (due in 2024), has demonstrated the win-win relationship that can create new value for our customers,” added Shinji Aoyama, Honda’s senior managing executive officer. “This new series of affordable EVs will build on this relationship by leveraging our strength in the development and production of high quality, compact class vehicles.”
General Motors and Honda have developed a close working relationship over many years, a relationship that is focused on electric and autonomous vehicle technologies. In 2018 Honda joined GM’s EV battery module development efforts and in 2020, the duo announced plans to codevelop two EVs, including the Honda Prologue, set for launch in early 2024 and quickly followed by Acura’s first EV Sport Utility Vehicle.
“Honda is committed to reaching our goal of carbon neutrality on a global basis by 2050, which requires driving down the cost of electric vehicles to make EV ownership possible for the greatest number of customers,” Toshihiro Mibe, Honda president and CEO explained. “Honda and GM will build on our successful technology collaboration to help achieve a dramatic expansion in the sales of electric vehicles.”
In the meantime, General Motors’ Chevrolet division, currently leading the manufacturers points chase over Honda in INDYCAR, thanks to its victories in the first two INDYCAR races of 2022, will have to contend with Honda Performance Development’s performance on the streets of Long Beach this weekend, where the Japanese manufacturer has easily defeated Chevy for the past four years. Simon Pagenaud, then driving a Chevy-powered Dallara for Team Penske is the Bow-Tie brand’s most recent victor in 2016.
On the IMSA side of the fence, it’s GM’s Cadillac division that has been atop the victory podiums in Long Beach the past two years, but the Acura DPi racers from Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing will be working hard to change that statistic.