Honda to develop three dedicated EV platforms
Honda is banking on three new all-electric vehicle platforms in its plan to achieve sales volumes of more than two million electric cars per year by 2030. The first of these is set to debut as early as 2024.
Shinji Aoyama, Honda’s global head of electrification, told Reuters news agency that the company will introduce an electric mini-utility vehicle in Japan in 2024, built on a new small EV platform. An electric model based on a new “large” platform will follow in North America in 2026.
The developer did not yet provide technical data on drives or batteries. What is clear, however, is that the two models confirmed so far will not remain stand-alone: According to Aoyama, both platforms will later also be used for other models.
In addition, there is the recently announced new global platform together with General Motors – this is intended for affordable electric vehicles. As is well known, this platform is to debut in 2027. At the announcement, both companies had hardly mentioned any details about the planned platform. Probably for good reason, because according to the head of electrification, the project is still at the very beginning: “Whether they will be based on Honda’s architecture or on GM’s platform has not been decided,” Aoyama is quoted as saying.
Moreover, it has not yet been decided in which plants the platform and its vehicles will be built. Process plans will be shared “to allow the cars to be produced in either Honda or GM plants”. At least there is a size classification: the Honda manager described it as a platform for “mid-size” vehicles.
As a first step, GM will build two electric SUVs for Honda in North America from 2024, based on GM’s Ultium platform. These two Honda models are not included in the three EV platforms of the Japanese company, as the rights to the Ultium platform belong to General Motors. In exchange, Honda will also get the next-generation Ultium batteries. Although their specifications have not yet been determined, Honda has agreed to use them. However, according to Aoyama, there are no plans to participate in the Ultium Cells battery joint venture (of GM and LGES).
According to Aoyama, Honda aims to produce around 750,000 to 800,000 electric vehicles each in North America and China in 2030. Another 400,000 to 500,000 electric vehicles are to be built in Japan and other markets. This would bring Honda quite close to the two million BEVs that were mentioned in April as the target for 2030. By then, the Japanese company wants to offer 30 BEV models worldwide.
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